Overview
QuickNote is a local-first notebook app: notebooks, sections, pages, sources, and chat history are stored in a single SQLite database file on your own computer, under your OS's normal application-data directory. There is no QuickNote account, no QuickNote server, and no backend that receives, stores, or has access to your notes.
This policy describes the only two ways any of your data can leave your computer — and both require you to explicitly set them up first.
Local data
Everything you create in QuickNote — notebooks, pages, block content, uploaded/linked sources, chat conversations, and app settings — is written to that one local SQLite file. Deleting the app's data directory (or uninstalling the app) removes it. Nothing is synced or copied anywhere unless you enable Google Drive backup, below.
AI providers
Chat and study-guide features need an API key you supply yourself, for whichever provider you choose in Settings → AI Provider. Nothing AI-related works until you set one.
| Your API key | Encrypted at rest via your OS's own credential store (Keychain on macOS, DPAPI on Windows, libsecret on Linux) before it's written to the local database. The plaintext key exists only in memory and in the request to your chosen provider. |
|---|---|
| What's sent | Only when you send a chat message or request a study guide: the relevant note content QuickNote retrieves as grounding context, plus your message, sent directly over HTTPS to the provider you selected (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google) using your own key. |
| Who sees it | Whichever provider you chose — subject to that provider's own privacy policy and terms, not QuickNote's. This request never passes through a QuickNote-operated server, because none exists. |
Google Drive backup
Backup is entirely optional and off until you click Sign in with Google in Settings → Backup & Sync.
| What we ask Google for | Three scopes: drive.appdata (a hidden storage area tied to QuickNote that doesn't appear in your regular Drive file list, and that no other app can read), plus openid and email so QuickNote can show which account is connected and check whether a backup already exists for it. |
|---|---|
| What gets stored there | A single gzip-compressed copy of your local SQLite file — the same data described in Section 02, nothing more — uploaded to (and overwriting) one file in your own Drive's appDataFolder. |
| Who can read it | Only you, in your own Google account. QuickNote's developer has no access to this file, no copy of it, and no way to retrieve it from you. |
| Your refresh token | Encrypted at rest the same way your AI provider key is (OS credential store), never sent anywhere except directly to Google's own token endpoint to renew access. |
| Turning it off | Sign out in Settings deletes the locally-stored token and stops automatic backups. To remove the backup file itself from Drive, delete it from your Google Account's connected apps & sites data, or contact us for help finding it. |
Security
API keys and the Google refresh token are the only two secrets QuickNote stores, and both go through your operating system's own encryption-at-rest facility rather than a QuickNote-authored one. Sign-in uses PKCE with a one-time local redirect server on 127.0.0.1 — the same mechanism Google requires of any installed desktop app — so no password or token is ever typed into or handled by QuickNote's own UI.
No tracking
QuickNote has no analytics, telemetry, crash reporting, or advertising SDK of any kind built in. We don't know how many people use it, what they write in it, or how they use it — there is no channel for that information to reach us.
Children's privacy
QuickNote is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them — in practice, we don't collect information from anyone, per Section 06.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the version and effective date at the top of this page will update. Material changes — anything that changes what leaves your machine or where it goes — will be called out in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions about this policy or how QuickNote handles data: open an issue on github.com/amvijaysingh/quicknote-releases.