Privacy Policy

The short version

• Everything stays on your device. Smara has no server. There is no cloud storage, no account system, and no copy of your data anywhere but your own Mac.
• All AI runs locally. Summaries, entity extraction, embeddings and question answering run on an on-device model (Apple MLX). Your content is never sent to any AI provider or other third party.
• Access is read-only. Every permission Smara requests — Google, Microsoft, Slack, and local macOS sources — is read-only. Smara cannot send mail or messages, modify files, or write back to your accounts.
• No telemetry. The app sends no analytics, crash reports, or usage data. This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
• You can delete everything. Disconnecting an account deletes its data and revokes Smara's access; "Reset & clear all data" wipes every local store.

Data the app accesses

Smara only accesses data from sources you explicitly connect or grant permission to, and only to build your local knowledge graph and answer your questions. Depending on what you connect, that can include:

Google services (OAuth, read-only)

• gmail.readonly — reads inbox messages to summarize and index them locally.
• calendar.events.readonly — reads events for the Today view and meeting preparation (events only — Smara never reads your calendar list or settings).
• drive.readonly — reads recently modified files (metadata and content) for local summaries.

Microsoft services (OAuth, read-only)

• Mail.Read, Calendars.Read, Files.Read, Chat.Read — the read-only equivalents for Outlook mail, Outlook calendar, OneDrive files, and your Microsoft Teams chats.

Slack (OAuth, read-only)

Smara connects with a user token, so it sees only the conversations you are already a member of — never the whole workspace.

• im:history, im:read — reads your direct messages.
• mpim:history, mpim:read — reads your group direct messages.
• groups:history, groups:read — reads the private channels you belong to.
• channels:history, channels:read — requested only to reach Slack Connect (externally shared) channels, which each workspace can mark public on its own side. Smara filters these results down to externally shared channels, so ordinary public channels are never read.
• users:read — resolves member IDs to names so messages are readable.

Local macOS sources (system permissions)

• Calendar, Reminders, and Contacts — via the standard macOS permission dialogs.
• Apple Mail, Safari history, Notes, iWork, and Microsoft Office documents — read directly from disk in read-only mode, using permissions you grant in System Settings (Full Disk Access / Automation). Safari history is filtered before storage: local and private-network addresses are stripped.

No permission is pre-granted; each source prompts the first time you use it, and you can leave any source disconnected.

How your data is used

Smara uses the data above exclusively to provide the app's user-facing features on your device: building your private knowledge graph, summarizing messages and documents, ranking your inbox, preparing you for meetings, and answering your questions. Your data is not used for advertising, not sold or shared with third parties, not used to train AI models, and no human other than you ever reads it.

Google API Services — Limited Use disclosure

Smara's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:

• Google user data is used only to provide the user-facing features described in this policy — local summaries, the Today view, and on-device question answering.
• Google user data is never transferred to third parties and never leaves your device.
• Google user data is never used for advertising and is never read by humans.

The use of raw or derived user data received from Google Workspace APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Independent verification and security assessment

Because Smara requests restricted Google scopes, it is subject to Google's app verification process and to the independent security assessment that process requires. Both are complete:

• Google OAuth app verification — approved August 2026. Google reviewed and approved Smara's use of gmail.readonly and drive.readonly (restricted scopes) and calendar.events.readonly (sensitive scope), including a demonstration that each scope is the narrowest one that supports the feature it powers.
• CASA Tier 2 security assessment — complete. Smara was assessed by an independent, Google-authorized assessor (TAC Security) under the Cloud Application Security Assessment programme — a Tier 2 assessment, known in current App Defense Alliance terminology as ADA-CASA Assurance Level 1, based on the OWASP Application Security Verification Standard. The assessment covered authentication, cryptography and data-at-rest protection, data deletion, logging, network security, platform hardening, and input handling. Remediation and revalidation are finished and the Letter of Validation has been submitted to Google.
• Both are re-validated annually. The OAuth verification and the CASA assessment each require reassessment every 12 months, so the review above is repeated each year for as long as Smara connects to Google accounts.

One note on what this does and does not mean: verification and assessment confirm that Smara's requested access and security controls meet Google's published requirements. They are not an endorsement, certification, or recommendation of Smara by Google or the App Defense Alliance.

AI processing is on-device

All AI inference — summarization, entity and relationship extraction, embeddings, inbox importance scoring, and question answering — runs on a local model via Apple's MLX framework on your Mac's own hardware. Smara has no cloud AI provider. Prompt content, message bodies, and embeddings never leave your device.

Storage and security

• OAuth tokens are stored in the macOS Keychain, marked device-only so they are never synced off your Mac. Disconnecting a Google account also revokes the token with Google before deleting it locally.
• Cached message and document bodies are encrypted at rest with AES-GCM-256; the encryption key lives in the Keychain.
• The knowledge graph (a local SQLite file) stores derived metadata and summaries — not raw message bodies — and is protected by per-user file permissions and macOS FileVault disk encryption.
• Graph exports you create are encrypted with a passphrase you choose (AES-GCM-256 with PBKDF2 key derivation).
• All network connections use HTTPS, with Apple's App Transport Security enforced.
• Logs never contain content. Message bodies, tokens, and note content are never logged; identifiers are hashed before logging.

What ever leaves your device

The app's outbound connections are, exhaustively:

• Google APIs (sign-in, Gmail, Calendar, Drive) — to fetch your data at your request.
• Microsoft APIs (sign-in, Microsoft Graph) — to fetch your data at your request.
• Slack API (sign-in, message history) — to fetch your data at your request.
• HuggingFace — a one-time download of the on-device AI model. No user data is included in these requests.

That's the complete list. Smara sends no analytics or telemetry, and there is no Smara server for your data to reach.

Data retention and deletion

All data lives on your device. Cached message and file content expires automatically after 7 days (least-recently-used entries are evicted sooner). Summaries and index data persist on your device until you disconnect the account — which revokes Smara's access and deletes that account's data — or use Reset & Clear All Data, which removes everything. In detail:

• Disconnect an account and Smara revokes its access token (where the provider supports revocation), deletes the stored token, purges that provider's cached bodies, and deletes its entities and relationships from the knowledge graph.
• "Reset & clear all data" in Settings wipes every local store — the graph, all body caches, summaries, feedback, and conversations.
• Uninstalling the app removes it from your Mac; app data under ~/Library/Application Support/Smara/ can be deleted with it.

This website

This marketing site is a static site. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and collects no personal information. If you email us, we receive the information you choose to send and use it only to respond to you.

Your privacy rights (GDPR, CCPA/CPRA)

Smara's architecture keeps the answer to most privacy-rights questions simple: we never receive your content. The app processes your data locally on your device, under your (or your employer's) control — there is no Smara server holding personal data to request, correct, or delete.

• Access, portability, correction, and erasure (GDPR Articles 15–20, CCPA/CPRA rights to know and delete) are exercised directly in the app, immediately and without asking us: your data is readable on your device, exportable via the encrypted graph export, and erasable via disconnect or "Reset & clear all data."
• We do not sell or share personal information as defined by the CCPA/CPRA, and we have no personal information to sell — so there is no need for a "Do Not Sell or Share" opt-out.
• The only personal data we hold is correspondence you send us (for example, a support email). You may request a copy or deletion of it at any time via the contact address below.
• Enterprise deployments: where Smara is deployed by your employer, the employer is the data controller for workplace data and Smara runs as software on devices they manage; direct data-subject requests about workplace data go to them.

Children's privacy

Smara is a workplace productivity tool and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children — and by architecture, we do not collect personal information from anyone: it stays on the device.

Changes to this policy

If Smara's data practices change, we will update this page and revise the effective date above. Material changes — anything that would alter what leaves your device — will be called out in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Email support@usesmara.ai.