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Privacy Policy for Loam

Last updated: 22 August 2026

The short version

Loam reads and reviews files that are already on your Mac, and everything it records about them stays on your Mac.

There is no account to create, no server of mine to sign in to, and no analytics of any kind. I do not run a backend. I cannot see your files, your folders, or anything you do in the app, because none of it is sent to me.

Loam does talk to the internet in two narrow situations, both described in full below: when *you* ask it to summarise changes using your own AI provider key, and when a licence key is checked. Nothing else leaves your Mac.

What is stored on your Mac

When you open a folder, Loam keeps a record of it so it can tell you what changed later. All of this lives in Loam's Application Support folder on your Mac:

• A snapshot baseline — a list of the files it has seen and a fingerprint (hash) of each one's contents, so it can detect what changed since you last looked.
• Copies of reviewed file contents, stored by fingerprint, so a later diff has something to compare against.
• A history of every change-set an AI agent made to the folder — what was created, modified, or removed, and when.
• A feedback log — the files you rejected and the reason you gave, if you gave one.
• A provenance record — which edits appear to have come from an AI agent and which from you.
• Your preferences, such as the theme and which folders you opened recently.

Your markdown files themselves stay exactly where they are. Loam edits them only when you explicitly reject a change and confirm that you want the file restored.

The one time your content leaves your Mac

Loam has a feature called "Catch me up" that writes a plain-English summary of what changed in a folder. If you use it, the changed content is sent to Anthropic's API so their model can summarise it.

This only happens when:

1. You have entered your own Anthropic API key in Loam's settings, and 2. You click "Catch me up".

That content is then handled under Anthropic's privacy policy, not mine: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy

Your API key is stored in the macOS Keychain and is sent to nobody except Anthropic, in the request that you triggered. If you never enter a key, Loam never contacts Anthropic at all, and every other feature — reviewing, diffing, accepting, rejecting, history, Memory Health — continues to work normally.

Licence checks

The version of Loam sold directly from my website checks your licence key with Lemon Squeezy, my payment provider, when you activate it and occasionally afterwards. Only the licence key and a device name are sent. No file contents and no personal information are included.

The Mac App Store version does not do this. Purchases there are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store, and Loam contains no other payment code.

The MCP server

Loam includes an optional local helper called loam-mcp, which lets an AI coding tool on your own machine ask questions like "what changed in this folder?" and "what did the human reject, and why?".

It is read-only — it has no ability to modify your files — and it runs locally on your Mac. It sends nothing anywhere. It only runs if you choose to register it with your own AI tool.

What I do not do

• No analytics, telemetry, crash reporting, or usage tracking.
• No advertising and no advertising identifiers.
• No accounts, no sign-in, no profile.
• No third-party SDKs bundled in the app.
• No selling or sharing of data — there is no data of yours for me to sell.

Backups

If you back up your Mac with Time Machine, iCloud, or another backup tool, Loam's stored data is included in that backup, in the same way as any other app's. That backup is under your control and your backup provider's terms, not mine.

Deleting everything

Deleting Loam's Application Support folder removes every snapshot, history entry, feedback note, and provenance record it holds. Your markdown files are untouched by this — they are yours and Loam never had a second copy of them anywhere else.

Removing your API key from Loam's settings removes it from the Keychain.

Children

Loam is a developer tool and is not directed at children.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will be noted in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about anything Loam does with your files: jbindiehacker@gmail.com