Privacy policy

The short version

• Your writing stays yours. Margin keeps your manuscripts in your own iCloud Drive or on your Mac, never on Margin’s servers.
• Text is sent only when you ask: when you use an AI tool, or save a jotting for Claude to sort (you can switch that off). Only the part that’s needed is sent, and it passes through Margin’s server in memory only, on its way to Anthropic.
• No training. Neither Margin nor Anthropic trains AI models on your writing.
• Margin’s server keeps account records, never text: an ID linked to your App Store subscription, your plan and allowance, and a count of what each request used.
• No analytics, telemetry or ads, in the app or on this website.

What Margin holds

Your writing: nothing

Your manuscripts, notes, jottings, snapshots and Claude’s readings of them are files in your iCloud Drive or on your Mac. Every piece is a plain Markdown file, and what Margin keeps about it sits beside it in a hidden .margin folder. Margin has no copy of any of it and no way to read it.

What Margin’s server keeps (subscribers only)

• An account ID that Margin makes, linked to your App Store subscription. No name and no email address.
• Your plan, your allowance for the month, and any top-ups you’ve bought.
• For each request: the time, the tool, the Claude model that answered, the number of tokens read and written, and how much of your allowance it used.
• A record of each App Store transaction Apple sends us, so the same purchase is never counted twice.

It never keeps your text, Claude’s answers, or anything else you wrote.

What stays on your Mac

Your settings, and a request log that lists every request with its time, tool, character and token counts. The log never contains your text. You can read it in Settings › Privacy.

When text leaves your Mac

Margin sends nothing until you use one of its AI tools:

• pressing Proofread, Notes, Analyze, Ask or Suggest Reading;
• opening Expand on a jotting;
• saving or editing a jotting, which Claude sorts into a category. You can switch sorting off in Settings › Tools.

Each request sends only the text that action needs. Sorting a jotting sends the jotting and its passage. Expand and Suggest Reading send the manuscript and your jottings.

Requests travel over HTTPS to Margin’s server, which checks your plan, passes the request to Anthropic and streams the answer back. Your text is handled in memory only: it is never written to disk, a database or a log on Margin’s server.

Spoken jottings

Spoken jottings are recorded on your Mac and written down by Apple’s speech recognition on your Mac. Margin never sends a recording anywhere: it goes only where your library folder goes. Once its words are written down, they’re treated like any other jotting’s. Margin asks for the microphone only the first time you press record.

Find it

On a suggested reading, Find it opens a Google search in your browser for that reading’s title and author (and, for a story or essay, where it appeared). Nothing from your writing is included. Google’s own privacy policy covers that search.

Offline mode

Offline mode, in Settings › Privacy or the Editor menu, blocks every request.

Anthropic

Margin’s AI tools are answered by Claude, made by Anthropic. Anthropic processes the text in each request to answer it. Under Anthropic’s Commercial Terms, it may not train its models on that text.

Anthropic keeps API inputs and outputs only for a limited time, as its data retention policy describes, and may keep content flagged under its usage policy for longer. Confirm with Anthropic which of its two retention pages is current, and quote it here.

If Anthropic’s safety filter declines a passage, Anthropic may retry it on its recommended fallback model, an earlier Claude model under the same terms. You can switch this off in Settings › Privacy, and the request log names the model that actually answered.

Apple and iCloud

Subscriptions and top-ups are sold and billed by Apple through the Mac App Store. Margin never sees your payment details. Apple sends Margin a signed record of each purchase (which plan, when it renews, and whether it was refunded) so Margin knows your plan.

If your library is in iCloud Drive, Apple stores and syncs it under Apple’s terms, not Margin’s. With Advanced Data Protection turned on, Apple encrypts it end to end. To keep your writing on one Mac only, move your library out of iCloud Drive in Settings › Writing.

This website

• No cookies, no analytics, no trackers, and no third-party scripts or fonts.
• The palette you pick is remembered in your browser’s local storage, on your device only.
• The Rhythm and Ambience demos run entirely in your browser. Nothing you type into them is sent anywhere.
• The site is served by Google’s Firebase Hosting. Like any web host, it processes technical details such as your IP address to deliver pages and protect the site from abuse.

How long things are kept

Your writing is never on Margin’s server, so there is nothing of it to keep. Account and usage records are kept while you subscribe, and afterwards only as long as billing, refunds, tax and the law require: [retention period]. Then they’re deleted.

Your choices and rights

• See it. Settings › Plan shows your plan, allowance and recent requests; Settings › Privacy shows the full request log.
• Delete it. “Delete Margin’s records of me”, in Settings › Plan, deletes your account, its usage records and its link to your subscription. Billing continues through Apple until you cancel there, so cancel first. Any unused top-ups are lost.
• Stop sending. Switch off individual tools in Settings › Tools, or turn on Offline mode.
• Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or export your personal data, or to object to how it’s used. Write to us and we’ll answer within 30 days.

Children

Margin is for people 18 and over.

Changes

If what Margin keeps or sends changes, this page, Settings › Privacy and the app’s own notes change with it, and the date at the top moves. Significant changes are announced in the app before they take effect.

Contact

Margin is run by [seller’s legal name and address]. Questions about privacy: [privacy email].