What leaves your computer, and what never does.

Stored and encrypted on your computer

Your documents stay stored on your computer. Elephas keeps its index of your documents and your chats in an encrypted database. Search is built on your computer.

The keys that unlock the database are kept in the macOS Keychain on a Mac and in Windows Credential Manager on a Windows PC.

Three ways to get an answer

When you ask a question, Elephas searches your documents on your computer and selects the passages that matter. What happens next depends on which AI you chose to answer.

Elephas AI (the default)

When you ask with Elephas AI, your question and the passages Elephas picked from your documents are sent through the Elephas gateway to the AI model. They are not stored and are not used to train AI models.

Elephas AI runs on open-source models in our own cloud environment. Your prompts and answers are not stored, are not used to train AI models, and are not shared with the model makers.

This route is not end-to-end encrypted. The gateway and the model have to read your question and the selected passages in order to answer. Elephas AI uses one model, chosen by Elephas. It is available on the trial and on every plan.

Your own API key

With your own API key, requests go straight to the provider you chose. Elephas cannot see them. With your own API key, your provider's terms decide what is kept.

You can use OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Groq, Mistral, xAI, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Together AI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. This route is available on the trial, Personal, and Professional. It is not available on Team.

On this computer

With the on-computer model, answers are generated on your computer. Nothing is sent anywhere.

You download the model once. It is about 1.3 to 5.7 GB, chosen to suit your computer's memory. Answers are simpler than on the cloud routes. This route is available on the trial, Personal, and Professional.

Personal details are hidden before cloud AI

Before a question leaves your computer, Elephas hides personal details such as names, email addresses, and phone numbers, then puts them back in the answer. You can see what was hidden under every answer.

This protection is on by default for both cloud routes. The detection runs on your computer. Under each answer you can open the "details hidden" line to see exactly what was replaced.

Know the limits. This is detection, not a guarantee. It can miss things, and it works best in English. For names the detector will not know, such as a client or a project code name, add your own Protected Names to a Brain. When it matters, check what was hidden before you rely on it.

End-to-end encrypted sync

Sync is available on Professional and Team, and it is off until you turn it on.

Sync is end-to-end encrypted. Our servers hold only encrypted data that we cannot read. A new computer has to be approved from one you already use.

Here is what happens to your files. Your files are encrypted on your computer before they are uploaded. Your other computers download them, decrypt them, and build their own search index. The search index is never uploaded. Your chats sync the same way, encrypted, and only to your own computers. Teammates never receive them. In a Team Brain, files are decrypted only on the computers of the people the Brain is shared with.

The consequence is real. If you lose every synced device, nobody can recover the data, including Elephas. We do not hold a copy of your keys, which is the reason we cannot read what you sync.

Teams

For a Team, Elephas servers can see member names and email addresses, roles, and connected devices. They cannot see Brain names, file names, document contents, chats, or keys.

• Admins manage people and seats. They do not automatically get the contents of a Brain.
• The Owner can add themselves to a Brain, and that is recorded.
• Each member's chats are private. The Owner and Admins cannot read them.
• For cloud AI, a Team uses Elephas AI only. The Owner sets whether the team may use it, whether personal detail protection is required, and whether members may use the on-computer model.
• The Owner saves a recovery kit and code when setting up the Team. Elephas cannot recover it.

More about private AI for teams

Usage reports

Elephas sends anonymous usage and failure reports to help us fix problems. They never include your documents, questions, answers, or file names. You can turn them off.

They are on by default. You can turn them off on the Welcome screen or in Settings. They do not include Brain names either.

Updates

Elephas asks before it installs an update and verifies the update before applying it.

What we do not claim

Elephas does not hold security certifications today. It is not a substitute for your own professional or regulatory obligations. Detection of personal details can miss things.

Elephas reads the documents you give it and answers with sources. It does not write to your files, send anything on your behalf, delete anything, or browse the web.

More detail

The Privacy Policy covers what we collect and the services we use. For anything this page does not answer, email support@elephas.app.