YEN

Privacy & Cookie Policy

YEN is built on a simple principle: your data is yours. The desktop app collects zero telemetry, zero analytics, and zero personal data. No account is required for local terminal usage, and there is no cloud sync for your terminal state. Your terminal history, configuration, and files never leave your machine.

Last updated: February 22, 2026

Desktop Application

What we collect

Nothing. The YEN desktop app has no analytics, no telemetry, and no phone-home behavior. It does not communicate with any server except:

  • Auto-update checks — YEN checks yen.chat for new versions on launch via Sparkle. This is a standard version check that transmits your current version number and macOS version. No personal data is sent.

Speech-to-text

Voice dictation uses macOS Speech Recognition — Apple's on-device speech engine. Your audio is processed entirely on your Mac. No audio data is sent to YEN, Apple's cloud services, or any third party. This works offline on macOS 13+.

Configuration

Your settings are stored locally at ~/Library/Application Support/com.yenchat.yen/config.yen. This file never leaves your machine.

Built-in Chat

YEN includes optional built-in chat rooms (type chat in the terminal). When you use chat:

  • Messages and images are stored on our server with 80-hour retention — after 80 hours, they are permanently deleted.
  • Your display name is either auto-generated from your system username and hostname, or a custom name you set with /h.
  • Images shared via drag-and-drop or clipboard paste are uploaded to our server and subject to the same retention policy.
  • No email, no account, no registration. You connect and chat.

Built-in Mail

YEN Mail connects to your Gmail account via Google OAuth. When you use mail:

  • Your OAuth token is stored locally on your machine only.
  • Emails are fetched from Gmail's API and displayed in the terminal. YEN stores a local on-device cache (SQLite) for faster startup and offline read fallback. When actions are attempted offline, queued mail actions are stored locally and replayed on reconnect. Email content is not transmitted to any YEN server.
  • Signing out of mail removes both the local OAuth token and the local mail cache from your device.
  • You can revoke access at any time via Google Account Permissions.

Built-in Weather

YEN includes a weather command (type weather in integrated shells, or yen weather anywhere). When you use weather:

  • Weather uses Open-Meteo for forecast data with city, manual coordinate, or IP-based location lookup.
  • Auto-location uses IP-based lookup via ipinfo.io. You can avoid this by passing explicit city or coordinates.
  • Weather requests are sent directly to weather/location providers. YEN does not relay weather queries through YEN servers.

Website (yen.chat)

The YEN website uses:

  • Vercel Analytics — anonymous, aggregated page view counts. No personal data, no cookies, no cross-site tracking.
  • Vercel Speed Insights — anonymous performance metrics (page load times, web vitals).

We do not use advertising trackers, remarketing pixels, or any third-party analytics beyond the above.

Cookies

What we don't use

  • No Google Analytics
  • No Facebook Pixel or Meta tracking
  • No advertising cookies or retargeting
  • No cross-site tracking scripts
  • No cookie consent banners (because we don't need one)

Desktop app

The YEN desktop application does not use cookies, local storage, or any web-based tracking mechanism. It is a native macOS application that does not embed a web view for analytics.

Managing cookies

You can clear or block cookies through your browser settings. Since we don't rely on cookies for functionality, this won't affect your experience on yen.chat.

Third Parties

We do not sell, share, or provide your data to any third party. We do not run ads. We do not have affiliate programs. We do not use your data for training AI models.

Children's Privacy

YEN does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The desktop app collects no personal data from anyone.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as YEN evolves. Changes will be reflected on this page with an updated date. For significant changes, we'll note them in our blog.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Reach out on @yenFTW or type chat in YEN and drop a message in the Feedback room.