Privacy
Last updated: 2 November 2026.
Nollie is an app for running your own AI assistant, Hermes, on your Mac and using it from your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. It is made by Corey Kozarski, an independent developer in London.
The short version
- Nollie has no servers and no accounts. Your chats stay between your devices and your own Mac. Away from home, they travel sealed through your own iCloud, where only your devices can open them.
- Nollie does not collect, sell or share your data, and has no analytics, ads or tracking.
- When a helper uses an online model (for example your ChatGPT or Claude plan), Nollie names the company and asks before anything goes to it. Then your messages go to that company under your own account, and its privacy policy applies. What goes, and to whom
Online models: what goes, and to whom
Each helper thinks with the model you pick. A model on your Mac keeps your words there. An online model belongs to a company, and your Mac sends that company what the helper needs to answer you.
Nollie asks first. Before a helper's words first go to a company, Nollie names it, lists what goes and waits for you to tap Allow. Not now sends nothing. Each yes is kept on that device only, and Settings › Privacy › Online models takes it back, after which Nollie asks again.
What goes to that company:
- What you write to the helper, and the files and photos you add.
- What the helper reads for you, like web pages, and your calendar, reminders or contacts if you let it use them.
- What the helper remembers about you, and its own instructions.
How and why. The Hermes on your Mac sends it over an encrypted connection, under your own account or key with that company, only so the helper can reply and do what you asked. Nollie has no servers in between, and the developer never sees it. If you give a helper a backup model, the same goes to the backup's company when the first can't answer; Nollie on your Mac asks about that company too.
Who it can go to, depending on the model you pick, each with its own privacy policy:
- OpenAI (ChatGPT plans and OpenAI keys)
- Anthropic (Claude plans and Anthropic keys)
- Google (Gemini)
- OpenRouter (which passes it on to the company that makes the model you pick there)
- Nous Research (Nous Portal)
- xAI (Grok)
- GitHub (Copilot)
- DeepSeek
- Hugging Face
- Amazon Web Services (Bedrock)
- Ollama (Ollama Cloud)
Any other company you add yourself in Advanced is named the same way before anything goes to it.
Their protection. OpenAI and Anthropic, the companies behind the ChatGPT and Claude plans Nollie suggests, say in their privacy policies that they don't sell what they receive and that they keep it secure, the same protection this policy gives. How a company may use your chats beyond answering, for example to improve its models, follows its policy and the settings in your account with it. Pick a model on your Mac if you'd rather nothing went to one.
What goes where
- Your chats and files go from the app to your own Hermes, which runs on your Mac.
- Replies come from the model you picked: one on your Mac, or an online model's company you allowed (see above).
- Web research your bots do goes from your Mac to search services and websites over your own internet connection.
- Away from home, if you use it: your messages, the questions your helpers ask and Stop go through your private iCloud database, sealed so only your linked iPhone or iPad and your Mac can open them. Each is deleted once read, and when you turn it off.
- Notifications when the app is closed: a short preview (up to 240 characters) is stored in your private iCloud database and deleted after 7 days. You can turn previews off, and bots you mark Private never send previews.
- Siri and Shortcuts send what you ask to your helper the same way as a message you type.
- Quick answers from Apple's model on your iPhone, iPad or Mac stay on that device.
- Someone you share a helper with gets their own copy of it, without its memory or your chats. Their chats are kept on your Mac, and they never see your other helpers, cards, sign-ins or Papertrail.
- Sign-in details for your Hermes stay in each device's Keychain, and API keys you add stay in your Mac's Keychain.
- Papertrail's filter, if you turn it on, looks only at connections your helpers' programs make. It notes the program, the place and the time, never what was sent, and keeps that in Papertrail on your Mac.
- On your Mac, everything else Nollie writes lives in one folder,
~/Library/Application Support/Nollie, apart from its settings, the permissions macOS keeps and its logs in~/Library/Logs/Nollie. - Logs stay on your device. Nollie's own logs and the assistant's logs, in
~/Library/Logs/Nollie/Hermes, leave out the words of your chats. Settings › About › Diagnostics makes a file you can share if you choose, with only warnings and errors from the assistant's logs; nothing is sent on its own. - Updates for the Mac app downloaded from the website: once a day Nollie asks GitHub, where its releases live, whether a newer version exists. GitHub sees that request like any web visit. You can turn this off in Settings › About.
- Model lists: now and then the assistant fetches the public lists of models from Nous Research and OpenRouter, so its model picker stays current.
- Setup downloads (the Hermes engine and an optional local model) come from their public release pages, checked before use.
- Crash reports reach the developer only through Apple, and only if you agreed to share analytics with developers on your device.
Your choices
You can remove a bot, mark it Private, turn notification previews off, take back an online model's company in Settings › Privacy › Online models, or sign out of a model provider at any time.
You can also remove Nollie from your Mac in Settings › About › Remove. It deletes what Nollie set up there: its assistant with its chats and memory, its folder, settings, keychain items and background helpers, Cua if Nollie installed it, and Nollie's add-ons in a Hermes of your own. If you ask, it also deletes Nollie's alerts in your iCloud. Two things stay, because they aren't Nollie's to remove: the permissions you gave Nollie in Privacy & Security, which you can remove there, and a Hermes you set up yourself, with its own bots, chats and memory. On iPhone and iPad, the same place removes Nollie's data on that device. How removing Nollie works
Children
Nollie is not meant for children under 13 (or the minimum age where you live).