Skip to main content
Whatsy is designed from the ground up to keep your data on your Mac. Your messages, your persona instructions, your WhatsApp session, and every reply the agent generates are processed and stored locally — never uploaded to a cloud service, never passed through an external AI API, and never shared with anyone. Privacy is not a setting you opt into; it is the architecture.

​
What stays on your Mac

Every piece of data that Whatsy creates or processes lives in a single directory: ~/Library/Application Support/Whatsy/. Nothing is synced, backed up to a remote server, or transmitted to Whatsy’s servers.
  • All WhatsApp messages and conversation history — stored in a local database inside the data/ subdirectory. The agent reads from this database to build context for replies and writes to it after each reply is sent.
  • Your persona instructions and example pairs — each persona is saved as a plain JSON file in the data/personas/ subdirectory. These files never leave your machine.
  • Your configuration and behavior rules — all your preferences, delay settings, spam filtering options, and rules are stored in data/config.json, which lives entirely on your Mac.
  • Your WhatsApp session and authentication token — the session credentials that keep you logged in to WhatsApp are stored locally. They are used only to communicate with WhatsApp’s own servers, just like any other WhatsApp client.
  • Agent activity logs — every action the agent takes — replies sent, messages skipped, rules triggered, errors — is logged to your local database. You can view and export these logs from the dashboard at any time.

​
What leaves your Mac

The only outbound network traffic Whatsy generates is to WhatsApp’s own servers — the same traffic any WhatsApp client produces. Your messages, prompts, persona instructions, and configuration data are never sent anywhere else.
Whatsy does not send telemetry. There is no analytics SDK, no error reporting service, and no usage tracking. If the agent encounters an error, it writes the details to your local activity log — not to an external logging service.

​
The local LLM

Whatsy uses Ollama to run a language model directly on your Mac. Ollama listens on a loopback address that is only reachable from your own machine, never from the internet. When the agent generates a reply, it sends your conversation context and persona instructions to Ollama over this local connection. The model processes everything in memory on your Mac and returns the reply text. Your messages and prompts never reach OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or any other cloud AI provider. The default model is llama3.2, but you can configure any model that Ollama supports. All models run offline once downloaded.

​
License and update checks

If you are subscribed to the updates plan, Whatsy performs a minimal license validation check to confirm your subscription status. This check sends only a license key or device identifier — no message content, no persona data, and no conversation history is ever included. The check is the only non-WhatsApp outbound request Whatsy makes.

​
Recommendations

Taking a few extra steps on your Mac ensures that your Whatsy data — and everything else on your system — stays protected even if your device is lost or stolen.
  • Enable FileVault. FileVault encrypts your entire startup disk. Because Whatsy’s data folder sits inside your home directory, enabling FileVault means your messages, config, and persona files are encrypted at rest. You can turn it on in System Settings → Privacy & Security → FileVault.
  • Lock your Mac when you step away. The Whatsy agent runs in the background. Anyone with physical access to an unlocked Mac could read the data folder directly. Use a short screen lock timeout and require a password on wake.
  • Keep your Whatsy data folder private. The data directory is ~/Library/Application Support/Whatsy/. Avoid copying, sharing, or syncing this folder through third-party services. If you use a backup tool like Time Machine, your backups will include this folder — ensure your backups are also encrypted.