In short
- Everything you write stays in a folder on your computer.
- No account, no analytics, no tracking. Nothing to sign up for.
- The app asks the internet for two things: new versions, and on Linux a spelling dictionary.
- When AI comes, it’s off until you turn it on, and says what it sends.
What happens to your words
Nothing leaves your computer. Your days, your thoughts and your notes are plain markdown files in a folder you chose, like ~/Daylily. Covers and pictures are copied in beside them. The app’s own settings, like the window’s size and your theme, stay on this computer too.
Search is built on your computer when Daylily opens, held in memory, and never written anywhere. What you search for stays there too. There is no account, no analytics and no telemetry in the app. We never see a word you write, because there is nowhere for it to go.
What it asks the internet
Daylily looks for a new version on its GitHub releases when it opens, then every six hours while it runs. Where it can update itself, it downloads the new version from there too. You can also look by hand in Settings, under About.
That request carries nothing from your journal. Like any visit to a website, it shows GitHub your IP address and which version of Daylily you have. GitHub’s own privacy statement covers what they do with it.
On Linux, Daylily also fetches a spelling dictionary for your language from Google’s servers the first time it opens, as Chrome does, so it can underline a misspelled word. Only the dictionary comes back; nothing you write goes with it. On macOS and Windows, the computer’s own spellchecker is used.
This website
daylily.ink has no analytics, no cookies and no trackers. Its fonts are served from here, not from anyone else. It is hosted by Vercel, which, like any host, sees the requests that reach it. Downloads come from GitHub.
When AI comesNot in the app yet
AI will be off until you turn it on, one feature at a time, with the provider you choose or a model running on your own computer. Each feature says plainly what it sees. Ghost prompts see only today’s page. Before anything sends past days, you’ll read “this sends 12 days to your provider” and decide.
Your keys go in your computer’s keychain, never in your journal folder. What a provider does with what you send is up to them, so pick one you trust, or keep it all at home with a local model.
If you have a question
Daylily is open source, so every line of this can be checked. Ask anything in GitHub Discussions, or open an issue. If you find a way someone could read, change or lose a person’s writing, please don’t post it in public: report it privately, as our security policy explains.