Your data and privacy

This page explains where nod keeps your data, what leaves your computer and to whom, and how to delete it.

Desktop and source installs keep nod's database, workspace and browser on your computer. Requests go to your model and decision providers, and the apps you choose. With Easy Connect, app requests and results pass through n8n's hosted connection service and Composio. If you use your own Composio key instead, they go through your Composio project.

The desktop app checks n8n's update service for new versions, which sees your IP address, app version and platform. Each check also sends a random ID that changes every week, so n8n can count installations each week. The update service sees that ID in the same request as your IP address, as it already sees your IP address on every check. It forwards the count to the nod team's analytics with the platform and version, never your IP address, so weeks can't be linked there to each other or to you. See Weekly installations. Feedback, usage analytics and conversation traces are optional. An operator can configure a different feedback collector; the feedback dialog names its recipient before you send.

Where your data lives

	Desktop app	From source
nod server	Your computer	Your computer
Database, workspace, browser	A private virtual machine on your computer	Docker containers on your computer
Data folder	`~/Library/Application Support/nod/` and `~/.nod-desktop/` on a Mac. `%APPDATA%\nod\` and the `nod-` WSL distribution on Windows	`.local/` (`NOD_DATA_ROOT`) and Docker volumes
Who can read it	You	You

Unfinished setup interviews are encrypted in your installation’s private storage. Continuing saves your answers to memory and removes the draft text; Change my answers discards it without saving. An encrypted completion marker contains only a random interview identifier and expiry, so returning through setup does not save old answers again. Drafts and completion markers expire after 30 days and are discarded the next time nod reads them. A completed interview can remain in the current tab while you go back through setup; that temporary copy is shown only while its completion marker is current and is cleared when onboarding finishes.

For what nod stores and how long it keeps it, see the Security review guide.

What leaves your computer

flowchart LR
  nod[nod on your computer]:::accent
  nod -- prompts and results --> model[Model and decision providers]
  nod -- app actions with nod's connection --> managed["nod hosted service (n8n)"]
  managed --> apps[Composio and<br/>your apps]
  nod -- direct app actions --> apps
  nod -- your chats --> chat[Telegram, WhatsApp]
  nod -- browsing --> web[Websites]
  nod -- searches --> search[Web search]
  nod -- update checks and downloads --> n8n[n8n]:::muted
  nod -. opt-in analytics .-> n8n[n8n]:::muted
  nod -. opt-in traces .-> n8n[n8n]:::muted
  nod -. feedback you send .-> feedback[Configured feedback recipient]:::muted

Goes to	What
The model provider you choose	Your conversation, tool results and screenshots. With Gmail connected: your text from recent sent emails for writing style, plus inbox subjects and snippets for first tasks. Desktop and personal web installs can instead use the latest-message text from up to 40 recent inbox conversations for a setup summary. When an action needs your yes, the proposed action with its arguments and details is also sent to write and check the question, plus the page’s visible text for a browser step. Without a decision service, your replies to confirmations are read here too, and so are the sender, subject and text of each email nod reads through your apps (up to 8,000 characters, the start and end of a longer one), to check whether it gives access to an account
Decision services	When one is set up (an OpenAI API or OpenRouter connection, or `TYPESAFE_API_KEY`), your replies to confirmations and the sender, subject and text of each email nod reads through your apps, each checked on its own, instead of your model provider.
Apps and services you connect	The actions nod runs in them
Composio, if you connect apps through it	Those app connections, the actions nod sends and files attached to them, in n8n's project or in your own. An attached file is uploaded only when its action runs, never for an action you decline
Telegram and WhatsApp, if you set them up	The messages in those chats
Websites nod visits	Whatever nod browses, fills in or submits there
Linked websites	nod's server reads the start of each page linked in a reply and its preview image. Playing a video loads that site's player in your app, without the site's cookies
Exa, for web search	nod's search queries. With a ChatGPT plan, OpenAI runs the search instead
n8n	App requests and results when you use Easy Connect. Desktop update checks and downloads, which show your IP address, app version, platform and a random weekly ID. Masked usage analytics and scrubbed conversation traces if you opt in, and feedback when using the default collector
Your configured feedback recipient	Feedback and attachments you choose to send, including an optional diagnostic report

Preview pages and images are fetched without your browser's cookies. After you select play, the embedded player receives nod's origin as its referrer and runs without the site's cookies, in storage that is discarded when it closes. nod checks that the player's address resolves to a public address when it prepares the preview, but those checks don't cover the player's later DNS answers, redirects or requests to other addresses.

OpenAI API connections use GPT Decisions at OpenAI. OpenRouter sends decision checks to TypeSafe. An optional TYPESAFE_API_KEY selects TypeSafe directly, regardless of your chat connection. See Decision checks for routing and billing.

Google sign-in for Easy Connect sends identity information to Google and n8n's connection service. That service stores your verified email, Google account identifier, installation admission, and expiring sign-in state. It discards Google's access and ID tokens after validation. Signing in doesn't grant access to Gmail. Removing proxy access doesn't delete provider accounts.

Your model keys and your Composio key, if you use one, stay on your installation. Keys you save in the app are stored encrypted, and nod only shows the last four characters of a Composio key. nod's connection doesn't need a Composio key. Provider keys never enter a prompt, nod's workspace or its browser.

Your own telemetry

Set OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT to send model request metadata to your own OpenTelemetry collector. Export is off when the variable is empty.

The export includes provider and model names, request timing, status, token counts, and available cost. It includes custom model names. Requests from one turn share an ID that changes when nod restarts. Internal execution IDs, messages, tool content, keys, and raw errors are excluded.

This export is separate from the sharing switches in Settings. Your collector controls access, storage, and retention. See OpenTelemetry configuration for setup and limits.

Usage analytics

Usage analytics are off until you turn on Share usage data in the first onboarding step or in Settings → General. They record which screens you open, how you move through them, and product events such as a task starting or a setting changing.

The recipient is the nod team at n8n, through its EU PostHog project. This also applies to source installations. Operators can disable collection for everyone with NOD_ANALYTICS_ENABLED=false.

Analytics have no fields for raw messages, nod's replies, tool arguments or results, Vault values, card details, full page addresses, names or email addresses. Recordings block chat messages, attachments, task details, connected account names, credential-entry and model-key forms, the remote browser view and images. Events can include normalized public domains for connections, Vault logins and the websites nod visits, signs in to or buys from and the ones you open from a reply, the amount and currency of purchases, Vault item types, which kinds of tools nod used, when it asked for your yes and how you answered, model token counts and cost, task categories, inferred outcomes, timing and signs of friction. Your selected model analyzes bounded chat text using your model account. Only allowed generic labels can leave nod as task categories: type, action, subject, a use-case family, work or personal context, and how you worked with nod. Raw text and invented labels are rejected. No family names a sensitive topic such as health or religion, and the classifier is instructed to label those requests other or a generic family; the server doesn't check that choice. These classifications can still be wrong. Website domains can reveal what kind of sites you use, which is why analytics are opt-in. Events from a message you send in the app link to that session's masked recording. Measurements are associated with a pseudonymous installation ID. Turn off Share usage data in Settings → General to stop sending, and ask for past data to be deleted with Send feedback. See Analytics for the full list, limitations and deployment switch.

Conversation traces

Conversation traces are off until you turn on Share conversation traces in Settings. While it's on, each request nod makes to your model is sent with the model's reply to the nod team at n8n, through n8n's nod Traces service to n8n's LangSmith project in the EU. Traces are deleted after 14 days, and n8n doesn't use them to train AI models.

Before a trace leaves your computer, nod removes known secrets, your name, email addresses, phone numbers, card numbers, IBANs, crypto wallets, common ID numbers, IP addresses, personal fields in app data and images. A trace carries no account or device identifier, its conversation ID changes every day and whenever nod restarts, and your saved memory is left out. Removal is automatic and can miss details written in other forms, such as another person's name in a sentence. See Conversation traces for every layer, an example and where traces go.

Feedback

The feedback dialog shows who receives your submission. The default is the nod team at n8n; an operator can set a different HTTPS collector. By default feedback includes a diagnostic report of your recent chat, actions and their results. Select Review to read the report first, or untick Include diagnostic report to leave it out. nod removes known secret values from the report before you see it. From the desktop app, feedback also includes the app version, your platform and your computer's name. Feedback is a separate, deliberate submission and does not turn on usage analytics.

Operators can disable submission and status checks with NOD_FEEDBACK_ENABLED=false. See the configuration reference for custom collectors and operation without either upstream collector.

What memory learns from

Memory notes come only from your own messages and the notes you add or import in Settings → Memory, never from nod's replies, tool results or web pages. nod also writes learned skills, the steps of a flow it did, from what it did and read; your model is told to replace names, contact details, account and order numbers, amounts and message content with placeholders, and nod removes known secrets and refuses card numbers, keys and links with logins before it saves one. When you connect Gmail, your model also reads your recent sent email and writes one short note on your writing style. During setup, it can also summarise the latest-message text from up to 40 recent inbox conversations to suggest first tasks. That summary is never saved to memory and is deleted once the cards are posted. When no summary is available, task suggestions use recent subjects and snippets instead. The model is told to leave out facts, names and quotes, and nod drops a note with an email address or link. See Memory.

Delete your data

Memories. Open Settings → Memory, select a note and choose Forget. This deletes the note and its earlier versions. You can also ask nod to forget something.
Vault items. Open the item in Trust → Logins and cards and delete it. For a saved browser session, select Sign out.
Apps. Disconnect an app in Apps.
Composio key. Sign in to Easy Connect and confirm the switch in Settings → App connections. This deletes your saved key and disconnects the apps you connected through your project.
Everything. In the desktop app, select Remove all data in Settings → General. nod deletes your profile and private computer from the folders above, then quits. From source, stop nod and delete its NOD_DATA_ROOT folder (.local/ by default) and its Docker volumes. Uninstalling the app alone keeps your data. A service you signed in to through nod may still list nod as a connected app until you remove it there.

Where this is enforced

src/server/memory-learning.ts (memory sources) · src/server/analytics.ts (analytics opt-in and events) · src/server/traces.ts and src/server/personal-data.ts (trace opt-in and scrubbing) · src/web/lib/analytics-privacy.ts (recording masks) · src/server/bug-report.ts (report redaction)