Where your content stays, and when it leaves your device.

Local by default

Notes, tags, attachments, settings, and derived search indexes are stored in Zebra's library on your device. Exports and backups go to a location you choose. The Zebra app has no account system and does not send note text to a developer server. Content you choose goes to an external agent only when you use the optional agent features described below.

The current app contains no advertising, behavioral tracking, product analytics, or third-party crash-reporting service. This describes the Zebra app itself, not the separate practices of a website host, Apple, or a third-party service you choose to use.

Local search and conversion

Mac semantic search uses system Chinese and English language capabilities to process notes and queries on the device. Zebra does not download models for this feature or send note text to a model service. Notes with a password are excluded from persistent semantic indexes, even while unlocked. Keyword search remains available when system semantic capabilities are unavailable.

Mac document conversion runs locally. After you confirm an import, the converted note and retained original enter your library. Later sync or sharing depends on your settings and actions. This document conversion and semantic search are not available on iPhone or iPad.

Optional iCloud sync

iCloud sync is off by default for new installations; existing choices are preserved. When enabled, note text, related metadata, and referenced attachments enter your Apple Account's private CloudKit database. Notes with a password sync the same way, and Zebra does not encrypt their content. Sync also carries their password check and optional hint, never the password itself.

Apple provides iCloud and handles service data under its own terms and privacy policy. Turning sync off stops only the current device; it does not automatically erase copies in the cloud or on other devices.

Note passwords

A note with a password asks for it only in Zebra's interface; Zebra does not encrypt its content. The title, body, tags, and attachments are stored on your device in plain text like any other note and, with sync on, go to iCloud the same way. While a note is locked, the note list shows only its title, and the note is left out of search, wiki-link suggestions, and Quick Look. Notes with a password never enter Spotlight, widgets, or the semantic index, even while unlocked.

Zebra never stores the password itself, only a password check derived with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 and an optional plain-text hint, which it saves and syncs. Anyone who obtains your library can use them to guess the password offline, and weak passwords may be guessed. All notes with a password share one password, which unlocks them on every device. On supported Macs, Touch ID can keep the password in that Mac's Keychain only; it does not sync to iCloud Keychain, and Zebra does not receive fingerprints or other biometric templates.

A note password keeps a note from casual view in Zebra. It does not protect the content from anyone who can read your device's library, your backups, or your iCloud data, and adding a password does not retract copies you previously exported, shared, printed, or backed up. The developer cannot recover a forgotten note password.

Web content and sharing

Clipping a page, creating a note from a URL, displaying a link card, or downloading a remote attachment may request the relevant website directly. The site receives normal connection information, such as the requested URL and IP address. The Safari clipping extension reads the current page when you invoke clipping and passes the selected content to Zebra.

Sharing, exports, Shortcuts, and other actions you authorize can provide selected content to another app or destination. That recipient handles the content under its own settings and policies.

Optional external agents (Mac)

On Mac, Smart Edit, Ask Zebra and the zebracli ai command included with the app can connect to ACP (Agent Client Protocol) agents. This is optional: an agent is a program you install and sign in to yourself. Zebra starts it on your Mac only when you use these features; Zebra provides no model service and does not relay content through a developer server.

Before the first send to an agent, Zebra explains what will be sent and where, and asks for your explicit consent. You can decline and keep editing as usual. Once you agree, Zebra sends your question or instruction, the selected text with up to about 2,000 characters of context on each side (the whole note if it is short), notes it retrieved or you referenced, and images you attached. With “Let agents browse the whole library” on, the agent can also list, search and read other permitted notes and attachments as needed. When you continue a saved conversation and the agent cannot restore its original session, Zebra also sends the conversation’s earlier questions, answers and images to the current agent, even if they were first sent to a different agent; answers derived from notes that are now excluded are not resent. Password-protected notes (even when unlocked), notes in the Trash and notes with excluded tags are never sent; archived notes are not sent by default. In Terminal, zebracli ai also says where content goes before sending and needs your confirmation on the terminal, consent already given in Zebra Settings that covers this send (by default the CLI lets the agent search the library through a read-only MCP server), or an explicit --allow-data-sharing.

Agents usually pass content to the third-party model service they connect to. How that content is stored, used and deleted is governed by the terms and privacy policies of that agent and service; the developer does not receive this content and cannot control how third parties handle it. An agent is a separate program running on your Mac under your account: Zebra’s rules cover only the notes it gets through Zebra and cannot stop it from using its own tools to access other files or the network.

Consent covers the launch command and the model service it connects to, and is recorded for each agent and launch command. Switching models or model services within the same agent does not ask again; a different agent, launch command or environment variables, or a wider scope of what is sent (such as turning on library browsing), asks again. You can revoke consent anytime in Settings › Agents: this stops Zebra’s connections and applies to later zebracli ai runs, and a conversation already running in Terminal has to be exited there. Revoking consent, adding a password to a note or deleting a note cannot recall content already sent to an agent or model service.

Agent conversation history

Ask Zebra conversations are stored in plain text on your Mac in the file AgentSessions.sqlite, next to your library. It includes messages, snapshots of note content that was sent, drafts, images, and copies of attachments needed for pending changes and “Revert”. These copies remain even if the original note is later deleted or given a password, until you delete that conversation in the session history.

This file is not synced to iCloud and is not part of .zebrabk library backups; whole-disk backups such as Time Machine may include it.

Retention and deletion

You can delete notes and manage Trash in Zebra. Removing the app or turning sync off does not automatically remove exports, backups, or content already held by other devices or the cloud.

Deleting a note updates its current state, but older records in the cloud sync history and the attachments they reference may remain. There is currently no button to erase all cloud history. Keep an independent backup before deleting or restoring important work.

This website and issue reports

This website is hosted by GitHub Pages and does not load advertising or product analytics scripts. GitHub still handles the network requests needed to serve the site, which may include an IP address, requested path, time, and browser information. GitHub's privacy statement describes its handling of this information. Local storage in the app does not mean website visits produce no network records.

When you report a public issue on GitHub, GitHub handles the account information, text, and attachments you submit, and other people can see them. We use that information to respond and investigate. Share only what is needed. Do not upload private notes, passwords, a complete library, or keys.

When you email us, we and our email provider, Gmail, process your email address, message, and any attachments you choose to send to respond and investigate the issue. Share only what is needed, and do not send passwords or recovery keys.

Support and privacy questions

Contact us at the email address below for help with Zebra or questions about how your data is handled.

entropysniper@gmail.com