[ System ] · Transparency
A reader asked me whether his manuscript was sitting on a server somewhere. It is not, and he deserved a better answer than a message in a chat window. So here is the whole thing: every request the app makes, where your writing actually lives, and how to check both without trusting me.
Accurate as of version 0.5.5 · August 2026
WriteIDE runs on your computer and keeps your work there. Your manuscript, your characters, your stats, your items, and every image you add live in ordinary files and a database on your own machine. There is no account, no sync, and no server holding a copy. The app is not a window onto something stored elsewhere. It is the whole thing, and it is yours.
WriteIDE makes exactly two kinds of outbound request. Not two categories with details underneath. Two.
The app asks GitHub whether a newer version exists, at github.com/Moshik21/WritingIDE-Releases. It asks a public page a public question. It sends nothing about you and nothing about your work, and nothing downloads unless you click Download.
After you update, the app shows you what changed. That popup loads a single image from writeide.com so you can see the new feature instead of reading about it. One image, only while that popup is open.
That is the complete list. Not a summary of the list. The list.
Until version 0.5.5, WriteIDE loaded its fonts from Google every time it started, which meant Google's servers saw that a copy of the app had launched somewhere. I did not set out to do that. It came along with the way the interface was first built, and it stayed longer than it should have. The fonts now ship inside the app, and that request is gone. I am telling you about it because a list of everything is only worth something if it includes the parts I am not proud of.
One folder, holding a SQLite database and your image files. You can go look at it right now.
~/Library/Application Support/WriteIDE%APPDATA%\WriteIDE~/.config/WriteIDEWhen you add a portrait to a character or an image to a scene, the app copies that file into this folder. Older versions called that "uploading," which was a bad word for a file copy, and 0.5.5 took it out of the interface. Nothing is transmitted. The picture simply moves from wherever you keep your pictures into the app's own folder, on your disk.
Because it is all just files, backing up WriteIDE means copying that folder, and moving to a new computer means copying that folder. If I vanished tomorrow, your work would still be sitting there in a standard SQLite database that plenty of other tools can open. That is the point of building it this way.
A promise you cannot inspect is just a sentence. All three of these take about a minute.
Everything above is about the app. The site you are reading it on is a separate thing, and it would be strange to be careful about one and quiet about the other.
writeide.com uses Vercel Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies and without following you around the rest of the web. The bug report and feature request forms submit through Formspree, which delivers what you typed to my inbox. That is ordinary website plumbing. I use it because it is simple and I would rather spend the hours on the app.
None of it reaches into the app. The analytics script runs in your browser, on this site only, and WriteIDE never loads it. One detail worth naming while I am being exact: when the release-notes popup fetches its screenshot, that request lands on the same servers that host this site, so it shows up in web server logs the way any image request does. It carries no identity, no project data, and nothing about what you write.
The core tool is free and local, and it stays that way. AI features may arrive later as an optional assist, something you switch on deliberately. They will not write your manuscript for you, they will not be on by default, and if they ever exist this page will say exactly what they send and where. I am not going to tell you "no AI ever," because that is a promise I might one day have a good reason to break. What I will promise is that it stays your choice, and that you find out from me first.
If the list of requests ever changes, the change gets announced in the release notes, in plain words, near the top. It does not get slipped in and left for you to discover. You should never have to reread this page to learn that something new started talking.
If you find anything on your machine that contradicts this page, tell me. I will either fix the app or fix the page, and I will say which one it was.
Report it here or email contact@writeide.com.