Alcove
Private AI journal and atlas

Alcove a quiet place for your life

An end-to-end-encrypted journal that writes itself, and an atlas that clears wherever you walk. Only you can open it.

Coming to iPhone and iPad · 2026

The Alcove home screen: the chest and today's card above a narrated timeline
The Alcove Atlas: a fog-of-the-world map with trails carved across San Francisco Bay

Built so no one else can read it

Not us. Not Apple. Not anyone who picks up your phone. Privacy here is architecture, not policy: there is no server, and nowhere for your journal to go.

Encrypted, always

Sealed with AES-256 before it touches disk, under keys only your devices hold.

On your device

Your words, your places, and the AI that reads them never leave the phone. No cloud model, ever.

No account, no tracking

No sign-up. No analytics, ad identifiers, or third-party SDKs. The App Store label reads Data Not Collected.

Sync is yours

Optional, and it runs through your own iCloud as ciphertext Apple can't read. Never a server of ours.

Leave with everything

Full export and full erase, any time. Your journal was never ours to keep.

Honest by design

Our privacy story describes the code as built, and names its own seams. Nothing aspirational.

A warm place that fills itself

The Alcove chest, open, painted in walnut and brass

Keep a moment

Open the chest, keep what matters

A line, a voice note, a feeling. Light from the seam, a quiet “Kept.” as it closes, and what you said is sealed.

A day on the timeline: an anniversary card, the day's narration, and a kept entry

It gathers for you

Your days, arranged without a word from you

Photos, walks, workouts, plans: gathered onto the day's page on their own. Dates and places only, never a pixel.

The Atlas: trails carved through the fog over San Francisco Bay

Your world, revealed

Watch the fog clear as you move

The world starts fogged. Walking clears it. Yours alone to see: kept on your device, backed up only as sealed code if you choose.

When was I happiest this spring?
You wrote most warmly about the mornings by the water in early May: “everything felt unhurried.”

On-device intelligence

An assistant that never leaves your phone

Ask about your own life. Every answer is written on the phone by Apple's on-device model. Nothing is sent away to be understood.

The Alcove home screen in three looks side by side

Make it yours

Nine looks, one warm home

Nine hand-tuned looks, day and night, each with its own icon. The chest stays wooden in all of them.

Small things, done with care

The deck's gold filigree card back

A card a day

A hand-written deck deals one small invitation each morning. Turn it over, live it, and it seals with the day.

Twelve feelings

Mark how a day sat with one of twelve quiet words, and watch them thread through your seasons.

Voice, kept whole

Keep the sound of a moment. The audio is sealed on your device, and its words are written down there too.

Bring your history

Import GPX paths or a whole Fog of World backup, and let photos, workouts, and plans backfill on their own.

Widgets and Siri

The chest, the day's card, and your explored world sit on the home screen. Keeping a moment is one sentence to Siri.

Locked to you

App Lock puts Face ID over everything, and what's on screen hides the moment you switch away.

Kept.

There is no server we run. No account. Nowhere for your journal to go but with you.

Privacy isn't a setting in Alcove; it's the architecture. Read the whole story →

Asked, answered honestly

Is Alcove really private?

Yes, by architecture rather than policy. Everything you keep is encrypted on your device with keys only you hold, the AI runs on the phone itself, and there is no server of ours anywhere in the design. The privacy story explains every detail, including its honest caveats.

Can the developers read my journal?

No. Your journal is sealed with AES-256 under a key that lives in your iCloud Keychain. It never reaches us, and Apple's servers only ever hold ciphertext. There is no account with us and nothing for us to look at.

What ever leaves my device?

Very little, and nothing readable: encrypted sync to your own iCloud if you turn it on, an optional Apple Weather lookup you can leave off, and any export you choose to make. The complete list is published in the privacy story.

Do I need an account or a subscription?

Neither. There is no sign-up at all. Alcove is free to try for 3 days, then one small one-time unlock keeps it yours for good. Capture, sync, and export stay free forever.

What happens if I lose my phone?

Sign into iCloud on a new device and your journal returns on its own, end-to-end encrypted. You can also keep a self-contained backup file that restores everything, anywhere, even without iCloud.

Can I bring my existing history into Alcove?

Yes. Alcove gathers your existing photos, workouts, and calendar onto the timeline on its own, and the Atlas can import GPX paths or a whole Fog of World backup, so the map starts with everywhere you've already been.

When is Alcove coming out?

Alcove is coming to iPhone and iPad in 2026. The App Store link will appear right here the day it's live.

A private alcove for your life

Coming to iPhone and iPad · 2026