Privacy Policy

Plain-language summary Threde runs entirely on your own computer. Your emails are read locally and processed by Google's Gemini AI on your behalf. We — the developers of Threde — never see your emails, never store them on our servers, and never sell or share your data with anyone.

1. What Threde does

Threde is a desktop application that reads newsletter emails from your Gmail inbox, processes them using Google's Gemini AI, and delivers a daily briefing that runs in your browser. It runs entirely on your own machine and connects to two external services: Gmail (to read your emails) and the Gemini API (to analyze them).

2. What data we access

Threde requests read-only access to your Gmail inbox via Google's OAuth 2.0 authorization framework. Specifically, it uses the gmail.readonly scope, which allows Threde to read email content but not send, delete, or modify anything in your account.

Threde reads only emails that have the characteristics of newsletter subscriptions (specifically, emails containing a List-Unsubscribe header). It does not read personal correspondence, calendar data, contacts, or any other Google account information.

3. How your data is processed

Email content retrieved from Gmail is sent to Google's Gemini API for AI-powered summarization and analysis. This processing happens on your behalf, using an API key you provide. Google's data handling for the Gemini API is governed by Google's Privacy Policy and the Gemini API Terms of Service.

Threde does not transmit your email content to any server operated by the Threde developers. All processing occurs locally on your machine or through your own API calls to Google.

4. What we store

All data Threde generates is stored locally on your computer:

Gmail OAuth token — stored in token.json in the Threde application folder. This token grants read-only Gmail access and can be revoked at any time via your Google Account settings.
Briefing archives — daily HTML briefings saved to a folder of your choosing (default: ~/Documents/Email Briefings).
Feedback and interests — your thumbs-up/down votes and tracked topics, stored locally in JSON files in the Threde application folder.
Editorial memory — a short running summary of recent story threads, stored locally as a text file. This is passed to the Gemini API as context on each run.

None of these files are transmitted to Threde's developers or any third party other than the Gemini API calls described above.

5. What we do not do

We do not store your emails on any server we operate.
We do not sell, rent, or share your data with advertisers or data brokers.
We do not use your email content to train AI models.
We do not collect analytics, crash reports, or usage telemetry.
We do not have access to your Gmail OAuth token — it is stored only on your machine.

6. How to revoke access

You can revoke Threde's access to your Gmail account at any time:

Visit myaccount.google.com/permissions
Find "Threde" and click Remove Access

You can also uninstall Threde by deleting the application folder and removing the associated LaunchAgent from ~/Library/LaunchAgents/.

7. Children's privacy

Threde is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from children.

8. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this privacy policy, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top. Continued use of Threde after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

9. Contact

Questions about this privacy policy can be directed to: threde@threde.ai