Fern Notes Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 5, 2026

Fern Notes is a Mac app for notes, made by Sarnia LLC. It has no account and no servers of its own. Your notes stay on your Mac, and in your own iCloud if you choose to sync.

What Fern Notes collects

Nothing. Sarnia LLC never receives your notes or anything else from the app. Fern Notes has no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising and no tracking.

Where your notes live

• On your Mac. Your notes, groups, items, item notes and History are stored in the Fern Notes database on your Mac.
• In your own iCloud, if you sync. With Sync with iCloud turned on in Settings, your notes are kept in your private iCloud database through Apple's CloudKit, so they appear on your other Macs. That data is in your iCloud account, under Apple's privacy terms; Sarnia LLC can't see it.
• Backups. When you export a backup, Fern Notes writes one file wherever you choose to save it. Nothing is uploaded.
• Reminders. Due-date reminders are local notifications scheduled on your Mac.

When Fern Notes goes online

• iCloud sync, as described above, between your Mac and your own iCloud account.
• Link names. When an item contains a web address, Fern Notes fetches that page from its own site to read its title for the link chip. The site you linked to sees an ordinary request for the page.
• Lookups and note chat, only if you set them up. Lookups run only on notes or groups you give an AI Prompt, and note chat only when you use it. The item's words and its page (and, for lookups, any linked pages) go to the AI provider you chose in Settings, using your own key: Anthropic, OpenAI or AWS Bedrock, or a model running on your own Mac through Ollama or LM Studio. Your keys are stored in your Mac's Keychain. That provider's own privacy policy covers what it does with the request.
• Apple Intelligence. If you choose Apple Intelligence for lookups, they run on your Mac with Apple's on-device model, using only the item's words and the pages it links to.

Without an AI Prompt or an AI provider set up, no note content is sent to any AI service.

This website

This policy covers the Fern Notes app. The Fern Notes web pages use Google Analytics to count visits, as described in the Sarnia LLC privacy policy. The app itself doesn't include any analytics.

Deleting your data

Delete items, notes or groups in the app, or delete the app and its data from your Mac. If you synced, deleting notes in the app removes them from your iCloud too, and you can manage what apps keep in your iCloud from your Apple Account settings. Clear an AI key in the Fern Notes Settings, or revoke it with the provider.

Children's privacy

Fern Notes doesn't collect information from anyone, including children.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date above will change too.

Contact

Questions about this policy: dbpatel219@gmail.com. See also Fern Notes support.