DocnestSupported AI tools and privacy
Three ways Docnest collects
1. Session records: nothing to install
Claude Code, Codex (CLI and app), Gemini CLI and Hermes keep records of each session on your Mac. With your permission (Read agent session records), Docnest reads those records to learn which files a session wrote. It adds nothing to the tools' settings.
2. Connect in Settings
Cursor, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot CLI, OpenCode, Droid, Qwen Code, CodeBuddy and Grok Build are connected through their hook settings.
Open Settings → Connections & integrations and click Connect next to the tool. Docnest backs up that tool's hook settings file, then adds one entry of its own. Disconnect removes only that entry and leaves the rest of your settings alone.
3. Everything else
- Other AI tools. When Docnest notices a new AI tool writing files, it asks before collecting (New AI tool · Name). Choose Don't collect, Later or Collect. You can change your answer in Settings → Capture → How Docnest collects → AI tools found.
- Project folders. Docnest also watches the project folders your agents work in. A file found this way shows an estimated or unknown source until a session record confirms it.
- Chat apps. Select text or files, then choose Save to Docnest from the macOS Services menu (up to 20 files at a time). For the Claude desktop app, use Connect Claude Desktop in Settings → Connections & integrations → Save from chat apps.
- App outputs. New files that AI apps save to their own output folders, such as Claude Cowork outputs and Codex generated images, are collected. This is on by default, in Settings → Capture → App outputs.
- Downloads AI inbox. Off by default, in the same place. When it's on, new files in your Downloads folder that came from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity are collected.
What Docnest does not collect
- Files that existed before collection started
- Credential folders such as
.sshand.aws - Caches, build folders and files Git ignores
- Your whole home folder or Downloads folder as a project
- The agents' own conversation records
Documents in temporary folders such as /tmp aren't collected by default. When an agent writes documents there, the shelf asks whether to collect them. Turn on Also collect AI documents in temporary folders in Settings → Capture to collect them without being asked. Even if you don't collect them, you can read them inside a conversation.
Privacy
Your documents stay where they are. Docnest shows each document from its original place on your Mac. It keeps its own copy only of documents you add to Favorites, edits you make in Docnest, and AI answers that were never saved as a file. Those copies stay on your Mac too.
Nothing is uploaded. There is no Docnest account and no Docnest server for your documents, and Docnest doesn't use outside analytics services. Its data folder is ~/Library/Application Support/Docnest on this Mac.
Docnest keeps little from session records. It stores file paths, the session, the model, the working folder and the time. It doesn't store your prompts or conversations, apart from the 7-day excerpts used for agent conversations, with anything that looks like a secret masked.
HTML documents open in a sandbox. Scripts and network access are blocked. Images from the web load only when you click Show external images, and only for that view.
Summaries are made on your Mac. See Summaries.