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On macOS, Awareness gives Char context from supported on-screen activity. You can pause it and exclude apps or websites. Awareness and memory are part of the Pro and Max plans: capture and cloud analysis are on by default there. The Free plan has no Awareness and keeps no memory, so nothing is added to History or Collections. Moving to Free stops capture and analysis and deletes the raw capture stored on your Mac; History already built from it stays. Captured activity can be sent to cloud AI to build History and memory. Char does not skip apps or websites by category. When it builds History and memory, it keeps activity with a purpose, such as researching a product for work, following a tutorial, or planning a trip, and leaves out idle time, background media, and aimless scrolling. To stop an app or website from being captured at all, exclude it. The Awareness controls below apply to macOS. On other platforms, Settings shows that Awareness is unavailable.

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Pause Awareness

In Settings → Awareness, click the header’s Capturing button to pause. The button changes to Paused, and its dot stops pulsing. Click Paused to resume. Hover over the button to see its action. The pause control is also available from the menu bar icon. Pausing Awareness stops future collection; it does not erase activity already stored.

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Private sessions

Char captures native apps and browser windows it verifies as normal. It skips private windows, windows it cannot verify, apps that display web content such as Slack, and recognized in-app private modes such as ChatGPT temporary chats. When a private session pauses capture, Settings shows the reason and pause deadline. Char checks whether the session has ended and resumes automatically when it can verify that. Use Pause longer to extend the pause or Resume now to resume early. After an early resume, private windows stay excluded; that app will not trigger another automatic pause until it quits. If Char cannot read or save a privacy pause, Settings shows an error. A pause that could not be saved may be lost on restart; check the capture status after restarting. Do not assume every browser or site’s private mode is detectable. Pause capture explicitly when you need it stopped, or exclude the entire app or website.

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Exclude an app

In Settings → Awareness → Excluded apps, add the app using the name shown in its menu bar. You can also choose from running apps when that list is available. The recent-app picker and capture use the same exclusions, including built-in exclusions for password managers, Passwords, and Keychain Access. Nothing is saved while a password field has keyboard focus. Still use the pause control before working with sensitive material if you are unsure how the current app or browser is handled.

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Exclude a website

In Excluded websites, add a domain such as example.com. The exclusion covers that domain and its subdomains. The starter list covers common health, identity, financial, email, and password-manager websites. Keep these exclusions unless you have a reason to remove them. When the exclusion list has entries, Char skips browser capture if it cannot verify the active domain. Do not assume every browser’s private mode is detectable. Explicitly pause capture when you need it stopped.

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Where captured activity goes

Raw capture is the on-screen text Char reads from your apps. It is stored only on your Mac and is never synced. Char sends it to Char’s AI service only to build memory, and Char’s servers never store it. Only the memories it becomes leave your Mac. Before anything is saved, Char removes passwords and other credentials, payment and ID numbers, and labeled health details from captured text. Relevant activity becomes memories in History: a short summary with the app, time and link, plus statements you typed yourself. Memories sync to your account so Charlie can use them on every device. With macOS Input Monitoring, Char tells text you typed apart from text you pasted or that was generated, and only attributes typed text to you. It counts key presses and never records which keys you pressed. Char deletes raw capture from your Mac as soon as its memory has been saved to your account, or Char has decided it is not worth remembering, and right away if you move to Free or sign out. Raw capture that hasn’t become a memory is deleted after 24 hours. Memories built from it stay: History is never edited after the fact, so to correct something, tell Charlie. Pausing capture alone does not delete anything.

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Review permissions

Use the privacy and access controls in Settings and your operating system’s permission settings to review screen, accessibility, microphone, and other access. These controls serve different purposes:

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Your Library and online features

Your Library is stored in Char’s cloud and synced to each signed-in device. It is not end-to-end encrypted: Char’s servers can read it so Charlie can work with it. Hosted AI and connected apps also receive the information each request needs. See Sync and cloud access for how your Library is protected. Read the current privacy policy for the service’s policy.