Support

Have questions or need help? We're here to assist you.

Contact Us

For questions, bug reports, or feature requests, please email us at:

support@historicle.ai

We typically respond within 1-2 business days.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my data private?

Yes, absolutely. Historicle is built with a local-first architecture. All your journal entries, photos, and AI conversations are stored exclusively on your device. We have no servers that store user data and no way to access your journal. See our privacy policy for details.

All embeddings, facial recognition data, audio transcriptions, etc are done on your machine using local AI models.

That said, Historicle understands the limitations of current LLMs. Historicle defaults to local first but allows you to opt in to using other AI services via the MCP protocol and exposing custom AI endpoints.

Do I need an internet connection?

You need an internet connection once to download the AI models (approximately 4-8 GB depending on which model you choose). After that, Historicle works entirely offline. All AI processing happens locally on your Mac.

What are the system requirements?

Historicle requires:

  • macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later
  • Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, or M4 chip)
  • At least 8 GB of storage for the app and AI models
  • 8 GB RAM minimum (16 GB recommended for best AI performance)

Using the local LLMs requires some pretty beefy hardware, though as the technology improves this will get better. The more RAM and VRAM you have, the more sophisticated models you can run locally, and the better the Smart Search results.

Model X just came out, can I use it?

Maybe. If the model is a GGUF file, drop it in the LLM folder that Historicle creates and provides a path to in the Settings View. Restart Historicle and it should show up in the model selection dropdown.

Local LLM model performance varies widely, so your mileage may vary. Mistral 12B has offered good retrieval and synthesis performance, though it is rather large and can be slow.

What's included in Historicle Pro?

The free version includes journaling, timeline view, semantic search, and people/interests tracking. Historicle Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks:

  • Smart Search: Converse with your journal using a local AI
  • Face Recognition: Automatically identify people in photos
  • Emotion Insights: Track emotional patterns over time
  • Audio Transcription: Convert voice memos to searchable text
  • MCP Server: Local AI not cutting it? Use the available Model Context Protocol to integrate with AI assistants like Claude Desktop

Do I pay a monthly / yearly fee?

Nope. Pay once, own it forever. There are no subscriptions, no ads, and no or tracking. We believe in software the way it used to be. We don't need to store your data to make money. Feel free to sync to one or more of your own cloud storage accounts (that you already pay for) or local network storage for back-up.

We all have enough subscriptions as a service and Historicle doesn't want to add another. We also don't want to: accidentally expose private data, pay server maintenance costs, or deal with GDPR / CCPA compliance headaches. Easiest solution? One-time purchase where you are in charge of your own data. Win win.

Historicle is a pretty small company and consists of avid journalers, so we are committed to fixing bugs, improving performance, and adding features as the user base grows.

Can I use this on my Mobile device?

Mobile devices currently do not have the hardware capabilities to run good local LLMs, so we do not currently have a mobile version of Historicle. However, you can enable the Local Server feature in Historicle Pro to generate an API key and connect to Historicle from mobile devices. I regularly use my iPad to journal using this method.

How do I restore my purchase?

If you've previously purchased Historicle Pro through the App Store or Windows Store, simply reinstall from the respective store.

How do I delete my data?

Since all data is stored locally on your device, you have complete control:

  • Delete individual entries using the trash icon in the app
  • Delete AI models in Settings to free up disk space
  • Uninstall the app and remove ~/Library/Application Support/ai.historicle.app/ on macOS.

Known Issues

We're actively working on improving Historicle. Here are some known issues we're addressing:

  • Large photo libraries (>10,000 images) may take longer to index
  • RAG-powered Smart Search may be conservative. We tried really hard to be accurate and avoid hallucinations. We use a multi-stage process that:
    • Reads the query
    • Fetches entries that may address the query
    • Reads each entry and tries to determine if the entry addresses the query
    • Filters out irrelevant entries
    • Generates a response based only on the relevant entries along with the source entries as citations
    The more you @mention people and tie them to #interests, the better the results will be. Think of this as planning and telling your story for future generations to be able to better understand you!
  • No videos yet. If this feature is requested enough, we may add it. Historicle's stance is that images are easier to capture, view, search, and are more representative of moments in time that work well with journaling. You probably already have a great photo / video album solution and that isn't what Historicle is trying to be.
  • We are constantly improving the Smart Search experience. As the models become more advanced and optimized, performance and accuracy will improve. If you find these models are unsatisfactory, try more advanced models, using the MCP feature, or server endpoints to use a non-local AI model at your own discretion.

Feature Requests

Have an idea for improving Historicle? We'd love to hear it! Send your suggestions to support@historicle.ai with "Feature Request" in the subject line.