Privacy
Your study is yours
Berea is local-first by design. The app works fully on your machine. This page states, plainly, what stays there and what travels.
What never leaves your machine
- Your AI keys and AI settings
- Content packs you install on desktop (the web reader serves its own approved corpus)
- Backgrounds and generated images
- Window and layout state
- Session logs and exports
What sync stores, exactly
Desktop sync is optional. When you sign in on the web, Berea stores your account's synced documents and progress so you can use them across devices:
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Verse notes | Per-verse notes, synced as documents |
| Marks | Your passage markings, per chapter |
| Plans and plan media | Plan documents plus the plan bundle files |
| Plan progress | Which days you finished, per plan |
| Reading log | Chapters read and their last-read dates |
| Reading position | Where you last were in a work |
| Study paths and progress | Private saved studies, recorded paths, and progress in a path |
| Sermons | Private authored sermon documents and their notes |
| Modules | Enabled module settings |
Your memory cards, prayers, private Circle drafts, and book-course progress are stored in your account's discipleship state. Connected Circles store their posts, membership, and shared reading separately. Community plan and journey bundles are stored when you publish them. Deleted sync documents leave tombstones so your other devices can remove their copies.
Analytics and logs
Version 1 has no analytics beyond ordinary server logs: timestamps, IP addresses, and paths, used to keep the service working and to fend off abuse. Logs are not sold. Logs are not shared.
Your AI interactions go from your machine to the AI provider you configured, with your own key. They never touch Berea's servers.
Your rights
You own your study. You can delete your account, and with it the sync copy of your documents, at any time. In the app, use Account settings to delete your account. On the web, sign in and use the delete section on your account page. Deletion removes your synced documents, devices, and any circles you own right away. You can also email us at privacy@berea.faith and we will do the same within 30 days.
Last updated: 24 September 2026.