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Private chats

A private chat is an ephemeral session. Nothing about it touches the database — messages, attachments, file saves never persist. The conversation lives only in memory and disappears when you close the tab.

To start one, click the lock icon beside the + New chat button in the sidebar.

Visual indicators

A private chat is never visually confused with a normal one:

  • The tab in the tab strip shows a lock glyph next to the title
  • A banner above the composer reminds you the conversation is private and ephemeral
  • The export kebab (⋯) is hidden — there’s nothing on disk to export
  • The paperclip and folder icons in the composer are hidden — attachments would persist to disk via the attachment store, defeating the purpose

What’s still there

You can still:

  • Send and receive messages
  • See streaming responses, stop generation mid-stream
  • Edit and retry messages within the session
  • Switch models mid-conversation
  • Use Markdown rendering and code blocks (with Copy)
  • Have multiple private chats open simultaneously in different tabs

What’s NOT there

  • No chat history in the sidebar (the chat doesn’t appear in the History list at all)
  • No attachments — paperclip and folder buttons are hidden
  • No file saves — even tool-capable models can’t write files in a private chat
  • No export — Markdown and JSON exports are hidden
  • No search index — private messages aren’t indexed for Chat search

Switching tabs while a private chat is open

Switching the active tab away from a private chat doesn’t destroy it. The conversation stays in memory until the tab itself is closed. So you can have a sensitive scratch conversation open in one tab, do something in another, and come back to the private chat exactly where you left it.

What does destroy a private chat:

  • Closing its tab (× button)
  • Quitting Ekorbia

When to use a private chat

Good fits:

  • Quick scratch work — exploring an idea you don’t want cluttering your history
  • Sensitive prompts — anything you’d be uncomfortable having stored locally (even encrypted at rest on your machine)
  • Test prompts — iterating on a system prompt to see what works without polluting your real chats
  • One-offs you don’t need to find later — drafts, throwaway translations, fact lookups

Bad fits:

  • Real work you might want to find again — there’s no history, no search, no export
  • Conversations with attachments — attachments are disabled
  • Tool-using sessions where the model writes files — file saves are disabled

The memory file still applies

A private chat does include your Memory file as a system message — that’s part of your standing context, not part of any specific conversation, and it stays consistent regardless of whether the chat persists.