Please Keep “AI” Out of Day One

  • Unknown's avatar
    peaceglittery2479cd6c94 · Member ·

    I noticed DayOne adding support for the Model Context Protocol as a new “Labs” feature in the Mac app.

    Given that today’s crop of “AI” tools all depend on scraping data for “training” it is an enormous concern to place this technology inside something as private as a journal.

    I understand this is currently a Labs feature. But this would seem to indicate future plans to add “AI” to DayOne.

    I get it. There’s a lot of demand to add “AI” to be seen as relevant. But a wildly privacy-violating feature like this needs to be purely opt-in. As in, don’t even include this functionality without my explicit consent. Make it an installable extension if you must, but bundling “AI” by default absolutely will lead me to replace DayOne.

  • staff-kimberly · Staff ·

    Thanks for taking the time to send us feedback about Day One AI features, specifically the MCP server. All AI features in Day One are built with the same commitment to privacy and security that Day One is known for. We put together these AI Features FAQs to address concerns around how the AI features work. 

    We thought it would be helpful to clarify a few things about the MCP server. While the MCP server code is included in Day One’s Mac frameworks, it is completely inactive by default. The Day One MCP server is a local server that runs entirely on your Mac. 

    Here’s how it works:

    1. Fully Opt-In: This feature is completely inactive until you install the CLI, enable it in Labs preferences, and grant journal-specific permissions.
    2. Local Processing: When you use an AI assistant with Day One MCP, the server runs on your Mac and accesses your journal data directly from Day One’s local database.
    3. How Data Flows: The MCP server acts as a bridge between your AI assistant and your local Day One data. When you ask your AI assistant to read or create journal entries, the MCP server retrieves or updates the data locally, then returns the results to your AI assistant.

    To use it, you must:

    1. Manually install the Day One Command Line Interface (CLI) through Day One → Help → Install Command Line Tools
    2. Enable “MCP Access” in Day One → Preferences → Labs
    3. Grant explicit access to each journal you want to make available 

    Without these deliberate steps, the MCP functionality remains dormant and cannot access your journals.

    Hope that helps.

Reply to Please Keep “AI” Out of Day One