Is My Data Private in AI Draw?
Short answer: yes — with one honest caveat
Short version: your diagrams never leave your browser, but your prompt text does — it has to travel to the AI provider (DeepSeek) to generate anything at all. That’s how every AI tool works, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Here’s the exact breakdown of what happens to your data in AI Draw.
Where your diagrams live: in your browser
Your finished diagrams are stored in your browser’s localStorage, not on a server. Close the tab, reopen it, and your work is still there because it never left your machine. There’s no database of everyone’s flowcharts sitting on our side, and nobody here can read your diagrams. Honestly, this is the most private part of the whole pipeline — by design.
What happens to your prompt text
Your plain-language description has to be sent to the AI model provider, DeepSeek, so it can be turned into a diagram. That request is used only for generation. We don’t resell your data, we don’t mine it for content, and there’s no “we may use your prompts to improve our models” clause hiding in the fine print.
But to be fair, once text leaves your browser for an external provider, you’re relying on that provider’s handling of it. That’s not specific to AI Draw — it’s true of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and every other AI tool out there. “Sent to a provider” is the price of the feature.
Uploaded images and PDFs are not kept
When you upload a screenshot, image, or PDF of an existing diagram and ask AI Draw to replicate it, the file is used only for that replication request. It isn’t stored afterwards, and there’s no archive of your documents. It goes in, does its job, and it’s gone.
The privacy facts, in a list
- Diagrams live in your browser (
localStorage), never on servers - Prompt text goes to DeepSeek only to generate the diagram
- Uploaded images/PDFs are used only for the replication request and are not kept
- No data resale, no content mining
Honest advice: don’t paste secrets into prompts
Please don’t put passwords, API keys, client records, or anything confidential inside your prompt. Any AI tool sends your text to a provider — that is how it works, full stop — so a secret typed into a prompt is a secret that leaves your machine. This isn’t a flaw in AI Draw; it’s how the whole genre of AI tools works. If something is sensitive enough that you’d be uncomfortable with an external company’s servers seeing it, keep it out of the prompt box.
In my experience
People who ask about privacy here usually fall into two camps. The first camp just wants their half-finished architecture diagrams to stay out of someone’s cloud, and for them the localStorage approach genuinely does the job. The second camp has a real confidentiality requirement — think NDA-covered work — and for them the honest answer is BYOK. The Settings screen has a bring-your-own-key option: plug in your own AI API key and your prompts go to the provider attached to your key instead of the default one. It doesn’t make the tool fully local, to be fair — the text still leaves your machine to be processed — but it changes who the provider is, and that’s usually the variable that matters.
What I can’t promise
Let me not oversell this. “Private” here doesn’t mean end-to-end encrypted, zero-knowledge, provable to an auditor. It means: diagrams stay local, uploads aren’t retained, and there’s no resale or mining. What I can’t promise is what a third-party provider does with requests on its side of the fence — that’s outside any web tool’s control, and any tool that claims otherwise is exaggerating. Also, localStorage is tied to the browser you used: clear your browser data and your diagrams go with it. It’s a local workspace, not a sync service — if you want to move a diagram elsewhere, export it as PNG, SVG, or .drawio source first.
For more context: Do I need an account or API key? walks through BYOK in detail, and Pro Pass — the $9.90 / 30-day access code that lifts the daily cap — is on the pricing page. If your next question is where your diagram goes after generation, the AI Draw guide covers export and editing.