# How Curator works

The whole app rests on three ideas. Once you have them, everything else follows.

## The three ideas

1. **Your files stay where they are.** Curator points at a folder or a bucket and reads
   the files in place. It does not move, copy, or rename anything unless you ask it to.
2. **Curator builds a private index on your Mac.** As it reads your files, it records
   what is in them. This index is what powers fast search and grounded answers, and it
   lives on your machine.
3. **The thinking happens locally.** When you search, chat, or organize, the AI work
   runs on your Mac through Ollama. Nothing is uploaded to do it.

## How it flows

In practice, using Curator looks like this.

1. You point Curator at a storage source, a folder or a bucket.

2. Curator scans the source and processes the files, reading their contents and
   building its index in the background.

3. You search by meaning, chat with your files, or let Curator organize them. All of it
   runs locally.

Steps 1 and 2 run automatically. Step 3 is where you spend most of your time.

## Your privacy

Because the index and the AI both stay on your Mac, your files and your questions never
leave your Mac. The only network call Curator makes for AI is to Ollama running locally, or to
one you point it at on your own network.

[Privacy](/reference/privacy/)