What Stays on the Host

Terminal iOS connects directly to a host you control over an authenticated private network. The founding product has no Terminal iOS vendor relay for customer terminal contents.

On the host

Your shell, repositories, files, credentials, AI-tool accounts and processes, and persistent terminal session stay on the host. Terminal iOS also keeps the minimum local product state needed to operate:

host identity;
hashed device authorization and revocation records;
bounded audit and continuity records;
trusted-ingress configuration; and
encrypted backup material when you create a backup.

For commercial v1, this state remains on the Mac. The future Windows + WSL2 beta retains terminal execution, credentials, tmux, and daemon state inside the selected WSL2 guest while Windows owns the trusted private ingress boundary; that engineering design is not current customer availability.

On the iPhone

The app stores the host configuration needed to reconnect and keeps the revocable device credential in the iOS Keychain. Removing the app does not automatically destroy host work or the persistent terminal session.

Support and backups

Support bundles are created locally and are not uploaded automatically. Review and redact them before sharing. Encrypted backups use a customer-held recovery secret; support cannot recover a lost secret.

Uninstall preserves host state by default. Permanent purge is a separate, explicit action described in Remove Terminal iOS.