Where your data lives

Everything embral writes lives in one folder you choose, embral in your home directory by default. Change it in Settings, under General.

What’s in the folder

• embral.db: the source of truth, a SQLite database. It holds your summaries, transcripts, and notes.
• audio/: one MP3 per meeting, if you keep audio.
• assets/: images you pasted into notes, one folder per meeting.
• index.json: a JSON export of your meetings, rewritten after every change. embral never reads it back. It exists for your own scripts and tools.
• config.json: your settings.

Downloaded models and logs live outside this folder, in the app’s own data directory, so backing up your library means backing up this one folder.

The database is the truth

Markdown export to a vault is one-way: embral writes the file when a recording ends and never reads it back. Editing an exported file changes nothing inside embral, and editing a meeting inside embral doesn’t rewrite the exported file. If you treat the export as the live copy, the two drift apart.

What gets deleted, and when

Nothing, unless you say so. Retention settings for meetings, audio, and dictation history all default to Never. If you set a retention period, a cleanup pass enforces it twice a day. Deleting audio keeps the meeting’s notes and transcript. Deleting a meeting removes everything it owns.