You are drafting a sensitive email to your HR department, typing out a client pitch, or working on a university assignment, and you notice the green Grammarly widget spinning in the corner of your screen. A sudden wave of worry hits. Is this tool reading every single keystroke you make? Is it recording your passwords, credit card numbers, or proprietary work data? If you use the tool to polish your writing, you might wonder: does Grammarly save what you type, and is it using your private thoughts to train its artificial intelligence?
The direct answer is that Grammarly is not a keylogger. It does not record your passwords or financial details, and it is programmatically blocked from reading fields marked as sensitive. However, unless you are using an enterprise or school account, Grammarly does process your text on its cloud servers and, by default, uses your writing to train its AI models. If you want to keep your writing private, you must manually change your settings.
The Technical Reality: Is Grammarly a Keylogger?
Many users worry that Grammarly operates like malware, quietly logging every keypress in the background. According to Grammarly's privacy policy, the application is not a keylogger. It only analyzes text in active, editable fields where you have permitted the tool to run.
The software is also designed to ignore sensitive information. It automatically blocks itself from accessing fields designated for passwords, credit card numbers, and URLs.
However, there is a major difference in how your data is handled depending on your account type. If you are using a Free, Premium, or single-user Pro account, Grammarly automatically uses your text to train its machine learning models. Enterprise and school accounts are opted out of this training by default, but everyday consumers must manually opt out to protect their writing. This is a common practice among modern cloud tools, similar to how users must manage their settings to control whether Gemini reads private Google Docs and Gmail.
Step-by-Step Privacy Fixes
To secure your writing and stop Grammarly from using your data for AI training, follow these steps.
1. Opt Out of AI Model Training
By default, Grammarly uses your text to improve its algorithms. You can stop this processing immediately through your account settings.
- Log into your account on the Grammarly website.
- Navigate to the Account Settings page.
- Click on Data Privacy (or Data Settings if you use a Pro account).
- Locate the option labeled Product Improvement and Training.
- Toggle the switch to the off position.
This action prevents Grammarly from using your future writing to train its machine learning models, as detailed in Grammarly's product improvement guide.
2. Disable Tailored Assistance
Grammarly stores personalized data to customize its writing suggestions for your specific style. If you want to delete this personalized data, you can disable the feature.
- Open your Grammarly account settings.
- Go to the Feature Customization page.
- Locate the Tailored Assistance option.
- Opt out of this feature to delete the personalized data stored on Grammarly's servers.
3. Block Grammarly on Sensitive Websites
You do not have to turn off Grammarly entirely to keep it away from specific websites. You can block the browser extension from running on certain domains, such as your online banking portal or internal work tools.
- Visit the sensitive website in your web browser.
- Click the Grammarly browser extension icon in your toolbar.
- Toggle off the switch to disable Grammarly on that specific domain.
This prevents the tool from reading or analyzing any text on that website.
4. Request a Data Report or Delete Stored Data
If you want to see exactly what Grammarly has processed, or if you want to wipe your digital footprint completely, you can request your data or close your account.
- Go to your account privacy settings.
- Under the Personal Data Report section, click Submit Request. Grammarly will compile a report of your processed information.
- If you decide you no longer want to use the service, you can permanently wipe all stored documents and personal data by deleting your Grammarly account entirely. This process is permanent and cannot be undone.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Many users make critical mistakes that expose their private data without realizing it.
First, avoid pasting highly confidential or proprietary work documents directly into the Grammarly web editor. When you use the web editor, Grammarly automatically saves and stores those documents on its cloud servers. If you are working with sensitive company data, legal documents, or highly personal files, keep them in your local offline word processor instead. This risk is similar to the privacy concerns users face when deciding if it is safe to upload a resume to ChatGPT, where raw text is stored and processed on external servers.
Second, do not assume that your personal account has the same strict privacy defaults as an enterprise or school account. Corporate accounts often have contractually guaranteed data protections that prevent AI training automatically, but personal accounts require manual configuration to achieve the same level of security. If you are concerned about how long companies retain your information, you can read about how other platforms handle data storage, such as learning whether ChatGPT keeps your deleted chats.
To maintain a secure writing environment, make it a habit to review your active browser extensions once a month and disable them on any website where you input financial, medical, or proprietary information.
