Home Your Questions, Answered
Your questions, answered
The questions worth asking before you trust any tool with your work. No programming knowledge needed to read these.
Your files and your privacy
Does Fate Tracker upload my game?
No. It runs offline on your computer. There is no account to create, no cloud service behind it, no telemetry, and no uploads. The application has no network features at all.
Where are my safe copies stored?
In a separate storage folder that you choose, on a drive you choose — kept apart from your working project. That folder is an ordinary Windows folder: the copies inside it stay readable even if Fate Tracker is not installed.
Does it require an AI API key?
No. Fate Tracker needs no API key, no AI subscription, and no credits of any kind. It prepares instructions from your own local files for you to paste into whichever assistant you already use.
What an AI helper can and cannot do
Can an AI delete my safe copies?
No. The local connection an assistant can use is read-mostly, and it has no tool for creating or deleting a safe copy. Fate Tracker itself deletes nothing, by design — if space ever needs clearing, it shows you which folders are safe to remove and you do it yourself in Windows.
Can an AI approve a restore?
No. Approving decisions, unlocking owner controls, removing protected items, restoring files, and changing your project or storage location are owner-only actions behind your safety PIN. An assistant reading the screen or the local connection cannot perform them.
What happens when an assistant says something is fixed?
That report is stored as a claim, not a fact. Fate Tracker keeps its own comparison of what actually changed on disk, and the Compare Claim to Reality view shows the two side by side — including files the assistant changed but never mentioned.
Can I inspect what changed?
Yes. Every protected moment is a dated, complete copy, and you can look through them, compare what changed between them, and read the measured differences in plain language.
Recovery and storage
Does recovery overwrite my current game?
No. Recovery always rebuilds the earlier copy into a new, empty folder that you choose, verifying every file during the copy. Your live game stays exactly as it is. Restoring directly over a live project is disabled in this release.
How much space can safe copies use?
You choose where copies live, and the Space Details view shows what is used now and what the next copy needs, in plain categories. Files that have not changed are stored once, so later copies are much smaller than the first.
Does Fate Tracker replace normal backups?
No, and it is not meant to. Fate Tracker protects the game projects you connect, on the drives you choose. Whole-computer backup software covers the rest of your machine, including a failed drive. For work that matters, use both.
Your safety PIN
What happens if I forget my safety PIN?
Every PIN box has an “I Forgot My PIN” option. Your game and your saved copies stay safe either way — the application simply cannot approve owner actions without proof the request came from you. That proof is your Recovery Card: six words and four digits, created on your computer with no internet, shown once. Using it lets you choose a new PIN. If both the PIN and the card are lost there is no bypass, and your game and copies remain ordinary folders on disk that you can still open and read without Fate Tracker.
Is the safety PIN the same as a purchase license?
No — they are separate ideas that never touch each other. Your safety PIN is a local accident-prevention step that keeps an AI helper from clicking owner-only buttons on your own machine. It is created by you, stored only as a scrambled fingerprint, and never sent anywhere. Purchase terms are a commercial matter covered on the terms page, not by the PIN.
Nobody will ever ask you for your PIN or Recovery Card. Not the developer, not support, not an AI assistant. Treat any such request as a warning sign.