Is my manuscript private?
Yes. Your universes are private by default. Only you and the people you invite can open them. Who Where When doesn't send your manuscript or your bible to an AI. Your text only reaches an AI when you paste it into one yourself, or when you connect your AI and ask it to read your chapters.
Who can see what
| What | Who can see it |
|---|---|
| Your universes, entries, notes and chapters | You, and people you've invited as editors or viewers |
| The reader wiki | Anyone with the link, once you publish it |
| Chapter text, notes, quotes, secret facts | Never shown on the reader wiki |
You choose who's invited, and as the owner you can change a role or remove someone at any time. The change applies immediately, even if they have the universe open.
What happens when you upload a manuscript
When you choose Upload manuscript, your browser reads the file and sends its text to Who Where When, which splits it into chapters and stores them in your universe. It counts where your entries appear and looks for recurring names. None of that involves an AI.
You don't have to store chapters at all. You can add chapters by title only and build the bible by hand or from AI replies, with facts still naming their source chapter.
When an AI does see your text
- Prompts. When you copy a prompt into ChatGPT or Claude and paste a chapter after it, that AI receives the prompt (which includes names and facts from your bible) and your chapter. That's covered by your account with that AI company and its settings, not by Who Where When.
- A connected AI. If you connect Claude, ChatGPT or another AI, it can read your bible and the chapter text you've stored, when you ask it to. You can connect it read-only, and disconnect it at any time from Settings → Connect AI.
If you'd rather no AI ever sees a chapter, don't paste it into one, and don't connect an AI.
Where your data is kept
Who Where When runs on Cloudflare. Your bible, chapters and images are stored there, and sign-in uses a one-time email link instead of a password. History keeps a record of changes for two years, but not old chapter text.
Keeping your own copy
Your bible is yours. Settings → Export & backup downloads everything, including stored chapter text, as a JSON backup or a Markdown folder. See Back up and export.
If you delete a universe from Settings → General, its entries, chapters, images and reader wiki are removed, and that can't be undone.
Common questions
Does Who Where When train AI on my manuscript?
No. Who Where When doesn't send your manuscript to an AI at all. Text only reaches an AI if you paste it into one, or connect your AI and ask it to read your chapters.
Who can see my universe?
Only you and the people you invite. The reader wiki is public, but only once you publish it, and it never shows chapter text, notes or secret facts.
Do I have to store my chapters in Who Where When?
No. You can build the whole bible without storing any chapter text. Facts can still name the chapter they came from.
Keep your story straight
Who Where When keeps every character, place and date in your books, and tells you when the story contradicts itself.
Start your story bibleMore in Account and data
- How do I sign in to Who Where When?Who Where When has no passwords. Enter your email and open the one-time sign-in link we send you. Here's what to do if it doesn't arrive.
- How do I back up and export my story bible?Download a full JSON backup you can restore, or a Markdown folder for Obsidian. Restore replaces a universe with a backup's contents.
Related
- How do I upload my manuscript?Upload a .docx, .md or .txt file to a book and Who Where When splits it into chapters, counts appearances and suggests names to add.
- How do I connect Claude, ChatGPT or another AI? PROAdd https://whowherewhen.app/mcp as a custom connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok or Le Chat, and your AI can read and update your story bible directly.
- How do I publish a reader wiki? PROPublish a companion wiki for readers from Settings. Readers pick how far they've read and only see what's been revealed by then.