What exactly does Duck.ai store and how does deleting Duck.ai chat history via the Fire Button affect it?

1. What Duck.ai actually stores and where it lives

By default Duck.ai saves “Recent Chats” locally on the user’s device rather than on DuckDuckGo or other remote servers, meaning chat transcripts and settings are placed in browser or app storage under the user’s control unless they opt out ^[1][4]; users can turn off recent chats to stop that temporary local retention ^[3][5].

2. What the Fire Button removes — and what it doesn’t

The Fire Button is explicitly described as a one‑tap way to delete all recent chats and browsing data; DuckDuckGo documents that the Fire Button can delete Duck.ai recent chats and that users may also clear those chats by clearing browser data, but pinned chats are exempt from Fire Button deletion unless manually unpinned first ^[3][5][6].

3. Third‑party model providers and retention promises

DuckDuckGo states it anonymizes requests to third‑party models and has contractual limits with providers: Duck.ai conversations are not recorded by DuckDuckGo for model training and providers are contractually required to delete request data when no longer necessary, generally “at most within 30 days” with limited safety or legal exceptions ^[2][4].

4. Practical privacy model and anonymization limits

The company emphasizes that Duck.ai replaces or hides user identifiers (for example IP addresses) before sending prompts to models and that recent chats remain on device to protect privacy, which reduces the surface for long‑term server‑side storage under DuckDuckGo’s control ^[1][7]. However, the public guidance also acknowledges provider‑side retention windows and limited exceptions for safety/legal compliance that could keep a query beyond local deletion in rare cases ^[2][4].

5. Browser behavior, device policies and automatic purging

Because the storage is local, retention is also a function of the browser or operating‑system behavior: some browsers (notably Safari and DuckDuckGo’s own Mac/iOS browser) automatically delete recent chats after a period of inactivity (DuckDuckGo cites “more than 7 days” in some cases), and browser privacy settings or clearing site data will remove that local data independent of Duck.ai controls ^[3].

6. Where the Fire Button might give users a false sense of finality

While the Fire Button erases the local “Recent Chats” list, DuckDuckGo’s own documents and third‑party reporting stress two limits: pinned chats are preserved by design, and model providers may retain anonymized request logs under contractually defined windows and legal/safety exceptions — meaning absolute certainty that a prompt was never temporarily processed or logged elsewhere depends on provider compliance and legal obligations, not solely the local deletion action ^[3][2][4][8].

7. Best practices implied by the policy and contrasting viewpoints

DuckDuckGo’s public position is clear: keep chats local, offer instant local deletion, and restrict downstream use by contract — a privacy‑first marketing stance supported by its help pages and update notes ^[1][6]. Critics and cautious observers, reflected in reporting and commentary, note remaining risk vectors: contractual deletions can have exceptions, and any content sent to an external model necessarily leaves the device briefly, so highly sensitive personal data should be avoided in any chat regardless of Fire Button use ^[2][9].

8. Bottom line for users evaluating the Fire Button

The Fire Button effectively removes Duck.ai’s saved recent chats from the local device and provides a quick privacy hygiene tool; it does not, by itself, alter provider retention commitments or retroactively remove server‑side logs where those exist under narrow exceptions — and pinned chats are intentionally excluded from that deletion unless removed or unpinned ^[5][2][3].