FAQ

Short answers, with links into the guides for depth.

Does Tidings have my banking password?

No. Tidings never talks to your bank. It reads the alert emails your bank already sends you, from a Gmail inbox you control, using an App Password scoped to that inbox. There is no Plaid, no screen scraping, no bank credential anywhere in the system.

Is it OK to forward my own bank emails?

The honest answer: this is your own mail, about your own accounts, forwarded by you to another inbox you own, processed on your own hardware. That is a long way from the things bank terms of service actually prohibit — sharing credentials, granting third parties account access, screen scraping. Email forwarding of alerts the bank chose to send you is not credential sharing, and no third party is involved.

Two honest caveats. First, alert emails contain personal financial information, so the inbox that receives them is worth protecting like the account itself — a dedicated Gmail account with 2-Step Verification, which is what the email setup guide builds. Second, this is a description of how Tidings works, not legal advice; if your bank’s alert terms say something unusual, they win.

For Canadian users wondering about PIPEDA: it governs how organizations handle your personal information. Running Tidings yourself, for yourself, on your own machine is personal use of your own data — the situation the law exists to protect, not restrict.

What leaves my machine?

By default, nothing. With AI categorization on, OpenAI sees the amount and merchant name of parsed transactions — and the subject and body of emails no parser could read. Other AI features (the monthly briefing, receipt reading, statement parsing) are separate opt-ins with their own provider choice. The full accounting is in the README’s privacy section.

Which banks work?

Five ship today: RBC, CIBC, MBNA, Simplii, PC Financial — the README’s bank table has per-bank detail. Alerts from any other bank land in Needs review instead of being dropped: AI extraction (if enabled) can read them, you can enter them manually, and the add-a-parser guide turns them into a proper parser — the most useful contribution to the project.

Can I import my history?

Two paths. Bank PDF statements upload from the Statements page (built-in parsers for RBC and Simplii chequing; AI statement parsing is an opt-in for others). And the restore path accepts a transactions CSV, previewed before anything is written — see backup and restore.

Why a dedicated Gmail account?

The poller reads the inbox you point it at, and an App Password grants mail access — both are reasons to keep bank alerts in their own account rather than your personal one. It also gives every bank one stable forwarding target. The email setup guide walks through creating it.

Can two people use it?

One household, yes — point both people’s bank alerts at the same forwarding inbox and the journal is shared. Separate logins, per-person views, or multi-tenant hosting are out of scope, and staying out — see ROADMAP — Not doing.

Can I put it on the internet?

It’s built for loopback or a network you control — Tailscale is the recommended way to reach it away from home. There’s no rate limiting and TLS is a reverse proxy’s job, so the open internet is the wrong place for it. The agent access guide has the exposure checklist.

What does it cost to run?

The software is free (MIT). Self-hosting costs whatever your machine already costs — a Raspberry Pi is plenty. Optional extras: OpenAI categorization (cents per month at household volume), ntfy notifications (free), the AWS path (see the cost analysis).

Is my data locked in?

It’s a SQLite file on your disk. Settings → Backup exports everything as a zip; the Search tab exports CSV. Delete the volume and the repo and Tidings is gone — leaving Tidings is four steps.

Do I need AWS?

No. The default is Docker Compose on your own machine with SQLite. The AWS serverless path exists for people who already live there — same parsers, different plumbing. Run the Docker path unless you know you want Lambda.