Cloud Sync

Pia Cloud Sync keeps your conversations in sync across all your devices. With end-to-end encryption (E2EE), only you can read your data.

How It Works

1. You sign in to your Pia account
2. Conversations are encrypted on your device before upload
3. The server stores only encrypted data — it cannot read your conversations
4. Your other devices download and decrypt locally

No chat leaves this device before you sign in. Chats stay local until there is an account to sync them to.

Signing in uploads the chat history you built up beforehand, so a conversation you had before connecting an account travels with you. An installation that signed in under a version of Pia older than this keeps those earlier chats on that device only.

Clearing out old chats asks the server first

Which chats are old enough to remove is settled with Pia Cloud rather than from what one device happens to know:

• Opening a chat tells Pia Cloud you still want it. Reading a conversation used to count as using it on that device alone, so an old chat you kept coming back to still looked untouched to your other devices.
• A device that cannot reach the server clears nothing at all, rather than guessing.
• Importing an archive counts as opening those chats, so an import is not cleared out shortly afterwards for looking old.

See Assistant Chats & History for the retention setting itself.

One feature leaves the encrypted plane, and only when you say so

Background assignments hand work to your Pia server to run without you. Whatever runs that work has to read it, so the prompt and the records you pick are sent in plain text and held on the server while the run lasts. Nothing else syncs that way, it never happens without an explicit affirmation naming every record, and the answer comes back as an ordinary encrypted chat.

What the Account screen is for before you sign in

Settings → Account is where a Pia account is connected to this installation, so on a fresh install it exists precisely so you can decide whether to have one. Until you sign in it shows the sign-in options and nothing else — there is no separate profile, licence key or registration to fill in.

You do not need an account to use Pia. Chats, personas, memory, todos, reminders, Optimize and speech all work with no account at all, using an AI provider you configure yourself with your own API key. Signing in adds three things, and only these:

• Sync — your chats, personas, todos, memory and settings on more than one device.
• Pia Cloud as a provider — using the server’s models instead of bringing your own API key. This is also what image attachments need.
• Server-delivered features — plugins, managed personas published by an administrator, and background assignments.

If none of those matter to you, leaving Account signed out is a perfectly normal way to run Pia, and nothing you create leaves your machine.

Signing In

1. Open Settings → Account
2. Sign in using one of these options:
   • Email and password — enter the credentials from your Pia account
   • Google — click the Google button to sign in with your Google account
   • Microsoft — click the Microsoft button to sign in with your Microsoft account
   • Sign in with Entra ID — if your organization uses Microsoft Entra ID, click this option to sign in with your work account

A loading spinner appears while Pia connects to the server.

Tip

Don’t have an account yet? Click Create Account to open the Pia website and sign up. If you forgot your password, click Forgot Password to reset it.

Your Account

Once signed in, you’ll see an account card with your name, email, and how you signed in.

Below that, Pia shows your sync status — when you last synced and how many items are stored in the cloud.

• Click Sync Now to manually push and pull changes. A progress indicator shows the sync in action.
• Click Sign Out to disconnect your account from this device.

End-to-End Encryption

E2EE means your conversations are encrypted on your device before they leave it. Nobody — not even the Pia server — can read them.

Enabling E2EE

1. Sign in to your Pia account
2. Scroll to the End-to-End Encryption section
3. Flip the toggle to On
4. Wait for the progress indicator to finish — your device fingerprint appears once setup is complete

A progress indicator appears while encryption is set up. Once enabled, you’ll see your device fingerprint — a short code displayed in a monospace font that uniquely identifies this device. You can use this code to verify your device’s identity when setting up additional devices.

Caution

E2EE is available on the Pro plan and above. Free plan sync does not include E2EE.

Adding a Second Device

When you sign in on a new device with E2EE already enabled, Pia walks you through a short onboarding flow to securely share your encryption key.

On your original device, go to Settings → Account and click Check for device requests to approve the new device. Once approved, both devices can read and write encrypted conversations.

The encryption setup banner

On a device that hasn’t been set up yet, a coloured bar sits across the top of the Pia window — on every screen, not just Settings:

End-to-end encryption setup required to sync your data. · Set up now

It means this device is signed in to an account that uses E2EE but doesn’t hold the encryption key yet. Nothing syncs while the bar is up. Your chats, todos and memories still work locally; they just don’t leave or reach this device.

Click Set up now to open End-to-End Encryption Setup, which offers two ways in:

Choice	Use it when
Approve from another device	You have another device with Pia already set up. It transfers the key to this one. Click Wait for approval, then approve on the other device.
Use recovery code	No approved device is available. Click Enter recovery code, type the code you saved, and click Activate.

While waiting for approval, this device shows Your device fingerprint — a short code. On the other device, go to Settings → Account and click Check for device requests; compare the fingerprint before approving. When it goes through you’ll see Device activated! and the sync begins.

If you have neither an approved device nor the code, the encrypted data cannot be recovered — see Recovery Code.

Next Steps

Ready to start chatting? Head to Your First Conversation to learn the basics.

For a side-by-side of what leaves your device in each setup, see Where your data goes.