How do I turn on Privacy Lock?

Goal

Stop everything Nova sends out with one switch, and turn the lock off again.

Before you start

• Nothing special. Turning it off by voice needs local speech recognition.

Steps

1. Settings, Privacy & security, the Privacy Lock tab. The tab is in Simple and in Expert.
2. Card Status. It says “Privacy Lock is off.” The button reads Turn on Privacy Lock. Then it says “Privacy Lock is on” with the time, and the button reads Turn off Privacy Lock.
3. In the menu bar: the Nova icon, item Privacy Lock (stop everything going out). While the lock is on, the item reads “Privacy Lock on — turn off”.
4. At the avatar, say or type: “Privacy Lock on” or “Privacy Lock off”. Nova switches without a model.
5. A shortcut of your own: Keyboard shortcuts, the Window & speech tab, row Privacy Lock, button Change.
6. The cards What is blocked and What continues show the full list. Blocked are, among others, cloud models, web search, cloud speech, integrations with remote access, automations, camera, and screen captures. Local models, notes, memory, and files keep going.
7. When you turn it on, Nova stops running tasks and drops open cards. Turning it off catches nothing up.
8. Card Keep after restart: on or off stays after a restart. The lock applies to this Mac only, the sync folder does not carry it.

Example

“Privacy Lock on.” Then ask a cloud model a question. Nova says that Privacy Lock blocks the request.

Common problems

• Nova understands the command in all six interface languages, for example “Privacy Lock on”, “turn off the privacy lock”, or the German “Privacy Lock an”. A question such as “Is the privacy lock on?” switches nothing.
• Under the lock the wake word is off. Speaking and turning it off by voice only work with local speech recognition. Otherwise use the menu bar or the button.
• Known limits: opening links in the macOS browser still works. MCP servers running as a local process can go online themselves.
• Privacy Lock pauses the update check and blocks downloading Ollama and models.
• If you only want no network and want to keep the microphone, use the Hybrid switch. See How does an answer stay on this Mac?