Can I use my own API key in an AI journal?

Verified against Everglow 1.5 on 10 October 2026.

Two bills, kept separate

With your own key, Everglow charges for the app and your AI provider charges for the AI work. Everglow is not part of the provider’s billing.

• The app: free to download, with 7 journal entries and 10 companion chat turns to try it. Everglow Unlimited is a one-time purchase, $9.99 in the US, that removes both limits permanently. Prices vary by storefront, and the app shows the current one.
• The AI: requests go to your provider under your key, and the provider bills that usage to your account at its own rates. Everglow adds no fee per request.
• Not needed: Everglow Cloud, the optional hosted-AI subscription, or an Everglow account. Everglow doesn’t ask you to create one.

Unlimited means unlimited entries and companion chat turns. It does not include hosted AI, and it does not pay for your provider’s usage.

Which providers and models

Everglow 1.5 supports four providers. Each one uses a single fixed model, shown under its name in the app. There is no model picker, and other providers or self-hosted models can’t be added.

To estimate what you’ll pay, look these models up on your provider’s pricing page.

How to set it up

You can choose your own key during first-run setup:

1. On the setup step that offers three ways to run the AI, tap A cloud model, the option for bringing your own key.
2. Pick Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini or OpenAI.
3. The first time you choose a cloud engine, a one-time sheet titled Use a cloud model? explains that the entries the model reads are sent to that provider, and links each provider’s privacy policy. Confirm to continue, or tap Not now.
4. Paste your key and tap Save & continue. Everglow checks the key with the provider before saving it and tells you if the key isn’t valid or the provider can’t be reached. That check carries no journal text.

On an iPhone without enough memory for the on-device model, setup goes straight to the list of cloud options.

To add a key later or change providers, open Settings, and under Privacy & Data tap the row that names your current engine. In the AI ENGINE list, choose a provider, paste its key in the field that opens and tap Save. You can switch engines at any time. Keys for several providers can be saved side by side, so switching back to one doesn’t ask for its key again.

What gets sent, and what doesn’t

Your journal archive stays on your iPhone, and the search that finds relevant entries runs there too. Each AI request carries the context one task needs and goes from your iPhone straight to the provider’s API. It does not pass through an Everglow server.

• Saving an entry: Everglow reads it in the background with several requests, for its summary, the people and places in it, facts, relationships, dates and topics. Each carries that entry’s text, and some also carry the names Everglow already knows so it can match them.
• Asking a question: your question and the entries the search found go to the provider in small batches so the model can judge which are relevant, and up to 12 of them are used to write the answer. Long entries are cut to an excerpt around the match.
• Chatting with the companion: your message, the recent conversation, the companion’s instructions and a short context block with brief summaries of related entries and notes on people you mention.
• Background writing: a person’s page is written from what several entries say about them, and a monthly summary from that month’s entry summaries.
• Bulk work: when Everglow offers to re-read older entries after an update, the offer says it will send them through your provider, one call each, using your own API credit. An import’s review screen names the engine that will process it.

The whole archive is never sent in a single request, and your key goes only to the provider it belongs to. Everglow never uses your writing to train any model. What the provider does with the requests it receives is set by its own terms.

Where the key is kept

The key is saved in the iOS Keychain and set to stay on this iPhone. It isn’t synced through iCloud Keychain, isn’t part of Everglow’s optional iCloud backup, and doesn’t move to a new iPhone, where you paste it again. Everglow 1.5 has no separate button to delete a key: paste a new one to replace it, switch engines to stop using it, or revoke it in your provider’s dashboard to disable it everywhere.

Three engines compared

The trade-offs

• Your writing leaves your iPhone. The context each request needs goes to your provider, and that provider’s privacy policy and API terms apply, not Everglow’s. Check how it handles retention and training before you start.
• You manage the key and the bill. If your provider offers spending limits or alerts, set them: an import or a re-read of older entries makes many requests in a row.
• AI features need a connection. For offline AI, use the on-device model, which is slower and depends on your iPhone.
• One model per provider. You can’t choose a larger or different model inside Everglow 1.5.

Read more

• Where your writing goes with each AI engine
• Free limits, Unlimited and Cloud
• Running the AI on your iPhone instead
• Is an AI journal private?