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Enable Privacy Mode in Cursor AI by navigating to Settings, clicking the Privacy tab, and toggling “Enable Privacy Mode” on. This prevents your code from being sent to external AI servers while preserving local autocomplete and editor functionality. For enterprise teams, combine privacy mode with a .cursor-settings.json workspace file to enforce consistent privacy policies across the entire development team.

Understanding Cursor AI’s Privacy Mode

When you use Cursor AI in its default configuration, code context is sent to AI servers to generate suggestions, chat responses, and autocomplete features. Privacy mode changes this behavior by processing AI requests locally or limiting what data leaves your machine.

Privacy mode in Cursor AI is designed for developers who need AI assistance but cannot send their code externally due to:

Understanding the distinction between what privacy mode prevents and what it still allows is essential for setting accurate expectations with compliance teams. Privacy mode is not equivalent to a fully air-gapped environment—Cursor itself still needs network access for authentication and updates—but it stops your source code from being included in AI inference requests sent to third-party providers.

Enabling Privacy Mode in Cursor AI

To enable privacy mode, follow these steps:

  1. Open Cursor AI and navigate to Settings (Cmd+, on Mac or Ctrl+, on Windows)

  2. Click on the Privacy tab in the left sidebar

  3. Toggle the privacy options based on your requirements

The key privacy settings include:

Settings → Privacy →
├── Enable Privacy Mode: ON
├── Disable AI Cloud Processing: ON
├── Local Code Context Only: ON
└── No Telemetry: ON

Always restart Cursor after toggling privacy mode. Settings changes apply to new sessions, not the currently running editor process.

Practical Configuration Examples

Basic Privacy Configuration

For most developers wanting maximum privacy, enable these settings:

{
  "cursor.privacy.mode": "strict",
  "cursor.privacy.cloudProcessing": false,
  "cursor.privacy.telemetry": false,
  "cursor.privacy.shareContext": false
}

Add these to your settings.json in Cursor AI:

{
  "editor.quickSuggestions": true,
  "cursor.privacy.mode": "strict",
  "cursor.privacy.cloudProcessing": false
}

Enterprise Configuration

If you’re deploying Cursor AI across an organization, create a workspace configuration file:

{
  "extensions": {
    "recommendations": ["cursor-ai.privacy-extension"]
  },
  "settings": {
    "cursor.privacy.mode": "enterprise",
    "cursor.privacy.dataResidency": "local",
    "cursor.privacy.auditLogs": true
  }
}

This configuration ensures all AI processing happens locally and maintains audit logs for compliance purposes. Commit this file to your repository so that all team members who open the workspace in Cursor receive the same privacy constraints automatically.

Team-Wide Enforcement

For organizations where individual developer settings cannot be trusted, Cursor supports machine-level configuration through managed device profiles. Work with your IT or security team to push a managed preferences file that locks privacy mode on:

{
  "cursor.privacy.mode": "strict",
  "cursor.privacy.allowOverride": false
}

Setting allowOverride to false prevents individual developers from disabling privacy mode through the settings UI, which is critical for regulated environments.

What Works in Privacy Mode

When privacy mode is enabled, certain features remain functional:

What Changes in Privacy Mode

Some AI features may be limited or unavailable:

It is worth auditing your team’s most-used Cursor features before switching to privacy mode. If your workflow depends heavily on the chat interface for code generation, you may need to evaluate whether a self-hosted model integration satisfies both your productivity and compliance needs.

Using Cursor AI Features Without Sending Code

Even with privacy mode enabled, you can use many AI features effectively:

Local Autocomplete

Privacy-aware autocomplete still provides solid suggestions:

// With privacy mode, you get local context suggestions
function calculateTotal(items) {
  // Start typing and local patterns are suggested
  return items.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);
}

Snippet-Based Assistance

Create your own snippets that work locally:

{
  "React Functional Component": {
    "prefix": "rfc",
    "body": [
      "function ${1:ComponentName}({ ${2:props} }) {",
      "  return (",
      "    <div>${3}</div>",
      "  );",
      "}",
      "export default ${1:ComponentName};"
    ]
  }
}

Building a rich personal snippet library offsets a significant portion of the productivity loss from disabling cloud AI. Focus on the patterns you reach for most often: API call wrappers, test scaffolding, component templates for your design system, and error handling boilerplate.

Local-Only Workflow Strategies

To maximize productivity in privacy mode:

  1. Build personal snippet libraries: Create reusable code patterns for your most common tasks
  2. Use keyboard shortcuts: Master Cmd/Ctrl shortcuts for efficiency
  3. Use multi-cursor editing: Use Alt+Click for bulk edits across similar code blocks
  4. Use workspace symbols: Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+O for quick navigation across files
  5. Invest in language server tooling: TypeScript’s own language server provides intelligent rename, find-references, and go-to-definition that don’t require AI

Verifying Your Privacy Settings

To confirm privacy mode is working correctly:

  1. Check the status bar in Cursor AI for privacy indicator
  2. Review network requests using developer tools
  3. Test by attempting a feature that requires cloud processing—it should fail or show a privacy warning

For a more rigorous verification, use a network proxy like Charles or mitmproxy to inspect outbound traffic from the Cursor process. In strict privacy mode, you should see no requests to AI inference endpoints. Any requests you observe should only reach Cursor’s authentication and update servers.

Comparison: Default vs Privacy Mode

Feature Default Mode Privacy Mode
Code sent to cloud Yes No
AI autocomplete Full AI Local only
Chat with AI Cloud-powered Disabled
Suggestions quality Higher Good
Speed Depends on connection Instant
Compliance ready Limited Full
Audit log support No Yes (enterprise)
Works offline No Yes

When to Use Privacy Mode

Enable privacy mode when working with:

Troubleshooting Privacy Mode

If you encounter issues after enabling privacy mode:

Suggestions not appearing: Check that local autocomplete is enabled in the general settings. Privacy mode disables cloud suggestions but should not disable the local suggestion engine.

Feature unavailable error: Verify the feature does not require cloud processing. Features that show a cloud icon in the UI require server-side inference and will not function in privacy mode.

Slow performance: Ensure your local machine meets Cursor AI requirements. With cloud offloading disabled, the local machine handles more computation. 16 GB of RAM is recommended for comfortable use.

Settings not persisting: If privacy settings reset after restart, check whether a managed device policy is overriding your preferences. Contact your IT team if this occurs.

Restart Cursor AI after changing privacy settings for changes to take effect.

Privacy mode in Cursor AI provides a practical solution for developers who need AI assistance without compromising code security. By understanding what features remain available and how to configure privacy settings appropriately, you can maintain productivity while keeping your code local. Evaluate your specific requirements, enable the appropriate privacy settings, and develop workflows that maximize the benefits of privacy-aware AI assistance.

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