Jan Data Folder

Jan stores your data locally in JSON format. Your data is yours alone.

Open Jan Data Folder

Via Jan:

Settings > General
Click on the Change Location button.

Open Jan Data Folder

Via Terminal:

# Windows
cd %APPDATA%/Jan/data

# Mac
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Jan/data

# Linux
cd $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Jan/data  # Custom install
cd ~/.config/Jan/data         # Default install

Directory Structure

/assistants/
  /jan/
    assistant.json
/engines/
  /llama.cpp/
/extensions/
  extensions.json
/@janhq/
  /assistant-extension/
    /conversational-extension/
    /download-extension/
    /engine-management-extension/
    /hardware-management-extension/
    /inference-cortex-extension/
    /model-extension/
/files/
/logs/
  app.log
/models/
  /huggingface.co/
    /Model_Provider_A/
      /Model_A
        model_A.gguf
        model_A.yaml
/threads/
  /thread_A/
    messages.jsonl
    thread.json

`assistants/`

Where AI personalities live. The default one (/assistants/jan/):

{
  "avatar": "👋",
  "id": "jan",
  "object": "assistant",
  "created_at": 1750945742.536,
  "name": "Jan",
  "description": "Jan is a helpful AI assistant that can use tools and help complete tasks for its users.",
  "model": "*",
  "instructions": "You have access to a set of tools to help you answer the user’s question. You can use only one tool per message, and you’ll receive the result of that tool in the user’s next response. To complete a task, use tools step by step—each step should be guided by the outcome of the previous one.\nTool Usage Rules:\n1. Always provide the correct values as arguments when using tools. Do not pass variable names—use actual values instead.\n2. You may perform multiple tool steps to complete a task.\n3. Avoid repeating a tool call with exactly the same parameters to prevent infinite loops.",
  "tools": [
    {
      "type": "retrieval",
      "enabled": false,
      "useTimeWeightedRetriever": false,
      "settings": {
        "top_k": 2,
        "chunk_size": 1024,
        "chunk_overlap": 64,
        "retrieval_template": "Use the following pieces of context to answer the question at the end.\n----------------\nCONTEXT: {CONTEXT}\n----------------\nQUESTION: {QUESTION}\n----------------\nHelpful Answer:"
      }
    }
  ],
  "file_ids": []
}

Parameters:

Parameter	Description	Type	Default
id	Assistant identifier	string	jan
avatar	Assistant image	string	None
object	OpenAI API compatibility marker	string	None
created_at	Creation timestamp	string	None
name	Display name	string	Jan
description	Role description	string	Default
model	Allowed models (* = all)	string	*
instructions	Default thread instructions	string	None
file_ids	OpenAI compatibility field	string	None
tools	Available tools (retrieval only currently)	array	retrieval
type	Tool type	string	retrieval
enabled	Tool status	boolean	true
useTimeWeightedRetriever	Time-weighted retrieval toggle	boolean	false
settings	Tool configuration	object	None
top_k	Max retrieval results	number	2
chunk_size	Text chunk size	number	1024
chunk_overlap	Chunk overlap amount	number	64
retrieval_template	Response format template	string	None

`extensions/`

Add-on central. Organization extensions live in @janhq/, solo ones in root.

`logs/`

Debugging headquarters (/logs/app.txt):

[APP]: Core logs
[SERVER]: API drama
[SPECS]: Hardware confessions

`models/`

The silicon brain collection. Each model has its own model.json.

`threads/`

Chat archive. Each thread (/threads/jan_unixstamp/) contains:

messages.jsonl:

  {
    "completed_at": 0,
    "content": [
      {
        "text": {
          "annotations": [],
          "value": "Hello! I can help you with various tasks. I can search for information on the internet, including news, videos, images, shopping, and more. I can also scrape webpages to extract specific information. Let me know what you need!"
        },
        "type": "text"
      }
    ],
    "created_at": 1751012639307,
    "id": "01JYR7S0JB5ZBGMJV52KWMW5VW",
    "metadata": {
      "assistant": {
        "avatar": "👋",
        "id": "jan",
        "instructions": "You have access to a set of tools to help you answer the user's question. You can use only one tool per message, and you'll receive the result of that tool in the user's next response. To complete a task, use tools step by step—each step should be guided by the outcome of the previous one.\nTool Usage Rules:\n1. Always provide the correct values as arguments when using tools. Do not pass variable names—use actual values instead.\n2. You may perform multiple tool steps to complete a task.\n3. Avoid repeating a tool call with exactly the same parameters to prevent infinite loops.",
        "name": "Jan",
        "parameters": ""
      },
      "tokenSpeed": {
        "lastTimestamp": 1751012637097,
        "message": "01JYR7S0GW5M9PSHMRE7T8VQJM",
        "tokenCount": 49,
        "tokenSpeed": 22.653721682847895
      }
    },
    "object": "thread.message",
    "role": "assistant",
    "status": "ready",
    "thread_id": "8f2c9922-db49-4d1e-8620-279c05baf2d0",
    "type": "text"
  }

thread.json:

Parameter	Description
assistants	Assistant configuration clone
created	Creation timestamp
id	Thread identifier
metadata	Additional thread data
model	Active model settings
object	OpenAI compatibility marker
title	Thread name
updated	Updated timestamp

Delete Jan Data

Uninstall guides: Mac, Windows, or Linux.