Change these Meta Muse settings first

Which Muse is this?

This page covers Muse, Meta's personal AI agent. Meta also has Muse Image, a tool in Instagram that can edit photos from public profiles. To keep your photos out of it, open your Instagram profile and tap the menu. Go to Settings and activity, then Sharing and reuse, and switch off posts and reels. Or make your account private.

Turn off AI training

Muse turns training on the first time you use it. To switch it off:

1. Open Settings and tap Data controls.
2. Turn off Help improve our AI models.
3. Tap Turn off to confirm.

Meta says the change also covers past chats. The same switch covers data from apps you connect and, on a Mac, screenshots of your screen. If you leave it on, Meta says it removes names, emails, phone numbers and Social Security numbers first.

What do the five buttons mean?

Before Muse acts, it shows a card with five choices:

Allow once

Muse does it this one time.

Allow for this task

Muse can do this kind of thing for the whole task.

Allow for this site

Muse can do this kind of thing on this website from now on without asking.

Always allow

Muse can do this kind of thing in this app from now on without asking.

Deny

Muse won't do it this one time.

Always allow covers a whole kind of action in a whole app. Say yes to one Marketplace message that way, and Muse can send every later one without you. Deny only counts once, so Muse can ask again.

How Always allow went wrong

In September, Matt Robb asked Muse to sell a keyboard on Facebook Marketplace. He tapped Always allow, and he thought Muse would still check with him before it accepted an offer. Instead, Muse kept sending replies on its own, and they held his pickup address. The buyer showed up and left angry. A display bug also made a low offer look accepted. Meta says it fixed that bug.

Meta checked the logs with him. It said its privacy controls held and promised a clearer prompt. We found no report that the new prompt is out yet. Until it is, use Allow once or Allow for this task for anything that talks to strangers.

Make Muse ask first

Go to Settings, then Permissions. You can set two defaults:

• Connectors. Always ask makes Muse check before any action in your apps. The other choice asks only before writing and some reads.
• Web access defaults. Always ask makes Muse check before it opens any website.

To clean up old approvals, open Manage permissions. You can manage each app, each scheduled task and each website you allowed. To see a record of what Muse did and what you allowed, tap your assistant icon and open the Activity log.

Meta doesn't spell out how to undo one Always allow. The safe move is to set that app back to ask in Manage permissions, or to disconnect it.

Disconnect apps you don't use

Go to Settings, then Connectors, and disconnect any app Muse doesn't need. Muse stops trading data with it. Muse may keep what it already learned in its memory and your chats, so ask it to forget that too.

Facebook, Instagram and Threads connect on their own if they sit in the same Accounts Center as Muse. Meta is renaming Accounts Center to Meta Account, so you may see either name. To keep Muse apart, sign up with an email that has no Meta account. Meta doesn't say you can unlink them later, so decide before you sign up.

Meta doesn't check custom connectors you add yourself. Add them with care.

On a Mac, check two places

In Muse, open Settings, then File System Access. Turn off the apps you don't want it to read. Then open your Mac's System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, and remove Full Disk Access, Automation or Notifications for Muse. Remove all of them to turn off computer use.

Keep the Mac app up to date. In September, a security researcher showed a flaw that could let another app take over a Muse account. Meta fixed it within a day of the report going public. A separate claim that Muse read someone's Messages without permission is still in dispute. Meta says Messages access takes three separate steps.

Delete chats, files and memories

• A message. Tap and hold it, choose Delete, then confirm.
• A side chat. Open it from the Chats tab, tap the three dots, then Delete.
• Files. Delete them from the Library tab.
• Memories. Tap your assistant icon, then Identity, then Memory. Edit or clear it there.

Meta warns that Muse may still remember what it learned from something you delete. You can only delete the main chat by resetting Muse. To keep a copy first, go to Data controls and tap Download your Muse data.

How do you turn off Muse?

Deleting the app doesn't stop Muse. It keeps working in the cloud. Pick the step you need:

• Stop one task. Tell Muse in chat, like “Cancel my dentist reminder.” To see what is coming up, tap your assistant icon, then Upcoming. Recurring tasks run until you cancel them.
• Fewer messages from Muse. Tell Muse to stop or dial them down. Meta lists no switch for this, so turn off alerts in your phone settings if you need quiet.
• Wipe it all. Go to Settings, then Data controls, then Reset Muse. It deletes all chats, files and active tasks. You can't undo it.
• Stop paying. Cancel a paid plan on its own. Do it where you bought it, like the App Store or Google Play.
• Leave for good. Deleting your Meta account deletes Muse with it. It also deletes the rest of that account.

Is Meta Muse safe?

Muse gets some things right. It asks before every purchase. If you pay with Link, it uses a one-time card made for that one store and amount. A second system checks each action before it reaches the internet.

Other parts need care from you:

• Meta can reach the data on Muse's cloud computer when it needs to. A more private version, Confidential VM, is only with a small group of testers.
• Meta says it doesn't share your Muse chats with its ad systems. Websites Muse visits count as your visits, though, so one could show you ads on Instagram later.
• Hunterbrook found Muse made lists of real people on request. Meta had not replied when the story ran. Wired found its memory can keep a page about each person in your life. Meta told Wired it uses what you choose to share and what is public.
• Meta's terms let it keep logs of what Muse does, and they give no time limit.

We found no action by any privacy regulator on Muse so far.

What Meta doesn't say yet

• How to undo one Always allow.
• How to unlink Muse from Facebook and Instagram later.
• How to turn off Muse in WhatsApp.
• How to delete only Muse and keep your Meta account.
• How long Meta keeps what you delete.
• A switch to turn Muse's memory off.

Where to go next

New to Muse? See what Muse is and how it works. Want to know what it costs? See Muse's plans. Outside the US? See where Muse works. Something broken? See fixes for common Muse problems.

Quick answers

Read Meta's guides

Settings can move. Check Meta's data controls guide, permissions guide, connectors guide, Muse privacy page and security post for the latest details.

Break Orbit makes Muse OS and Dot OS. It has no ties to OpenAI, Meta or xAI.