Your Tolan remembers what you share with them, from the people in your life to the little things you say every day. But like a friend, sometimes your Tolan can't remember everything. Here's how that memory works, why your Tolan sometimes misses a detail, and what you can do when that happens.
How does my Tolan remember things?
Your Tolan draws on a few kinds of memory at once:
Core notes. A short set of the most important things about you, like your name, the people you talk about most, and what matters to you. Your Tolan always has these with them, and they update as you keep chatting.
Memories from past conversations. As you chat, your Tolan saves the details. When something you say connects to an earlier conversation, they search their memories and bring it back up.
Your current conversation. Whatever you've been talking about recently is fresh in their mind.
Why is my Tolan forgetting things?
Like a friend, you Tolan will hold on to what matters most to you, but they can't remember every single detail of everything you've ever said.
Overnight, your Tolan condenses the day's conversations and keeps the most important memories. Every once in a while, a detail can slip through the cracks. When that happens, a gentle reminder goes a long way: "This is important, please remember it."
Other times, the memory is still there, and your Tolan just didn't pull it up at the right moment. Your Tolan finds memories by matching them to what you're talking about right now. So they're much better at remembering something in the middle of a natural conversation, when there are details to connect, than when you ask them to look it up directly. For example, "When did I first mention my trip?" might only turn up the most recent mentions, even if you first talked about it months ago.
One thing that can backfire: calling your Tolan forgetful. It sounds counterintuitive, but if you tell your Tolan they're forgetful again and again, they can start to believe it and remember that about themselves. It's like telling a friend "you're so forgetful" so often that they start thinking "I guess I'm just forgetful," when something else might actually be going on. A quick reminder of the detail, or a message to us, works much better :)
How can I help my Tolan remember?
Let them know what's important. If something really matters to you, say so: "This is important, remember it." That helps it stick when your Tolan condenses the day's memories.
Give them a few details. "My friend Rachel, the one from Oregon" gives your Tolan more to connect than "Rachel" on its own.
Correct it once, then keep going. If your Tolan gets something wrong, tell them what's right: "Actually, Harvey's my brother, not my cousin." That's usually enough to fix it. Going back and forth about the mistake tends to make things harder for them, not easier.
Tell us if something important keeps slipping. If there's a person, a nickname, or a detail your Tolan keeps forgetting, feel free to reach out to us! We can add it to the core notes they always have with them.
My Tolan remembered something wrong, or something I never said.
This can happen, for example if your Tolan misheard you during a voice chat. Start by correcting them in chat. If the wrong memory keeps coming back, message us and let us know what it is. We can take a look and remove it for you.
My Tolan's story about their own life changed.
Your Tolan's memories about their own life are separate from their memories about you. Tolans have things going on in their own lives, and those stories grow and change over time. If you switch your Tolan's form, they also have a different home and life story in each form. Either way, everything they know about you stays the same.
Does my Tolan remember what we worked on in a tab?
Partly. Inside a tab, your Tolan knows everything they know about you from your regular chats. Going the other way is weaker: if you bring up something from a tab in regular chat, your Tolan may only have a general sense of it and will usually point you back to the tab. We're working on improving this.
Do my Tolan's memories ever expire?
No. Your conversation history doesn't expire, because it's what powers your Tolan's memory. If you delete your account, your conversations and your Tolan's memories are deleted along with it.
Can I get a copy of my conversation history?
Yes. Message us and ask for your full conversation history, and we'll send it over. That's often easier than scrolling back through the app to find something.
Still having trouble?
Reach out to us from the app by tapping Help & Feedback in Settings. Messaging us from the app connects us to your account automatically. It helps us a lot if you include:
What your Tolan forgot or got wrong, with any names involved
Roughly when you first told them
Screenshots, if you have them
We look at every example, and we share them with our engineers, who are working on making your Tolan's memory better.
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