Never type these into it

Short list. Everything else is fair game.

Your Social Security number.
Your full bank account, credit card, or debit card numbers.
Any password, PIN, or security code.
Your full date of birth together with your full name.
Someone else's medical information. It isn't yours to share.
Anything a stranger could use to prove they're you.

Why

These apps keep a record of your conversations so they can pick up where you left off. That’s useful, and it means anything you type is stored somewhere that isn’t your house. Nobody is reading it looking for your information — but the safest place for these six things is nowhere.

You almost never need them anyway. You can ask about a bill without typing the account number. You can ask about a diagnosis without typing your date of birth. Take the number out and the answer will be just as good.

A note about this site

What you type into the boxes on this site never leaves your device. It isn’t sent anywhere, stored, or seen by us — the message is put together right in your browser. Once you copy it and paste it somewhere else, though, you’re on that company’s website and their rules apply.