Privacy

Your voice and your words

Voice Engineering transcribes speech on your Mac: with Apple’s speech engine on macOS 26 and later, and with Parakeet, a speech model that runs on your Mac, on macOS 14 and 15. What you say is typed into the app you’re using and saved in History on your Mac. You can limit or turn off History in Settings.

None of this, audio or text, is sent to us.

Arabic

Arabic is recognized by Apple’s speech recognition. Until the Arabic Dictation language is installed on your Mac, it may use Apple’s speech service: your audio is sent to Apple to be transcribed, under Apple’s privacy policy. To keep Arabic on your Mac, add Arabic as a Dictation language in System Settings ▸ Keyboard.

Or choose High accuracy for Arabic in Settings ▸ Language: the app downloads an open Arabic speech model once (see 05) and transcribes Arabic with it on your Mac. If that model stops early, Apple’s recognizer reads the same recording only when it can do so on your Mac, never through Apple’s service.

Gemini, if you choose it

Gemini is an optional cloud engine that uses your own Google AI Studio API key, kept in your Mac’s Keychain. When you use it, the audio of each dictation and up to 100 phrases from your dictionary (so it spells them right) are sent to Google’s Gemini API, under Google’s terms. Nothing goes to Google unless you choose Gemini.

The update check

A few times a day, the app asks our server whether there is a new version. With that check it sends:

A random install ID, made on your Mac the first time the app runs. It isn’t linked to your name, email or Apple account.
The app’s version and build.
Your macOS version.
Your language setting, such as English, Arabic or Match keyboard.
Your Mac’s chip type.

We use these to count installs and to see which versions are still in use. You can turn this anonymous counting off in Settings ▸ Privacy. The app then only downloads the public release information, the same file anyone can read, and sends none of the above.

Model downloads

Speech models are downloaded once, then run on your Mac:

English on macOS 14 and 15 (or if you choose Parakeet in Settings): the first time you open the app it downloads the Parakeet speech model, about 470 MB, from Hugging Face.
Arabic, high accuracy, only if you choose it: Cohere’s open Arabic speech model, about 1.6 GB, from Hugging Face. You can delete it in Settings ▸ Language.
On macOS 26 and later, macOS downloads Apple’s own speech models from Apple when a language needs one.

As with any download, the host sees your IP address and the request, and its privacy policy applies. Nothing about you is sent with these downloads.

Feedback reports

When you send a report, from this website or from the app, we receive:

What you write and the kind of report (a problem, an idea or something else).
Your email address, only if you give one, so we can reply.
The app and macOS versions. Reports from the app also include your Mac’s chip type, and the install ID when anonymous counting is on.
Diagnostics, only if you choose to include them: the app’s settings, which permissions it has, recent lines from its log and the latest crash report.

Reports never include your dictations: no audio, no text you dictated, and no History.

Our server and this website

The website, the update check and reports run on Cloudflare Pages. Cloudflare carries the traffic and so sees IP addresses, as any host does. Our code doesn’t store IP addresses.

To stop spam, the report form counts reports per hour under a one-way, salted hash of the IP address. The hash changes every hour, can’t be turned back into the address, and is deleted within two hours. The download link counts downloads per day, as a single number.

This website sets no cookies for visitors, uses no analytics, ads or trackers, and loads nothing from other sites.

How long we keep things

The update-check record: install ID, versions, language setting and chip	Deleted automatically 12 months after your Mac’s last check
Daily activity: install ID, date and version	12 months
Feedback reports, with any email address and diagnostics	12 months, or sooner if you ask
The report form’s spam counter	About two hours
Download count	A number per day, with nothing about you
History, dictionary and settings	On your Mac only, for as long as you keep them

Deleting your data

To have a report deleted, ask through the report form and tell us the email address you used, or roughly when you sent it.

The update-check record isn’t linked to your name or email, so we can’t find it that way. Turning off anonymous counting stops it, and the record is deleted automatically 12 months after the last check.

Changes and questions

If anything here changes, we’ll update this page and its date. Questions are welcome through the report form.

Transcribed on your Mac

A random ID, no names

Gemini and reports

No IP addresses kept