Privacy Policy

What Stays on Your Mac

• Audio. Captured from the microphone only while you hold the dictation key (or while hands-free mode is on), kept in memory for transcription, and thrown away once the text is typed. Dict never writes audio to disk.
• Transcripts. Made by a speech model running on your Mac: Apple's built-in speech recognition, or the Parakeet model. Formatting uses the on-device Apple Intelligence model when it's available.
• History. Recent dictations are stored in a local database so you can copy them again. You choose how many to keep, or none.
• Settings and word replacements. Stored in Dict's preferences file.
• The field you dictate into. When formatting runs, Dict reads the text already in the focused field (through the Accessibility permission) and passes the names and terms it finds there to the on-device formatter, so they're spelled the way your document spells them. That text is used for one dictation and never stored or sent anywhere. You can turn this off in Settings > General.

The Only Network Connections

• Model download. The first time you choose the Parakeet engine, Dict downloads the model (about 500 MB) from Hugging Face. The request carries nothing about you.
• Update check. Once a day, and when you choose Check for Updates, Dict asks GitHub whether there's a new version. Like every update check, that request includes Dict's version and your macOS version, and nothing else.

There are no accounts, no analytics, no crash reporting and no other connections. Apple's speech engine runs on your Mac and, on macOS 26 and later, doesn't send audio to Apple.

Your License Key

Buying Dict happens on a web page in your browser, handled by Stripe. The page shows your license key, which carries the email address you bought with and the purchase date. Dict checks the key on your Mac against a public key built into the app. It never sends the key anywhere or asks a server whether it's valid. The key is stored in Dict's preferences file.

Removing Everything

Quit Dict, then delete:

• /Applications/Dict.app
• ~/Library/Application Support/FluidAudio (the Parakeet model)
• ~/Library/Preferences/birchtree.Dict-app.plist (settings)
• ~/Library/Application Support/Dict (your history)

You can remove Dict's Microphone and Accessibility permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security.

Children

Dict isn't directed at children and doesn't collect information from anyone.

Changes to This Policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date.

Questions?

Email matt@birchtree.me.