Privacy &
data handling.

Choose your processing path.

Default Local uses Apple Speech and Apple Foundation Models on your Mac after the required assets are available. Default Raw uses Apple Speech and applies your replacements without model cleanup. Apple may download speech or model assets.

Default Online sends audio and recognition context, including configured vocabulary, directly to OpenAI for transcription. OpenAI cleanup receives transcript text and cleanup instructions. Your OpenAI API key stays in macOS Keychain and is sent to OpenAI to authenticate those requests.

Advanced or imported settings can change providers. The profile name alone does not determine where data goes. Check the actual processing destinations in Settings, the menu, and the recording display.

Local recovery does not undo a cloud request.

Eligible temporary Online failures can recover using Apple providers. Plainlet keeps earlier OpenAI attempts visible. Recovery cannot retract audio or text already sent to OpenAI. Missing or rejected keys, account, billing, permission, and configuration problems remain visible for you to resolve.

Audio stays temporarily on your Mac.

Plainlet records temporary audio while push-to-talk is active. Successful, cancelled, and no-speech recordings are deleted. Audio from actual processing failures is retained locally for recovery for 24 hours by default, configurable from 1 to 168 hours.

Interrupted recordings are handled when dictation services next start. Purging is best effort while those services run; sleep, a stopped app, settings recovery, or filesystem errors can delay deletion. The app does not separately encrypt these audio files.

No persistent transcript archive.

Plainlet keeps the final text and transcript before model cleanup from the last successful dictation in memory. Both already include your vocabulary replacements. They remain until another successful result replaces them, you use Clear Last Result, or you quit.

Successful text goes to the system clipboard. Clearing the last result in Plainlet does not clear your clipboard or a clipboard manager’s history. Other software with clipboard access may observe it.

Your personalization is stored locally.

Vocabulary, replacement rules, and settings remain on your Mac. Exported settings contain your personalization and any existing custom cleanup instructions, so keep them private. Exports omit API keys and recordings. Migration backups and originals explicitly preserved during settings recovery remain until you delete them.

Diagnostics exclude dictated content.

The app keeps a bounded report of timings, provider categories, and classified outcomes in memory. Reports exclude transcripts, final text, API keys, and prompt bodies containing dictation. Copying a report is explicit; the app does not upload reports or product analytics automatically.

Online has its own provider data controls.

Plainlet requests that OpenAI cleanup responses are not stored, but that is not a promise of zero retention by OpenAI. Review OpenAI’s data controls and your account settings before using Online for sensitive material.

This website and future purchases.

This prelaunch site contains no analytics, advertising scripts, email signup form, or purchase flow. A hosting provider may process ordinary request information, such as your IP address and requested page, to serve and protect the website.

Purchase, refund, and support privacy details will be published with the configured checkout and contact services before sales open.