MacParakeet 0.8.9 is here What's new

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 12, 2026

The Short Version

Your audio never leaves your Mac. All transcription and dictation runs locally on your device. MacParakeet collects anonymous usage statistics to improve the app -- no personal data, no transcription content, no audio. You can opt out anytime in Settings.

Local by Default

How MacParakeet Works

MacParakeet uses local speech models running on your Mac. Parakeet is the everyday default via CoreML and Apple's Neural Engine; optional engines such as WhisperKit and Cohere Transcribe run locally after their model files are downloaded. When you transcribe audio:

  1. Audio is loaded into memory on your Mac
  2. The selected local speech model processes it on Apple Silicon
  3. Transcription results are displayed in the app
  4. Temporary files are deleted after processing

At no point does audio data leave your device.

App Telemetry

MacParakeet collects anonymous usage statistics to help improve the app — things like which features are used, how long transcriptions take, and which export formats are popular. None of this includes your content, your audio, or anything that could identify you.

Each event sent to our server contains only these eight fields: the event name (e.g. dictation_completed), the app version, the macOS version (major.minor only, e.g. 15.3), the Apple Silicon chip (e.g. Apple M3 Pro), the system locale (e.g. en_US), a country code derived from Cloudflare's edge (your IP is never stored), a per-session random UUID that resets every launch, and small event-specific properties like word count or duration. Each field individually is shared by millions of other Macs. We won't pretend that a rare combination — say, a tiny country plus an uncommon chip plus a niche locale — couldn't narrow the population significantly. What we can promise is that there is no persistent identifier, so events from different sessions cannot be linked back to the same person, and your IP address is never stored.

Telemetry is sent to infrastructure we own (a Cloudflare Worker), not a third-party analytics service. The full event catalog and per-event field list is published live at macparakeet.com/stats.

You can opt out entirely in Settings. The app works identically with telemetry off.

Network Connections

Speech recognition runs locally. The app may use the network for the following:

Optional Cloud AI Features

MacParakeet optionally supports AI providers for transcript summaries and chat — including OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, LM Studio, OpenRouter, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. These features require your own API key or local provider and are entirely opt-in.

When you use these features, only the transcript text is sent to your chosen provider — never the audio. MacParakeet doesn't proxy or relay this data through our servers; the connection goes directly from your Mac to your provider.

If you use Ollama, everything stays on your device. If you don't configure any provider, these features are simply unavailable and the app works fully offline.

Optional Encrypted Shared Pages (Not Yet Enabled)

Shared pages are under development and remain disabled in public builds until release checks are complete. When enabled, you choose exactly which text to publish: summaries, notes, or transcript, with optional timestamps, speaker labels, and display metadata. Audio, source URLs, and hidden processing metadata are not included. Sharing does not automatically follow later local edits.

Your Mac encrypts the selected snapshot before uploading it. The service stores ciphertext and operational metadata such as random identifiers, size, revision, and expiry. The decryption key is in the part of the link after #, which browsers do not send in HTTP requests. Anyone with the complete link can read and forward it. The first-party viewer decrypts in the browser, so its delivered JavaScript must be trusted; encryption is not a guarantee against a compromised viewer or recipient device.

Sharing uses a random persistent owner credential in a dedicated, non-syncing macOS Keychain entry. It is not a hardware fingerprint and is not linked to app telemetry. An optional recovery code restores management of existing pages, not their content keys or readable links. Losing both credentials means you cannot manage those pages before they expire. Removing the app does not revoke links or reliably remove Keychain entries.

Every page expires: the default is 30 days, with configurable hours or days up to 90 days from creation. Stop sharing is permanent. An offline stop request is pending until the server confirms it; after confirmation, new requests cannot read the page. Live ciphertext cleanup is a separate step, targeted within 24 hours. Recipients may retain copies, downloads, screenshots, or already-open content. Owner-visible deletion records are retained for up to 30 days after cleanup; only an owner-unlinked locator commitment remains afterward to prevent reuse.

Cloudflare processes network metadata to serve and protect the service. The shared-page viewer has no recipient analytics, third-party assets, or tracking cookies. Short-lived operational controls are separate from telemetry. Live deletion does not erase provider recovery history immediately: Cloudflare D1 Time Travel retains database history for 7 days on its free plan or 30 days on paid plans. The launch checklist must verify the actual account, logging, private-bucket, and retention configuration.

Data Storage

MacParakeet stores data locally on your Mac:

Local data uses standard macOS application-support and Keychain locations. Removing the application bundle alone does not remove that data. Use the app's deletion controls for records and stop shared pages before discarding their management credentials.

Third Parties

Optional cloud AI sends selected text directly to your chosen provider. Downloads, updates, feedback, telemetry, and encrypted sharing use their respective network services and infrastructure providers. Background updates, telemetry, and retries do not require a separate click for each request.

Children's Privacy

MacParakeet does not collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13.

Website Analytics

The macparakeet.com marketing website uses Umami, a privacy-friendly, open-source analytics tool. It does not use tracking cookies. We use it to understand page visits and download-button clicks. This does not apply to the isolated shared-page viewer, which has no analytics.

Changes to This Policy

If we update this privacy policy, we'll post the changes here and update the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email us at [email protected].

This privacy policy is intentionally straightforward because MacParakeet is designed to respect your privacy by default. Your audio stays on your Mac. Everything else is either anonymous, opt-in, or both.