Dictation for confidential work

Where does the audio go? Many dictation services transcribe in the cloud, which means a provider processes, and may store, what you say. That can be perfectly acceptable with the right agreements in place. It's also a question you have to be able to answer for a client file, a therapy note or an unnamed source.

With SayWrite the answer is short: nowhere. Speech recognition runs on your Mac's Neural Engine, the temporary recording is deleted once it's transcribed, and AI Polish runs on Apple's on-device model or your own server at 127.0.0.1.

• Lawyers and legal staff: memos, emails and notes on privileged matters.
• Therapists, counselors and clinicians: drafting notes and letters without a cloud processor in the loop.
• Journalists: notes and drafts that might identify sources.
• HR, finance and executives: personnel matters, deal notes, board materials.

1. Decide on History. It's stored only on your Mac, but you can keep it for as little as 7 days, or turn it off entirely. Password managers are always excluded.
2. Choose your AI, or none. AI is off by default. If you turn it on, Apple's on-device model needs no server; Ollama or LM Studio run on your Mac at 127.0.0.1.
3. Update checks. SayWrite checks GitHub once a day for updates, sending nothing you've said or written. If your policy requires no automatic connections, turn it off in Settings › General.
4. Protect the Mac itself. On-device data is only as safe as the device: use FileVault, a strong login password and your organization's device management.

The security page documents every component, the only three network connections and how to verify them with a firewall or lsof. The privacy policy lists exactly what's stored and where.