Questions
Is Mac dictation private? It depends which one you mean
There is no single answer, because "Mac dictation" covers Apple's built-in feature and a dozen third-party apps that behave completely differently. Here is how to find out about yours.
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What "private" is doing in that sentence
Privacy in dictation is really four separate questions, and vendors tend to answer the easiest one and let you assume the rest.
- Is the audio transmitted? This is the architectural question, and the only one with a yes-or-no answer you can verify yourself.
- Is it stored? A vendor can transmit audio, transcribe it and delete it immediately. Better than keeping it; not the same as never sending it.
- Is it used for training? Usually a setting, sometimes a default, occasionally buried.
- What is kept on your own disk? Most dictation apps keep a local history. Better than a server, but not nothing — especially on a shared machine.
Only the first is architecture. The other three are policy, and policy can change with a release note.
Apple's built-in dictation
Apple's own guidance tells Mac users to check Keyboard settings to see whether your voice inputs and transcripts for general text Dictation … are processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers
, and notes that this varies by language and region.
That sentence is more useful than any article, including this one, because it is specific to your Mac and your language. Go and read it:
- System Settings → Keyboard Scroll to the Dictation section.
- Read the text under the toggle It states whether processing for your language happens on the device.
- Click "About Ask Siri, Dictation & Privacy" Apple's full statement, which is worth two minutes of anyone's time.
Third-party dictation apps
Here the spread is enormous, and the language used is frequently ambiguous on purpose. Some examples of what different vendors actually say on their own pages:
- Explicitly cloud. Wispr Flow's privacy page states that
transcription always happens in the cloud to provide the best speed and accuracy
. That is admirably clear, and it means the audio leaves your machine every time. - Explicitly local. VoiceInk says voice data
never leaves your Mac
, and its source is on GitHub so the claim can be checked rather than believed. VV recognises standard dictation on your Mac by default. - Deliberately ambiguous. Phrases like "processed securely", "zero retention", "never stored in the cloud" and "enterprise-grade encryption" all describe what happens after a transfer. None of them says the transfer did not occur, and several vendors rely on you not noticing.
The two-minute test
- Finish first-run setup with the internet on Local apps download a model once. That is expected.
- Turn Wi-Fi off Properly off, not merely disconnected.
- Dictate a sentence into Notes Ten seconds is plenty.
- Look at the screen Text means local recognition. An error or silence means it was going somewhere.
For the thorough version — watching which processes open connections while you dictate — see does dictation upload your audio.
What stays on your Mac, and whether that is fine
Local does not mean invisible. Most dictation apps keep a history so you can recover a dictation that went wrong, and many keep the audio with it. VV does, for a retention period you choose.
On a personal, FileVault-encrypted Mac that is a reasonable trade: the history is genuinely useful and it is protected by the same thing protecting everything else. On a shared machine, a family computer or a laptop that travels, shorten the retention and turn on FileVault. It is the one privacy decision a dictation app hands to you rather than making for you.
A five-minute privacy check on any dictation app
- Run the aeroplane-mode test and record the result.
- Find the vendor's actual sentence about where transcription happens — not the marketing headline.
- Check whether a local history exists, where it lives, and how long it is kept.
- Check whether audio is kept alongside the text.
- Check the training setting, and whether its default is on.
- Turn FileVault on, which protects the local history whatever the app does.
Where these facts came from
Anything stated about another product was read on that product's own site or documentation on the date shown, and is re-checked at least quarterly. If something below has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
- Apple tells Mac users to check Keyboard settings to see "whether your voice inputs and transcripts for general text Dictation … are processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers," and notes this varies by language and region. source, checked .
- Wispr Flow states that "Transcription always happens in the cloud to provide the best speed and accuracy." source, checked .
Questions
Does Apple record my dictation?
Apple's own settings panel tells you whether your voice input for your language is processed on the device rather than sent to Siri servers, and its "About Ask Siri, Dictation & Privacy" page sets out what happens when it is not. Read those two rather than any third-party summary, including this one.
Is a dictation app that says "private" actually private?
The word alone tells you nothing; it is not a regulated term. The claim to look for is where transcription happens. The check to run is the aeroplane-mode test, which cannot be faked by a marketing page.
Is VV private?
Standard dictation is recognised on your Apple Silicon Mac and the audio is not uploaded. The internet is needed for the first-run model download, and for an optional rewrite step if you deliberately point it at a cloud provider — which the app labels when you do. A local history of your dictations is kept on your disk for a retention period you set.
Can my employer see what I dictate?
Not through the dictation app, if recognition is local. But a managed Mac may have monitoring software of its own, and anything you dictate into a company system is in that system. Local dictation protects the audio in transit; it does not make what you wrote private from the place you wrote it.
What about the optional cloud rewrite features?
That is the one people miss. Many local-first apps, including ours, offer a rewrite step that can be pointed at a cloud model. When it is, the text of that dictation is sent — not the audio, and not anything else. Check the default, and check whether the app tells you which transforms are cloud ones.