Plain words about your data

The app

Audio never leaves this computer. The only network calls are the model download and the license check.

Dictate records from the microphone only while you hold the talk key or while hands free dictation is listening. The audio is handed to a speech model that runs on your own processor and the audio is dropped once the text exists. No recording is written to disk and no audio is sent to any server. Dictate has no account and no sign in and no telemetry. It does not check for updates on its own.

Dictate talks to two hosts and to nothing else. The first is huggingface.co where the speech models are published. Dictate downloads a model from there once when you choose it and stores the files in the Dictate folder on your computer. The download carries no information about you. The second is license.x4ops.com which is the x4ops license server. Dictate contacts it in four moments and sends these fields and nothing else. When the trial starts and about once a day during the trial: a hash of the machine and the trial start date and the app name and version. At activation: the key you typed and a hash of the machine and the app name and version. About once a day while licensed: a hash of the key and a hash of the machine and the app name and version. When you click Remove license: a hash of the key and a hash of the machine so the server frees the seat. Every call also carries the protocol version (the number 1) and the trial and activation and check calls carry a random request number (a nonce) that the signed reply echoes so the app can match the reply to its request. Every request also carries the app version in its User-Agent header. Like every web server license.x4ops.com sees the internet address your computer connects from. The license routes keep that address in memory for 10 minutes to limit the number of requests per address and Vercel (the hosting platform) keeps it in the standard request logs of its platform. No license record stores it. No name and no email and no transcript and no setting ever leave the computer. The machine hash is derived from a hardware identifier and cannot be turned back into it. The server keeps the hashes and the first trial start it saw for a machine and the purchase email in hashed form so a lost key can be sent again. The License and trial guide describes the trial and the key in full.

Everything Dictate saves lives in one folder on your computer. On macOS it is the folder named com.x4ops.dictate under Application Support in your Library folder. On Windows it is %LOCALAPPDATA%\x4ops\Dictate. The folder holds your settings and the history of your last 100 transcripts and the downloaded models and the trial record and the license file and the log file. The transcripts stay in that folder until you clear the history from the History window. The log file records what Dictate did and when with the number of characters of each transcript and never the text itself.

The two macOS permissions (Microphone and Accessibility) let Dictate hear you and paste the text into the app you use and listen for the two hotkeys. Dictate uses them for those jobs alone. It does not read the screen and does not record what you type in other apps. Windows asks for no permission and Dictate behaves the same way there. The Privacy guide says the same in more words.

This website

This site is pages served by Vercel. It sets no cookies of its own and runs no analytics and loads no third party scripts. Vercel keeps the standard request logs of its platform for the pages and the downloads.

The Buy button leads to the Stripe checkout and Stripe handles your payment data under its own terms. After a payment Stripe tells the x4ops license server the order id and the email address of the buyer. The server creates the license key and emails it to that address and stores the order id and a hash of the address and never the address itself. While the checkout is not live yet the Buy button offers an email to support@x4ops.com and this site stores nothing.

Contact

Questions go to support@x4ops.com.