Privacy policy
How Local Scribe handles your conversations, saved recordings, and privacy choices.
Speech recognition happens on your device. Saved notes, recordings, and diagnostic logs are stored privately on your device. Sharing, diagnostic exports, screenshots, and other Android tools can create copies outside that storage.
Diagnostic logs include caption excerpts. They are kept locally within a 5 MB limit and cleaned up after seven days when the app runs. You can clear logs in Settings and exclude caption text when exporting them.
Missing speech models download automatically when you enter the recorder. Downloads and this policy website use an internet connection; transcription works offline after setup.
Microphone and transcription
Local Scribe uses your microphone only after you choose Record in the recorder and grant Android's microphone permission. Opening Record note does not start microphone capture. There is no fixed recording time limit; recording requires available phone storage and battery. Leaving the app while recording stops microphone capture and keeps the captured conversation. If recognition falls too far behind, capture also stops with a notice while the app finishes the recorded audio.
Audio is written to a temporary private file while you record. While recording, audio is processed in short sections on your device to display captions. The latest passage may change as more speech arrives. Stop finishes processing the remaining audio. Longer recordings use more storage and take longer to transcribe. The app does not upload audio or transcripts to a speech service and does not provide AI summaries. Saving a note keeps its original recording so you can replay it on your device.
Saved notes
Choosing Save note stores the current transcript, including your edits, any available original recording, a title, timestamp, recording duration, and starred status in private app storage. Saved notes and recordings remain available after closing and reopening the app. Recordings are stored as uncompressed WAV audio, using approximately 1.9 MB per minute. You can play and seek within a recording, edit the note's title and text, search notes locally, star them, and delete them. Editing or starring a note does not change its recording. Playback begins only when you choose it and stops when you leave the note or put the app in the background. These actions do not send note data to a server. Older text-only notes remain available without a recording.
Before Save note succeeds, caption results are also stored in one private local draft file and audio stays in a temporary private WAV. The draft is updated as caption results arrive and after editing or finishing. Opening the recorder after a restart restores the latest available draft and recoverable audio; the last speech may be unfinished or missing. If audio is damaged or unavailable, checkpointed text can still be saved. Drafts remain until you save or explicitly discard the session. A failed save keeps the available material so you can retry. Discard removes the draft and its temporary recording. Unreferenced temporary recordings are cleaned after a successful check finds no draft. Android backup and device-transfer backup are disabled for app data, including saved notes and recordings. Deleting a note removes the app's saved text and attached recording; it does not remove text previously copied or shared elsewhere.
Speech model download
Speech models are not included in the normal app installation. Entering the recorder opens a full-screen setup view and automatically downloads any missing required models over HTTPS from Hugging Face and its content-delivery providers. You can change Two-model captions in Settings; changing the setting does not start a download. The view closes when model preparation finishes. Opening Notes does not start a download. You can cancel setup to return to Notes; failed downloads wait for you to retry. Downloads can incur mobile-data costs. Once the required models are installed, recording and transcription work without an internet connection.
On a new installation, Two-model captions is enabled and uses Tiny Q5 and Base Q5, approximately 92 MB combined. Existing saved model and caption settings are retained. With Two-model captions and speech pause detection off, the app uses your saved single-model choice; Base Q5 (approximately 60 MB) is the default single model. Saved choices can use Whisper Tiny Q5 (33 MB), Base Q5, Base (148 MB), Small Q5 (191 MB), or Turbo Q5 (575 MB, experimental). The app no longer shows a model picker. Speech pause detection uses Base Q5 and a 0.9 MB voice-activity model. Previously verified downloads are reused.
The download host receives connection information such as your IP address, the requested model address, and an app-name User-Agent. No recording or transcript is included in the download request. The host may log this connection information under its own privacy practices; Local Scribe does not control those logs. Hugging Face's policy is available at Hugging Face privacy policy.
Each model is checked for the expected size and checksum, then stored separately in Local Scribe's private app storage for reuse. The app retains your saved model and experiment preferences across launches. Changing caption settings keeps previously downloaded models available. A cancelled or failed individual download is not installed; any other models already verified remain available. The stored models contain downloaded speech-recognition or voice-activity weights, not your recordings or transcripts.
Clipboard, sharing, and keyboard
Copy places the transcript, including your edits, on Android's clipboard as ordinary text only when you choose it. Local Scribe does not automatically clear that clipboard entry. Share opens Android's share chooser for note text only when you choose it; sending it to another app gives that app a copy. Neither action includes the recording, and the app does not provide audio export. Android, your keyboard, clipboard tools, and apps receiving copied or shared text may handle it according to their own settings and privacy practices.
Editing uses your selected Android keyboard. Its processing, suggestions, and any keyboard synchronization operate outside Local Scribe's transcription pipeline.
Screenshots, screen recording, and Recents
Local Scribe allows Android's screenshot and screen-recording features so you can retain visible conversation text using tools already on your phone. Android may also include visible Local Scribe content in the Recents or app-switcher preview. Screenshots and screen recordings are stored and handled by Android and any apps you use with them, outside Local Scribe's private storage. Local Scribe does not automatically create, upload, or delete these captures. Deleting a note, clearing Local Scribe's storage, or uninstalling the app does not remove screenshots or screen recordings saved elsewhere.
No accounts, ads, or analytics
Local Scribe has no accounts, advertising, analytics service, or app crash-reporting service. The app does not request contacts, location, advertising identifiers, or shared-storage access. Its internet permission supports the model download.
Local diagnostics
Local Scribe keeps technical diagnostic logs automatically in private app storage, excluded from Android backup and device transfer. These logs help investigate delayed or missing captions. They contain app and Android versions, speech model and caption settings, session timings, audio sample counts and coverage, generated caption excerpts and character counts, and technical failure categories. They do not contain audio, file paths, or raw error messages. Logs do not read saved notes or later edits, but generated caption excerpts may contain the same conversation text as a note you later save. Random session identifiers connect events within a recording; they are not linked to an account or persistent device identifier. Caption excerpts themselves may contain personal or sensitive information spoken during the conversation.
Logs use at most 5 MB. Old log segments are deleted when they exceed seven days or the size limit, during startup, logging, or export; cleanup cannot run while the app process is stopped. Some recent events can be lost if the app stops suddenly or diagnostics cannot keep up. No logs are uploaded automatically, and this is not an app crash-reporting service.
Short excerpts of generated captions (up to 2,048 characters per update) are retained in diagnostic logs automatically for each recording. Audio and later edits are not included. Excerpts remain until log expiry, Clear diagnostics, or clearing app storage. Discarding or deleting a conversation does not separately remove its diagnostic excerpts; use Clear diagnostics to remove retained logs.
Export diagnostics in Settings lets you explicitly save a diagnostic file through Android's document picker. Exports include caption text by default. The export dialog offers Do not include caption text: turning it on removes all retained caption excerpts from the exported file while keeping technical metadata; leaving it off includes caption excerpts. This choice changes only the exported file, not the local logs. It resets to off for each new export. Your selected storage provider may sync or upload the exported copy according to its own settings. Anyone with that copy can read it. Exported files are outside the app's retention policy and are not removed when app logs expire, you clear diagnostics, or you uninstall the app. Clear diagnostics removes local logs, including caption excerpts; new logs then continue, including generated captions during recording.
Your choices
You can decline microphone permission or change it in Android Settings. You can cancel a model download, delete individual notes and their recordings, and use Clear diagnostics to remove local logs in the app. To remove all saved notes, recordings and unsaved conversation drafts, diagnostic logs, downloaded models, saved preferences, and all app storage, use Android Settings > Apps > Local Scribe > Storage > Clear storage, or uninstall Local Scribe. Notes and recordings are not restored from an app backup, so copy or share text you need to keep before doing this. Recordings cannot be exported from the app. Menu names can vary by device. This does not remove clipboard entries, text you copied or shared elsewhere, exported diagnostic files, screenshots or screen recordings, keyboard data, or the download host's records; manage those with the respective app or provider.
This privacy-policy website
This page is hosted using OpenAI Sites and its delivery infrastructure. Loading a web page sends ordinary connection information, such as your IP address and browser request information, to the hosting and delivery providers. They may process that information to deliver and secure the page under their own privacy practices. OpenAI's privacy policy is available at OpenAI privacy policy.
The page we provide contains no contact form, advertising code, or app analytics integration. Website hosting is separate from the Android app's local transcription. Reading this page does not give the website access to your app's recordings, notes, or diagnostics.
Contact and privacy requests
Contact Local Scribe's developer at apps@patryk.tech with privacy questions or requests.
If you email us, we receive your email address and the information you include, including any diagnostic file you choose to attach. We use that correspondence to respond to your enquiry and handle your request, and keep it for as long as needed for those purposes and applicable legal obligations. You can use the same address to request deletion of your correspondence.
Please avoid including recordings, transcripts, caption excerpts, or other sensitive information unless necessary for your request. We cannot retrieve recordings, notes, or diagnostic logs from your device; we receive only what you choose to send us.
Privacy information and policy updates
Settings > Privacy policy opens Local Scribe privacy policy in your browser. Loading the page requires internet access and sends ordinary connection information to its hosting provider. Opening it does not send your recordings, notes, or diagnostics. Future versions may update the policy to reflect changes in the app's behavior.