Privacy

Who we are

LocalFlow is made by Ivan Meouch, in Canada. For the full app sold on this site, that is who decides what is collected and why. You can reach us at [email protected]. Paddle.com is the seller of record for orders and has its own role, explained under “Paddle” below.

We never sell your information and never share it for advertising. There are no ads, no ad trackers and no marketing lists.

Your voice

Speech is turned into text by a model that runs on your Mac. The audio is processed while you talk and is not saved to disk or sent anywhere. We have no server that receives it. We do not keep your transcripts either. The text goes to your clipboard or your cursor and nowhere else.

When the full app uses the internet

• Speech model download. The first time you open the app it downloads the speech model (about 450 MB) from Hugging Face. Hugging Face sees the request, including your IP address, as any website does. No audio is involved.
• License check (website version only). The version of LocalFlow downloaded from this website checks a license key. The app sends the key and a one-way fingerprint of this Mac (not its serial number or any name) to our license service on Cloudflare once, then about once a week to check the license is still valid. Payment for that version is handled by Paddle, the seller of record; we never see card details. Nothing about your speech or text is sent. LocalFlow Lite does not do this. What the license service keeps is listed under “What we keep when you buy” below.
• Buying from the app, or getting your license back. “Buy…” opens the Buy page on this site with the same one-way Mac fingerprint in the link, so the purchase can unlock this Mac by itself. While you wait for the payment to be confirmed, the app asks our license service every so often whether it has arrived. On a new or wiped Mac you can type your purchase email instead: the service emails you a 6-digit code (see “Emails we send”).
• Update check. Now and then the app asks this site for a file called appcast.xml to see whether a newer version exists. The request carries the app name and version, like any web request. We do not send a device profile.
• If the speech model is missing. The app can fall back to the speech engine built into macOS, which may fetch Apple’s own language files. That is Apple’s software and Apple’s rules.

Dictation itself needs no connection. The fingerprint in the license check is a SHA-256 hash of the Mac’s hardware ID, so it cannot be turned back into the ID. The app keeps a short timing log on your Mac (~/Library/Logs/LocalFlow-timing.log) that holds only stage times and a character count, never your words.

What we keep when you buy

The license service for the full app runs on Cloudflare (a small key-value store called Workers KV). When Paddle tells us an order is paid, we make a license and store this:

• Your purchase email. Fetched from Paddle for your order. Why: so you can get LocalFlow back on a new Mac with a code sent to that address, and so support can find your license if you write to us.
• The Paddle order (transaction) number and your Paddle customer number. Why: the order number is how the app finds your paid license, and it makes sure the same order never creates two licenses. A refund that Paddle approves uses it to switch the license off.
• The license key and the date it was created. The key is made by our service. You never see or type it; the app holds it.
• One-way fingerprints of up to 2 of your Macs. Each is a SHA-256 hash of your Mac’s hardware ID, which cannot be turned back into the ID, your name or your serial number. Why: one purchase works on 2 Macs, and this is how we count them. We also keep a short pointer from each fingerprint to the license so a reinstalled Mac can claim its license again.
• Whether the license was refunded, and the time of the refund. Why: to switch it off.

We do not store your card, your billing address or your name. Paddle takes payment and keeps that. We do not record when each Mac was activated, only the date the license was created and, if it happened, the refund time.

How long. We have not set an automatic deletion date for a license record: it is kept while your license exists, so it can be restored, moved or refunded. You can ask us to delete it at any time (see “Your rights”). “Deactivate This Mac” in the app removes that Mac’s fingerprint straight away.

Who can see it. Only the owner of LocalFlow, with a private admin key, to find a lost license or free a seat.

Emails we send

The service sends one kind of email: the 6-digit code you ask for when you type your purchase email in the app to get LocalFlow back on a Mac. It comes from [email protected], goes out through Resend (an email delivery company), and works for 15 minutes. If you did not ask for it, ignore it.

• What Resend sees. Your email address, the message (it contains the code, and the subject line shows it too), and the delivery details email companies normally handle. Resend’s own rules are in its privacy policy.
• What we keep. Not the code itself, only a one-way scramble of your email and the code, for 15 minutes or until it is used. We also keep a small count of how many codes were sent to that address in the past hour (about 2 hours at most), to stop abuse. Codes stop working after 5 wrong tries.
• No marketing. We do not send newsletters, offers or reminders. Paddle sends your receipt. If you write to us, we reply to you.
• The service never says whether an email address has bought LocalFlow, so nobody can use it to find out.

Gift codes

If someone gave you a gift code, you type it into the app’s License window. No email is needed. That makes you a normal license on up to 2 Macs. We record:

• the gift code you used and a hashed ID of your Mac (a one-way fingerprint, never your name), so the same Mac typing the code again gets the same license, so we can count how many times a code was used, and so we can switch one license off if a code is misused;
• a new license key, the date it was used, and a label the owner gave that code (for example, who it was handed to);
• an email address only if you chose to give one (the app no longer asks);
• and, in the site counters, only that a code was redeemed and which code. The counter never holds an email address or a Mac ID.

Gift licenses are kept the same way as purchased ones (see above). You can ask us to delete yours (with no email on file, send us your code and we will remove it). Nothing is paid, so Paddle is not involved.

Paddle, who takes your payment

Orders on this site are handled by Paddle.com, the seller of record. When you pay, Paddle collects what it needs to take payment, work out tax and send a receipt: for example your email, your country and billing details, and your payment details, and its notice also lists your IP address among the data it may collect. Paddle’s checkout runs in a window from Paddle, and Paddle’s privacy notice and buyer terms apply to that data. Paddle is a controller of that data in its own right.

• We never see your card number.
• When you start a purchase from the app, the one-way Mac fingerprint travels with the order so that Mac can be unlocked; Paddle holds it with the order.
• Refunds are handled by Paddle. When it approves one, it tells our license service, which switches the license off (the app finds out at its next weekly check).
• To see, correct or delete what Paddle holds, use its privacy request page or write to [email protected]. Tax and accounting laws may require Paddle to keep some records.

This website

The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. The website counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics (no cookies, no tracking across sites). It also keeps its own plain counters: which page was opened, which site or link sent the visitor, and whether the Download, Buy and checkout buttons were used. Those counters hold no IP address, no device details, no cookie and no way to tell one visitor from another, and nothing is sent when your browser says Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control. The apps send no analytics and never send your voice or text anywhere; their only connections are the ones listed above. Cloudflare also keeps ordinary server logs, as any host does.

The code that records our counters keeps only a page name, a referrer host name and a short campaign tag, and it ignores requests from known bots. To stop one person or script from flooding the license, code or counter services, they count requests per IP address for up to one hour. That counter lives in Cloudflare’s cache under the address and is not copied into our database.

What this site keeps in your browser: while you browse, a short tag for the link that brought you (so a visit and a download can be tied to the same channel), for that tab only. After you pay, your browser remembers the Paddle transaction number so the thank-you page can finish unlocking; the page uses it only within 2 hours, but your browser keeps it until you clear this site’s data. The site sets no cookies of its own.

What stays on your Mac

Your settings, your word corrections and your trial or license status are stored on your Mac (the license is a small file in ~/Library/Application Support/LocalFlow/ that only your account can read; it holds your license key, your purchase email, and the first-launch date for the 14-day trial). “Uninstall LocalFlow…” in the app removes all of it, and can also sign this Mac out of your license. Delete the app and its Application Support folder and they are gone.

The Lite version (Mac App Store)

LocalFlow Lite is free on the Mac App Store. It collects no data: no account, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and nothing about you is sent to us or to anyone else. Your voice is turned into text on your Mac and is never uploaded. The app does not keep your audio or your text: the words are placed on the clipboard once, when you let go of the key, and the app forgets them.

• Microphone. Used only while you hold the hold-to-talk key (or while the Shortcuts "Dictate" action runs), to hear you. Audio stays on this Mac.
• Input Monitoring (only for the Fn and ⌥⌘ keys). macOS asks for it so the app can tell that the Fn (or ⌥⌘) key is held down. The app looks only at whether that modifier key is down. It does not read, record or store what you type, and it does not use Accessibility or control other apps. The ⌥ Space key needs no Input Monitoring. You can switch it off at any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring.
• Clipboard. After you let go of the key, the recognised text is written to the clipboard so you can press ⌘V. The app never reads the clipboard.
• Downloads. The first time it runs, the app downloads its speech model (about 450 MB) from Hugging Face (huggingface.co); as with any website, Hugging Face sees the request and your IP address. If that model cannot be used, macOS may download Apple's own on-device speech asset instead. No audio or text is part of either download. After that, the app works offline.
• Shortcuts. The "Dictate" action returns the recognised text to your shortcut and nowhere else.
• On your Mac. Only your settings (your chosen key, whether the Dock icon is on) and the downloaded speech model are stored, inside the app's own sandbox container. Delete the app to remove them.
• Children and third parties. Lite has no third-party code that collects data, and it is not directed at children.

To revoke anything, turn it off in System Settings → Privacy & Security (Microphone, Input Monitoring). Questions: [email protected].

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and ask us to delete it. Write to [email protected] from the email address you used to buy (or tell us which one it was), say what you want, and we will answer within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm the request comes from you before we hand over or delete anything. There is no charge.

• See it. We send you what our license service holds for your email: the license record described above.
• Correct it. Wrong email on the license? Tell us the right one and we change it.
• Delete it. We erase your email, your Paddle customer number, the fingerprints of your Macs and the link from your email to your license, and we switch the license off. LocalFlow on your Macs then stops being licensed at its next weekly check, as soon as that Mac is online. So we confirm with you before we do it, and you cannot get that license back afterwards. The only thing that stays is the Paddle order number, on an empty, switched-off record, so the same order can never create a second license. Paddle keeps its own records separately (see above).
• Free a Mac. You do not need to ask us: License… → Deactivate This Mac in the app (or Uninstall with “Also remove my license from this Mac” ticked) removes that Mac’s fingerprint.

If you are in the EU, UK or Switzerland

Under the GDPR (and the UK GDPR) you also have the right to restrict or object to how we use your data, to take a copy in a common format, and to complain to your local data protection authority. We use your purchase data to deliver the license you paid for and to keep it working, which is what the law calls performing a contract; and our own legitimate interest in preventing abuse of the service.

If you are in Canada

Under PIPEDA you can see and correct personal information we hold about you, withdraw consent for its use where you gave it, and complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

If you are in California

Under the CCPA you can ask what we collect, ask for a copy, ask for correction and deletion, and you will not be treated differently for doing so. We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. Our site honors the Global Privacy Control signal for even our plain counters, as described above.

Transfers, security, children and changes

• Where your data goes. Cloudflare, Paddle, Resend and Hugging Face run servers in several countries, including the United States, so information about you can be processed outside the country where you live. Each publishes its own safeguards: Cloudflare, Paddle, Resend, Hugging Face.
• Security. The site and the license service use HTTPS. Licenses are signed, so a fake server cannot unlock the app. Your Mac’s fingerprint is hashed before it leaves your Mac. Email codes are stored scrambled and expire in 15 minutes. Only the owner can look up a license, with a private key. Mac license files are readable only by your own user account. No service is perfectly secure; if something we hold about you is exposed we will tell you, as the law requires.
• Children. The full LocalFlow app is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Buying needs a payment method. If you think a child has given us an email address, write to us and we will delete it. LocalFlow Lite is covered above.
• Changes to this page. When we change it, the “Last updated” date at the top changes too.

Questions

Write to [email protected]. Mail sent to that address is forwarded by Cloudflare Email Routing to the owner’s own mailbox, and we use it only to answer you.