Smalt Privacy
Smalt was built to never need a server. Your voice is turned into text by a speech model on your Mac, then thrown away.
Stays on your Mac
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Your voice | Transcribed in memory as you speak. Audio is never saved or uploaded. |
| Your words | Dictation goes straight into the app you're typing in; your clipboard is put back. |
| Your meetings | Notes are Markdown files in ~/Documents/Smalt, only on your Mac. |
| Your calendar | Read on your Mac to name meetings; events never leave it. |
| You | No account, no sign-up, no sign-in. |
When Smalt goes online
- First launch: it downloads the speech model (about 630 MB). After that, dictation and notes work offline.
- First time you use voice: it downloads the voice (about 110 MB) and the small models that hear when you've finished talking (about 34 MB), once. They run on your Mac; nothing is sent.
- Updates: it checks getsmalt.com for a new version, saying which version it is and whether it's free or Pro. No personal data is sent.
- Only if you turn it on: the cloud model (Settings → Cloud). With live answers on, meeting lines go to it (or to TypeSafe, if you pick Jev) to spot questions, and each question with passages from your folders goes to it to be answered, with your own key. Summaries and translation use it only when you turn that on too. Why your own keys
No analytics, no tracking, no ads. Crash reports are off unless you turn them on, and never contain audio or text.
The Assistant switch
Settings → Voice Assistant is one switch, off by default. Off, the ask key does nothing and nothing is recorded or sent. On, the app you talk with (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) hears the microphone in a voice session. Your meetings reach Claude Code only when Settings → Meetings → Live answers is Claude Code: it then reads the live transcript. Either way it reaches Smalt only from your Mac, and Claude Code works as it always does, on your Claude plan.
This website
getsmalt.com has no tracking script and sets no cookies. Its server adds up, per day, how many times each page is opened and Smalt is downloaded, with the site you came from and your country, and how many copies of Smalt check for an update, by version and free or Pro. Nothing about you individually is kept, not even your IP address.