Trust & Security
What Smalt knows, and where it keeps it
Smalt hears your calls and can read the folders you point it at, so you should know exactly what happens to all of it. Short answer: it stays on your Mac, unless you turn on a feature that says otherwise.
- No accountNo sign-up, no login, no profile.
- Audio is never savedSpeech is turned into text in memory by a model on your Mac, then the sound is thrown away.
- Your files stay yoursNotes are Markdown files in your Documents folder. We have no copy and no server to keep one.
- Nothing leaves unaskedEvery feature that sends text off your Mac is off by default and says so where you turn it on.
What we collect
Nothing about you from the app. No analytics, no telemetry, no tracking. Two things reach us, and neither identifies you:
- Update checks. Once a day Smalt asks getsmalt.com whether there is a new version. We count these checks per day by app version, free or Pro, and the country Cloudflare guesses, to know which versions and plans are in use. No IP address or identifier is kept.
- Website visits. getsmalt.com counts page views and downloads as daily totals: the page, the site you came from and a country guess. No cookie, no script, no IP address, nothing per visitor.
Where your data lives
| What | Where | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Audio | Nowhere: held in memory while it's transcribed | Seconds |
| Meeting notes | Markdown files in Documents → Smalt, written line by line during the call | Until you delete them |
| Dictation history | A file in your Library (Application Support → Smalt) only your user can read. Nothing is kept while a password field is active. | 30 days by default: 7, 30, 90 days, forever or off |
| Live answers index | A small database in Application Support → Smalt that records where words appear in the folders you chose. It holds no copy of your text. | Until you delete it; Smalt rebuilds it from your folders |
| Live answers log | Logs → Smalt → Live Assistant, only if you turn on Debug log (it contains meeting text) | The last 30 meetings |
| API keys | The macOS Keychain, only if you add keys for features that use them | Until you remove them |
Live transcripts and translations are shown on screen only. The saved note keeps what was said; translations and drafts are never written down.
Permissions, and why
| Permission | Why Smalt needs it |
|---|---|
| Microphone | To hear you, for dictation and for your side of a call. |
| System audio recording | To hear the others on a call, from your Mac's audio, without a bot joining it. Only while meeting notes run. |
| Accessibility | To paste what you dictated into the app you're typing in, and to notice the key you hold to dictate. |
| Calendar optional | To offer notes for a meeting and name them after it. Events are read on your Mac and never leave it. |
| Folders you choose optional | For live answers: only the folders you add, read on your Mac to answer questions from them. |
Settings → General → All checks lists each permission, whether it's granted, and how to change it.
Everything that can leave your Mac
| When | What goes where |
|---|---|
| First launch | The speech model downloads from Hugging Face (about 630 MB). Nothing is sent but the download request. |
| Updates | The update check above; a new version downloads from GitHub. Updates are signed, and Smalt refuses one that isn't. |
| Translation languages | macOS downloads a language from Apple when you click Get. Translating itself happens on your Mac. |
| Cloud summaries off by default | For Macs without Apple Intelligence: the meeting transcript goes to the provider you set, with your key. |
| Live answers, built in off by default | Transcript lines go to TypeSafe to spot questions; a question and passages from your folders go to Anthropic or OpenAI, with your keys. |
| Translation with a model off by default | If you pick Claude or GPT instead of your Mac, lines in other languages go to that provider, with your key. |
| Live answers, connected app off by default | Smalt sends nothing itself: it serves the transcript on your Mac to the app you connect (Claude Code, Claude Desktop), whose own terms then apply. |
| Crash reports off by default | They would contain stack traces and system details, never audio or text. This version sends none. |
With your own keys, those providers' terms apply to what they receive; you can revoke a key at any time.
Security
- Signed and notarized. Every release is signed with our Apple Developer ID, checked by Apple's notarization, and runs with the hardened runtime.
- Signed updates. Updates are described in a signed feed served over HTTPS; a download whose signature doesn't match ours is refused.
- Local only. The connection for Claude Code and Claude Desktop is a socket in your own Library folder that only apps you run can open, and only while you turn that mode on. Settings says so next to the switch.
- Instructions in text are ignored. Transcripts and your files are passed to models as data, with the instruction never to follow commands found in them.
- Password fields. When macOS reports secure input, nothing you dictate is kept.
Questions and reports
Write to feedback@getsmalt.com for any question about your data, to have an email you sent us deleted, or to report a security problem. We answer every message. More detail in the privacy guide and the terms.