Is Superwhisper safe?

It depends on the model you pick. With a local model, transcription runs on your device and audio never leaves it. That works on Mac, Windows and iPhone. With a cloud model, audio is sent to a server to be transcribed, and it is not stored there.

By default the app uses our cloud models, because they work with no download and no setup. You can switch to a local model at any time. See our offline transcription page for how that works.

Yes. By default, recordings are saved on your own device so you can replay them or run them through a different model later. On Mac they live in ~/superwhisper/recordings. On Windows they live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.superwhisper.app\recordings.

They are not stored on Superwhisper servers. You control how long they stay: under Settings, Configuration, set "Keep recordings for" to 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months or 1 year. The default is Forever. You can also delete recordings by hand. There is no setting to turn off saving completely, so the shortest option is one day.

On Mac and Windows, the API keys that Pro users add for their own models are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. You only need your own keys if you want to use a provider directly. The default setup does not need any.

When you choose a cloud model, your audio goes to our servers or a provider we use. Under our agreements with providers, API access comes with zero-data-retention terms and your data is not used for training. That is a contractual setup, so if you need more than our word, ask for the details in the Trust Center.

Your custom vocabulary words are sent along with the audio, because they help the model spell your terms. Transcripts and audio are not kept on Superwhisper servers. We do hold your email, billing records and license activation. You can read the full detail in the privacy policy and the docs.

Our SOC 2 Type II report is available in our Trust Center under NDA. A DPA and a BAA are also available. The BAA is for teams with HIPAA workflows. Local-only use sends no audio to us. For teams, see Superwhisper for enterprise.

No. It works out of the box with no API keys and no account. The default is our cloud models, with 3,000 free Pro words to start. After that you stay on the free plan, which includes local Whisper models.

What you do have to grant is permissions, and they differ by platform. On Mac it is microphone and accessibility. On iPhone you enable the keyboard and turn on Full Access. On Android it is microphone, display over other apps, and accessibility. On Windows the setup wizard asks for your language, model and microphone, and an older graphics driver may need an update before local models run.

Superwhisper is not Mac only. It runs on macOS 14 or later, Windows 10 and 11 (x64 and ARM64), iPhone, and Android 13 or later phones through Google Play. One Pro license covers them all.

On Windows, the current version is 1.6.6, with regular releases and crash reporting through Sentry. We will not claim it never crashes, and we do not publish a crash rate. Android is the youngest app. It uses cloud transcription only, with no on-device models yet.