Murmurtale The short version
- On-device mode is local. Dictation audio and text are processed on your Mac. We do not receive that content. Your current allowance and capabilities are shown by the app and account service; this policy does not promise a fixed word quota.
- Cloud mode is optional. If selected, the audio or text needed for that request passes through our Google Cloud-hosted backend to the provider for that request. Section 4 states what each provider receives.
- Cloud content depends on the feature. A request can include raw audio, a language code, up to 100 character names or dictionary terms, recognized passage text, a genre, and up to 600 characters of the preceding passage.
- Accounts are not anonymous. We process email, country of residence, sign-in identifiers, entitlement and usage records, and billing status where relevant. Account data and usage records are stored with Google Cloud (Cloud SQL) in the United States.
- We do not sell personal data or build advertising profiles. Product analytics is opt-in. Operational diagnostics are enabled by default and can be turned off.
1. Availability and residence
Murmurtale is not currently offered to residents of the European Union, European Economic Area, or United Kingdom. We ask for country of residence when you create an account; the server makes the final eligibility decision. Existing users can still sign in where permitted.
This limited availability does not erase privacy obligations that may otherwise apply. If we already hold information about you, this policy and applicable rights continue to apply.
2. Author content
On-device mode
Local data can include recent audio, dictation history, dictionaries, correction suggestions, settings, book profiles, imported manuscript text, style analysis, and model files. History defaults to deletion after 30 days; you can choose Off, 1, 7, or 30 days, delete individual items, or clear History. Other local author data stays until you remove it or erase the app’s local data.
If Apple iCloud Drive or Desktop & Documents syncing covers the local folder, Apple may sync those files within your iCloud account under Apple’s terms. That is controlled by your Apple settings.
Optional cloud transcription
Cloud transcription streams raw audio from the moment you start speaking, through our backend, to xAI for live streaming speech recognition, which shows the words as you speak. Silence before you speak is held back and never sent. Your dictionary is not sent to xAI. If xAI does not answer promptly, the saved audio for that one dictation is sent through our backend to Groq for batch speech recognition, with a language code and up to 100 character names or dictionary terms as hints, and if neither is available it is transcribed on your Mac. A second OpenAI transcription path exists on the backend and runs only when the app requests it. The live Mac app (1.1.5) does not request it. In 1.1.6, that pass is planned and may include dictionary names as spelling hints. Names are also corrected on your device afterward.
Optional fiction formatting
In Fiction mode, light AI formatting sends the recognized text of your dictation (in short passages, while you speak), your selected genre, and up to 600 characters of the passage you dictated just before it through our backend to OpenAI. It may only add punctuation, quotation marks, paragraph breaks and italics; Murmurtale checks every result word for word and discards any change to your words. It never rewrites your prose. Plain mode does not use it. On-device mode does not send text for AI formatting.
xAI, Groq, and OpenAI process cloud requests under their own terms. Section 4 states what each of them receives.
3. Information we collect
| Information | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Beta email, residence country, optional writing note, source and timestamps | Review access, contact applicants, enforce availability, and prevent duplicates |
| Account email, password hash, Apple/Google identity, country, and terms record | Create, secure, and support the account |
| Session-token digest and expiry | Keep sessions working and revocable without storing the bearer token |
| Entitlement, invite/promo, subscription and billing-event records | Decide access, prevent code reuse, and support billing |
| Usage-period counts | Apply the allowance and fair-use policy returned for the account; counts contain no dictated words |
| Operational metadata | Run and secure the service using timestamps, request IDs, opaque account ID, tier, engine, counts, duration, status, and fixed error codes |
| Crash/error diagnostics | Diagnose reliability using app/build, OS/device class, tier, stage, provider ID, sanitized error code, stack fingerprint, session ID, duration and audio seconds |
| Consent-gated product analytics | Aggregate typed activation, use, failure, entitlement, funnel and retention events |
| Contact-form messages | Name, email, topic, and message, sent by email so we can reply |
| Website visit records | Page, referral value, and a daily salted hash of the IP address and browser, used to count visits |
| Website session | The account and download pages keep the signed-in session in browser local storage; no advertising cookie is required |
Diagnostics are linked to an opaque account ID on the backend. They are enabled by default and can be disabled in Preferences.
4. Service providers and recipients
| Provider | Purpose and information |
|---|---|
| Google Cloud Platform | Cloud Run hosts the backend. Cloud Logging stores operational logs. Cloud Storage holds a Mac app download. |
| Google Cloud (Cloud SQL) | Stores account data and usage records in the United States, along with beta, authentication, terms, entitlement, billing-reference, and aggregate-analytics records |
| xAI | Live speech-to-text over a websocket. Receives raw audio for that request. The dictionary is not sent. |
| Groq | Batch speech recognition when the live stream does not finish promptly. Receives that dictation’s audio, a language code, and up to 100 character names or dictionary terms as hints. |
| OpenAI | Fiction-mode formatting. Receives the recognized passage, the selected genre, and up to 600 characters of preceding text. A second transcription path exists and runs only when the app requests it. The live Mac app (1.1.5) does not request it. |
| Resend | Account email to customers (email verification, password reset, and trial-ending notices); contact-form messages (name, email, topic, and message); owner notifications, including founding-access requests (applicant email, optional note, and source), the daily report, and spend alerts |
| Stripe | Checkout, subscriptions, status, invoices, refunds, and the customer portal. Stripe receives the customer email and the account ID. We do not receive full card details. |
| Apple and Google | Optional authentication using a stable identifier and, where shared and verified, email |
| Apple iCloud | May sync local files when your Apple settings place them in an iCloud-synced location |
| Vercel | Serves the website and the Sparkle appcast |
| Hugging Face | The Mac app downloads the on-device speech model from Hugging Face. Hugging Face sees the IP address of that download. The app does not send dictated audio or text. |
We may also disclose narrowly relevant information to comply with law, protect users or the service, investigate abuse, or complete a corporate transaction with confidentiality protections.
5. Lawful bases
- Steps at your request or contract: beta review, account/authentication, entitlement, authorized download, requested local/cloud service, metering, billing, and support.
- Legitimate interests: security, abuse prevention, operational logs, reliability diagnostics, regional enforcement, and product improvement. You can turn diagnostics off and object where applicable.
- Consent: optional product analytics and any optional marketing that specifically asks for consent. Consent can be withdrawn for future processing.
- Legal obligation: tax, accounting, fraud, legal-process, and privacy-rights records when required.
We do not make decisions about a person that produce legal or similarly significant effects using dictation or analytics.
6. International transfers
Brad Pierce Enterprises LLC is in the United States. Providers may process information in the United States and other countries where they operate. Those countries may have different privacy laws.
Before offering Murmurtale in the EU, EEA, or UK, we will confirm the required transfer mechanism and provider terms, which may include adequacy decisions, European Commission Standard Contractual Clauses, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, and provider data-processing agreements. Contact us for information about safeguards that apply to information we already hold about you.
7. Retention
| Information | Default retention |
|---|---|
| Local history/audio | On your Mac; 30 days by default, with Off/1/7/30-day choices and manual deletion |
| Cloud request content handled by our backend | Sent to the provider for that request, as described in sections 2 and 4. This policy does not set a retention period for that content. |
| Cloud-provider request content | xAI, Groq, and OpenAI process requests under their own terms. |
| Contact-form messages | Sent by email through Resend |
| Website visit records | Page, referral value, and a daily salted hash of the IP address and browser are stored with the visit counts |
| Founding-access application | Eligible for deletion 90 days after its latest update; expired records are pruned at server startup, before a new application or administrative list, or through the administrative purge endpoint, and may be deleted sooner after a verified withdrawal |
| Account and entitlement | While open; authenticated self-service deletion removes the account and usage records from the primary database immediately, subject to separately retained logs, provider, payment, backup, security, and legal records |
| Operational and diagnostic logs | The current production Cloud Logging _Default bucket is configured for 30-day retention; the application does not itself enforce that window, so a future configuration change would require this policy to be updated |
| Product-analytics event receipts | Eligible for deletion after 45 days and pruned when a later analytics batch is successfully processed; they may remain longer during periods with no successful analytics ingestion |
| Aggregate analytics | While useful for product measurement; no email, account ID, author content, or free-form properties |
| Payment/legal records | As required for tax, accounting, chargeback, fraud, dispute, or legal obligations |
A narrowly relevant record may be preserved longer for an active security incident, dispute, legal hold, fraud investigation, or legal obligation, then deleted when the exception ends. Protected backups age out on their normal rotation.
To withdraw a founding-access application, email support@murmurtale.com from the address used to apply with the subject “Withdraw founding access.” If you later made an account, tell us whether you want that deleted too.
8. Your rights and choices
Depending on location and processing, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, applicable portability, or object to legitimate-interest or direct-marketing processing. You may withdraw consent for future consent-based processing.
You can also delete local History, change local retention, disable diagnostics, disable product analytics, sign out, and clear website local storage.
Email support@murmurtale.com. We may verify control of the relevant email/account. You may complain to your local privacy authority; EU/EEA residents may contact the authority where they live or work, and UK residents may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.
9. Children
Murmurtale is for adults able to form a binding contract and is not offered to anyone under 18. We do not knowingly create accounts for children.
10. Security
We use encrypted transport, hashed passwords, digest-stored session and invite tokens, access controls, rate limits, and signed/notarized Mac builds. No transmission or storage method is perfectly secure. See the Security page.
11. Changes
We revise the date and version when this policy changes. A material account-holder change will use a reasonable in-product, website, or email notice.
12. Contact
Brad Pierce Enterprises LLC, 8401 Mayland Dr Ste S, Richmond, VA 23294 · support@murmurtale.com.