Privacy at VoiceBean
We believe voice input should be private by default. Here's how VoiceBean protects your data — and how you can verify it yourself.
Does VoiceBean send my voice to the cloud?
No. All speech recognition runs on your Mac using Whisper, SenseVoice, or Apple Speech. Your audio is never recorded to disk or transmitted over the network. You can verify this by disconnecting from the internet — VoiceBean works identically offline.
What about the AI correction feature?
AI correction also runs entirely on your device using local models (llama.cpp or Apple MLX). The models are downloaded once and run locally. No text is ever sent to an external API for correction.
How can I verify no data is being uploaded?
You can use macOS built-in tools to verify: 1) Open Activity Monitor → Network tab and watch VoiceBean's traffic while recording. 2) Use Little Snitch or Lulu firewall to monitor outbound connections — you'll see zero traffic during voice input. 3) Disconnect Wi-Fi entirely and use VoiceBean normally.
What data does VoiceBean store locally?
VoiceBean stores your settings (language, hotkey, theme), transcription history, and downloaded AI models in macOS App Sandbox storage. This data never leaves your Mac. You can delete it anytime by removing the app.
Does the account system change anything?
Creating an account is only needed for purchasing Pro. Your account data (email, subscription status) is stored on our server. But your voice recordings, transcription text, and local settings are never uploaded — the account system and the voice input system are completely separate.
Does iCloud sync upload my voice data?
No. iCloud sync is optional and disabled by default. When enabled, it only syncs two types of data: usage statistics (daily transcription count) and transcription history text. Voice recordings and AI models are never synced.
Is iCloud-synced data secure?
All synced data is encrypted with AES-256-GCM end-to-end before leaving your Mac. Encryption keys are stored in iCloud Keychain — only your Apple devices can decrypt the data. Even if someone accessed your iCloud storage, they would only see encrypted ciphertext.
How does iCloud sync work technically?
Data syncs via Apple's NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore, not through our servers. Encryption keys are generated with CryptoKit (256-bit AES) and stored in the system keychain, shared across devices via iCloud Keychain. Usage stats merge by taking the daily maximum, and history records are deduplicated by UUID. You can disable iCloud sync at any time in Settings.
How can I be sure VoiceBean isn't secretly uploading data?
Beyond the network monitoring methods above, all of VoiceBean's AI inference uses publicly available open-source models (Whisper, llama.cpp, MLX) with no custom networking components. You can block VoiceBean entirely with a firewall without affecting any core functionality.
In a nutshell