The short version
- Saybox (for Mac) turns speech into text on the Mac itself. The speech model is inside the app.
- Saybox Mic (for iPhone, optional) sends microphone audio only to the one Mac it’s paired with, over your local network, encrypted.
- The apps use no company servers and have no accounts, analytics, ads or crash uploads. They never send us your audio, your text or anything about your patients, and we never use any of it to train anything. Please don’t email us patient information either.
- Today’s builds make no internet connections. From the subscription release, Saybox will check its license key with our payment service when it starts and once a day, sending only the key and a random device ID. See The subscription check.
What the apps handle
Saybox keeps everything below on your devices. Text it types into another app, or puts on the clipboard, is then kept by that app or by macOS under their own rules, and may be synced. Paths are on the Mac, in your user’s Library folder.
| What | Where and how long |
|---|---|
| Audio from the Mac’s microphone | Memory only, until it’s turned into text. Never saved. |
| Audio from the iPhone | The iPhone’s memory, then the Mac’s. Audio the Mac hasn’t confirmed is discarded once delivered, 200 seconds after you stop, or when you unpair. |
| Dictated text | Typed into the app you’re using, or put in the Saybox Text Box or on the clipboard. Inside Saybox it’s held in memory only. The app that receives it keeps it under its own rules. |
| Saybox Text Box | Memory only. Erased 60 seconds after you close it, and when Saybox quits. |
| Transcript history | Off unless you turn it on. Then up to 20 entries in memory, until Saybox quits. |
| Personal dictionary and prepared phrases | Application Support/ScriptaPlus/, encrypted with a key in your login Keychain. Kept until you delete them. |
| Security event log | Logs/ScriptaPlus/Security Events/. When and where dictation went, pairings and refused connections, never what was said. At most 90 days. |
| Timing and count records | Logs/ScriptaPlus/. Numbers only, no text. At most 30 days. |
| Settings | The app’s preferences file, until you remove it. |
| iPhone pairing key | The Keychain on the Mac and on the iPhone, until you unpair. |
What the apps never do
- Send audio, text or anything about your patients over the internet. Today’s builds make no internet connections at all; with no iPhone paired, Saybox opens no network port. The only internet connection planned is the subscription check below.
- Ask you to create an account or sign in.
- Collect analytics, usage statistics or advertising identifiers.
- Upload logs, crash reports, audio or text. There’s no “send diagnostics” button.
- Write dictated words to log files. An automated test checks every log line in the code.
Permissions
- Microphone (Mac and iPhone): to hear you while you dictate, and only then.
- Accessibility (Mac): to type at your cursor. Saybox also reads the selected field’s text, in memory only, to check its own typing, to take text back when you say “delete that”, and to correct drug names. Without this permission, dictation goes to the clipboard for you to paste.
- Local Network (iPhone, and the Mac if it asks): so the paired devices can find and reach each other.
- Camera (iPhone): once, to scan the pairing code. If you decline, you can copy the code on the Mac and paste it on the iPhone instead.
The iPhone link
Saybox Mic talks only to the Mac it’s paired with, over your local network. Pairing uses a one-time code that expires after 5 minutes, and both screens show a six-digit confirmation code; the Mac accepts no dictation until you confirm they match. The connection is encrypted with a key made at pairing. Unpairing on the Mac cuts the iPhone off at once, and the iPhone forgets its key and any unsent audio.
The subscription check
Today’s builds of Saybox make no internet connections. The check below is decided but not yet built. From the release that starts subscriptions, the Mac app will check its license key with Lemon Squeezy, our payment service.
- When: when Saybox starts, and once a day.
- What it sends: only the license key and a random device ID. Never audio, text, dictionary words, names or anything about patients.
- What any internet request reveals: like any connection to the internet, the check also shows Lemon Squeezy, and the networks it passes through, your Mac’s IP address and the time of the check.
- Offline: Saybox works offline for 14 days, then asks you to reconnect. The check never interrupts a dictation.
- Payments: Lemon Squeezy handles payments. It holds your name, your email address and your card payments, and never receives patient information. We use the name and email address it holds to email current subscribers about Critical or High security problems (see Security notices).
Saybox’s Privacy settings will describe the check too.
If you write to us
Support is by email only. We don’t offer phone support, screen sharing or remote control, and we will never ask to see your screen or connect to your Mac.
When you write, we receive your email address, your message and anything you attach. Our email is hosted by Google Workspace, under our agreement with Google. We may use Gemini, the writing help built into Google Workspace, to draft a reply, but never on a message that contains patient information, and we read and send every reply ourselves. We use your messages to answer you, to look into security or legal problems, and to keep the records the law and our security procedures require. We keep them for up to 2 years after our last message, then delete them, with two exceptions: security reports, and short records of privacy incidents and of Business Associate Agreement requests (who wrote, when and what about, never patient information), are kept for 6 years; and anything covered by a legal hold is kept until the hold ends.
Please never send patient information: no names, dates of birth, chart screenshots, recordings or transcripts. Describe problems with made-up details, such as “Patient: Jane Example”. If a message reaches us with patient information anyway, we stop reading it and don’t use it to answer you. We note when and from whom it came and how many attachments it had, without the patient details, so you or your organization can find your own copy. We delete it the same day we notice it, unless the law requires us to keep it (for example, a legal hold, a subpoena, or a request from law enforcement or a regulator), we must first get a lawyer’s advice about a possible breach, or you may need it to identify the patients; in that case we keep it locked away until we can delete it. You may need it if it could be the only copy that you or your organization has, for example because it was forwarded from someone else or is a photo of paper records. We then keep it, without reading it further, until you confirm you can identify the patients, and delete it no later than 30 days after we tell you (or your organization, if it has a Business Associate Agreement with us). We tell you within 2 business days. Google, our email provider, can still restore a deleted message for up to 55 days after we delete it, then deletes it permanently. We keep a short record that it happened, without the patient information, for 6 years.
We don’t sell the personal information you send us, and we don’t share it for advertising. We share it only with Google, which hosts our email for us; with a lawyer advising us, who must keep it confidential; when the law requires it, such as for a valid subpoena; with a company that takes over Saybox, which must keep the promises in this notice; or when you ask us to, such as crediting you for a security report.
This website
This website sets no cookies, runs no analytics scripts and loads nothing from other sites: no fonts, scripts or trackers. It is hosted by Cloudflare, which handles your IP address, the pages you request, the time and your browser type to deliver the site and protect it from attacks, under Cloudflare’s privacy policy. Cloudflare also shows us overall traffic counts, such as the number of requests and visitors and the countries they come from; we don’t keep our own records of individual visitors. Nothing on this site tracks you across other sites, and we let no other company do so through it, so the site works the same whether or not your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal.
Your practice and HIPAA
Saybox is designed so that we never receive patient information. The text you dictate goes into the apps you choose, such as your EHR, which keep it under their own rules. Your practice remains responsible for its own obligations under HIPAA, including its risk analysis, its devices and the apps that receive dictated text.
Check with your clinic’s privacy or security officer before using Saybox with patient information. If your practice needs a Business Associate Agreement, write to privacy@saybox.app.
Saybox is for adults: you must be at least 18 to use it. It isn’t directed to children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; if we learn that we have, we delete it.
Changes and contact
If we change this notice, we’ll post the new version here with a new effective date. For a material change, we’ll also email current subscribers at least 30 days before it takes effect, and we won’t use information we already hold in a materially different way without your consent. Questions about privacy, or requests to see, correct or delete the information we hold about you: privacy@saybox.app. We delete what you ask us to unless we must keep it, such as the 6-year records described above. Lemon Squeezy answers requests about the payment details it holds.