Stays off between dictations. It opens only after you start recording—from your shortcut, the menu, or the recording control—and closes when you stop. Runtime audio is processed in memory instead of saved as a recording.
Security by design
Powerful permissions. Strict boundaries.
Speak Easy Privately needs a few macOS permissions to work across your applications. The microphone is not always listening: it opens only for a dictation you start and closes when you stop. Here is exactly what each permission does—and what still limits the app.
Designed around macOS App Sandbox
Permissions do not give Speak Easy Privately unrestricted access to your Mac.
Apple’s macOS App Sandbox is a system-enforced application security boundary. It restricts the app’s access to files, hardware, network connections, and other processes. Speak Easy Privately does not request Full Disk Access.
The application and its local inference helpers inherit this sandbox. They receive only the capabilities required for their specific jobs.
Why the permissions are needed
You can review or revoke every permission at any time in macOS System Settings.
No network path during dictation
Speech recognition and optional punctuation processing run locally. The main app and inference helpers have no network entitlement, so dictated audio and text cannot be sent to an inference server through them.
The full edition has no model downloader. Lite uses a separately sandboxed downloader that can fetch only approved model assets. It does not receive microphone audio, transcripts, clipboard contents, local history, or personal vocabulary.
Private local data
Local text history is optional and off unless you choose to use it. Saved history and personal vocabulary are encrypted with AES-GCM using device-protected keys stored in macOS Keychain.
Deleting this protected data also destroys its encryption keys. The app does not pretend that overwriting an APFS or SSD block is a reliable secure-erasure technique.
Models and runtimes are verified
Approved model packages are checked against pinned file manifests before activation. Missing, altered, or unexpected files are rejected. Executable inference components are also validated before launch so the app does not silently run a substituted binary.
What sandboxing means
App Sandbox reduces potential harm by restricting what the application can reach. It does not make any app invulnerable or replace careful engineering. Speak Easy Privately combines the sandbox with minimal permissions, local processing, signed runtime checks, encrypted optional storage, and content-free operational logging.
Questions about a permission or security boundary are welcome.
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