Privacy Policy

Last updated 8 August 2026 · Applies to Quill for macOS and Quill for iOS

Quill is a dictation and voice-agent app that runs on your own device. Speech recognition happens locally and your audio is never uploaded. Some optional features do send text to third parties — this page lists every one of them, what gets sent, and how to turn it off.

Who we are

Quill is built and operated by Joe Vasquez ("we", "us"). You can reach us at [email protected] with any question about this policy or a request about your data.

The short version

• Your audio never leaves your device. Transcription runs locally on the Neural Engine. There is no upload step and no server involved.
• We do not sell or share your data, and there is no advertising, profiling, or third-party tracking in either app.
• Everything that leaves your device is optional and tied to a feature you switched on: AI clean-up, connected apps, cloud sync, and crash reporting.
• You can use Quill entirely offline and never send us anything.

What stays on your device

• Audio recordings. Captured to a local file, transcribed on-device, and stored in your local history under your user Library folder. Never transmitted.
• Speech recognition. Parakeet TDT and Whisper run through Core ML on your hardware. Model files are downloaded once from Hugging Face; your speech is not sent anywhere to be recognised.
• Transcript history, notes and settings. Stored locally. On macOS, under ~/Library/Application Support/com.joevasquez.Quill/.
• API keys and access tokens. Stored in the system Keychain with device-only accessibility — they are not included in iCloud Keychain sync and never leave your device except to authenticate directly with the service they belong to.
• Agent memory. The people, projects and preferences Quill learns are stored locally. On Macs that support Apple Intelligence, the extraction itself also runs on-device via Apple's Foundation Models, so the transcript is never sent out for that step.

What leaves your device, and only if you enable it

1. AI enhancement, editing and action planning

If you turn on AI clean-up, use Edit mode, or use Act mode, the text involved (your transcript, any text you highlighted, and the names of the apps you've connected) is sent to a large language model to be processed. Audio is never sent — only text.

• With your own API key: the request goes directly from your device to Anthropic or OpenAI under your own account, governed by their privacy policies. We never see it.
• On Quill Pro: the request goes to our proxy (a Cloudflare Worker) which forwards it to Anthropic using our key. The proxy checks that you're entitled to Pro and enforces a daily cap. We do not store the contents of these requests.
• On Apple Intelligence hardware: some steps — memory extraction, note clean-up, note titles — run on-device and skip this path entirely.

Turn it off by setting AI mode to Off and not using Edit or Act.

2. Connected apps

When you connect an app, Quill talks to it directly from your device using credentials you provide. Only the content of the specific action is sent — the reminder text, the draft email, the calendar event.

Quill asks you to confirm before any action runs. Disconnect a service at any time in Settings → Connections; its credentials are deleted from your Keychain when you do.

3. Cloud Sync

Off by default. When you enable it and connect a Google account, your notes, note photos and transcripts are stored in Google Cloud (Firestore and Cloud Storage) in a project we operate, so they can move between your iPhone and your Mac. Data is scoped to your account. Deleting a note removes it — and its photos — across your devices. Turn Cloud Sync off to stop all uploads; contact us to have stored data deleted.

4. Crash and error reporting

Off by default. If you turn it on, crash reports and a small number of handled errors are sent to Sentry to help us fix bugs. We deliberately do not attach response bodies or transcript content to these reports. Both apps ship an Apple privacy manifest declaring crash data as not linked to you and not used for tracking.

5. Usage counts

If you have connected Google, Quill may record aggregate counters — how many dictations, edits and actions you've run, and a word count — so we can understand whether the app is being used. No transcript content is included.

What we never do

• We do not sell, rent or share your personal information with data brokers or advertisers.
• We do not use your voice, transcripts or notes to train any machine-learning model — ours or anyone else's.
• We do not include analytics SDKs, advertising SDKs, or cross-app tracking. Both apps declare NSPrivacyTracking = false and list no tracking domains.
• We do not require an account to use the app.

Permissions we ask for, and why

• Microphone — to record what you dictate. Required.
• Accessibility (macOS) — to read the text you highlighted and to paste results into the app you're using. Without it, Edit mode can't work.
• Speech Recognition (macOS) — for the live preview text shown while you speak. Optional; denying it only removes the preview.
• Reminders and Calendar — only if you use those integrations.
• Photos (iOS) — only if you attach a photo to a note.

Retention

Local history and notes stay on your device until you delete them or until history exceeds the limit you've set in Settings. Cloud-synced content persists until you delete the note or ask us to remove your data. Crash reports are retained by Sentry for up to 90 days.

Your rights

Most of your data never reaches us, so the fastest way to delete it is to delete it in the app. For anything stored in our Google Cloud project (cloud-synced notes, usage counters), you can ask us to export or delete it by emailing [email protected]. We'll respond within 30 days. Depending on where you live, you may have rights under the GDPR or the CCPA to access, correct, delete, or port your data, and to object to processing — we honour these requests regardless of where you live. We have never sold personal information.

Children

Quill is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

International transfers

Our infrastructure runs in the United States. If you use Cloud Sync, Pro AI, or crash reporting from outside the US, that data is processed in the US.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects how your data is handled, we'll update the date at the top and note the change in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions, deletion requests, or anything that looks wrong on this page: [email protected].