Privacy controls

Everything here is a switch in Settings → Privacy, Settings → Writing or Settings → Dictation, and all of it is local to your Mac.

History

Each dictation's recognised text, final text, app name, duration and outcome are kept in ~/Library/Application Support/MicJot/history.json, readable only by you (mode 0600) and excluded from backups, so you can search and re-insert them and see your statistics.

• Save dictation history (Settings → Privacy) turns it off entirely.
• Keep history for 7, 30, 90 (default), 365 days or forever; older entries are deleted at launch.
• Delete single entries from Home's transcript list, everything with Delete all history…, or the whole file.

Excluded apps

Nothing dictated into an excluded app is stored, kept for ⌃⌘V or saved as pending audio; when such a text cannot be pasted it stays on the clipboard with the concealed marker rather than in History. The default list covers password managers (1Password, Bitwarden, KeePassXC, LastPass, Dashlane, Keychain Access) and terminals (Terminal, iTerm2, Warp, kitty, WezTerm, Alacritty, Hyper). Add or remove apps under Settings → Privacy → Excluded apps.

Password fields and Secure Event Input

Nothing dictated into a password field or while another app holds Secure Event Input is stored. Secure Event Input also hides all keys from MicJot, so the dictation key pauses while such a field has focus; the bar says so.

Private dictation

A session-only switch, “Private dictation”, in Settings → Privacy and in the status-bar menu. While it is on, nothing is stored: no history, no pending audio, no ⌃⌘V. It turns off when you quit.

Text near the cursor

With Accessibility, MicJot reads the frontmost app's name, up to 600 characters before the cursor and the selected text so a dictation continues naturally and AI writing gets context. It never reads password fields. Turn off “Use text near the cursor” in Settings → Writing and only the transcript is used (and, with AI writing, sent).

Microphone standby

“Keep the microphone ready” (Settings → Dictation) keeps the microphone open for 90 seconds after a dictation by default (30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds or 3 minutes) and keeps the last 250 milliseconds, so first words survive Bluetooth headsets. The standby audio is discarded continuously; nothing is stored until you dictate; the macOS microphone indicator stays on so you can see it. Turn it off and each dictation opens the microphone afresh (about 0.7 s warm-up on a Bluetooth headset). Sleep, screen lock and a user switch close a standby microphone at once.

The clipboard

MicJot's clipboard item carries the Transient, AutoGenerated and Concealed markers, so clipboard managers that honour them skip it. A Concealed item already on your clipboard (a password manager's) is never retained or written back. Command mode and Polish read a selection through Accessibility and fall back to ⌘C only when the app does not expose it; your clipboard is restored afterwards where it can be.

Logs and diagnostics

The event log never contains what you said; every string is redacted unless marked public. Logs are kept for 7 days in …/MicJot/Logs. Nothing is uploaded; Save Diagnostics… writes a zip you may choose to send.

Audio

Recognition is on-device only; there is no cloud engine to choose, so the recording never leaves the Mac and is never written to disk. The privacy page has the full table of what does leave it, and when.