Yap AI · Legal

Yap AI privacy policy.

Yap AI transcribes your speech on your own computer. Your audio is never uploaded, and there is no Yap AI account to create.

Effective 12 September 2026

The short version

Your speech is transcribed on your own computer, by a model stored on your own disk. The audio is not uploaded to us or to anyone else.
There is no Yap AI account, no sign-in and no telemetry we collect.
The one exception is AI cleanup, an optional feature that is off until you turn it on — see “The one thing that leaves your machine” below.
Yap AI is open source under the MIT licence, so you do not have to take our word for any of this: read the code.

Who we are

Yap AI is maintained and distributed by ToolsAi Pty Ltd (ABN 73 698 152 902), an independent software company based in Sydney, Australia (“ToolsAi”, “we”, “us”). Yap AI is open-source software originally released under the MIT licence by its upstream author; we maintain the builds published on our releases page. Our website has its own privacy policy.

What stays on your device

Your audio. Recording, voice-activity detection and speech-to-text all run locally. The audio is held in memory for the length of the take and is not written to a server.
Your transcripts. Transcription history is stored in Yap AI’s own application-data folder on your machine. You can clear it from within the app.
Your settings. Shortcut, language, model choice, audio device and any API key you enter are stored locally on your machine.

The one thing that leaves your machine

Yap AI has an optional post-processing feature (“AI cleanup”) that tidies a finished transcript — punctuation, casing, filler words. It is off by default and does nothing until you choose a provider and enter an API key.

If you turn it on, the text of that transcript is sent to the provider you chose — for example OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek or OpenRouter, or any endpoint you point it at yourself, including one running on your own network. Your audio is still not sent; only the transcribed text is. That request goes from your computer directly to that provider, not through us, and what they do with it is governed by their privacy policy and your account with them, not by this one. If you would rather nothing at all left your machine, leave AI cleanup off, or point it at a model you run locally.

Other network activity

Model downloads. The first time you pick a language, Yap AI downloads a speech model from its public host so it can run offline afterwards. That is an ordinary file download.
Updates. Yap AI may check our releases page for a newer version. That request tells the host your IP address and platform, as any download does.

Neither of these sends your audio, your transcripts or your settings. Once your model is downloaded, dictation works with the network off — that is worth testing if you want to confirm it for yourself.

What we never do

Never upload or store your audio.
Never collect your transcripts or read your transcription history.
Never sell data or show ads. There is nothing to sell — we do not receive it.
Never use your speech to train a model.

Permissions Yap AI asks for

Microphone — to hear you. Used only while a take is running.
Accessibility / input monitoring — so the global shortcut works in any app and the transcript can be pasted into the field you already had focused. It is not used to read what is on your screen.

Support email

If you email support@toolsai.app about Yap AI, we receive your email address and whatever you write, and keep it only as long as we need it to answer you.

Australian privacy law

We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and apply the same standard to users outside Australia.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. Because Yap AI is open source, the change that prompted it is visible in the repository’s history as well.

Contact

ToolsAi Pty Ltd · ABN 73 698 152 902
Sydney, Australia
support@toolsai.app