Privacy & security

Recorded on your Mac. Here’s what leaves it.

What’s saved on your Mac, what goes out, to whom and why, and the switches that control it.

SwitchDesk puts dictation, meeting notes, screen videos and your to-do list in one Mac app. We save your calls, notes and videos on your Mac first, as ordinary files you can open with “Show in Finder”. A video uploads once it has a link, and by default that happens when you press Stop.

No bot in the call. The recording runs on Sam’s Mac.

We promise:

No meeting bot joins your calls.
SwitchDesk records on your Mac: your mic and the call’s audio, as two tracks. Nobody new appears in the call’s participant list.
No passwords to leak — sign-in is by email link.
Enter your email in Settings → Account and open the link we send.

Where your data goes

Audio goes to Deepgram. Text goes to Anthropic.

The Lumora kickoff, for example: its audio streamed to Deepgram during the call, the transcript went to Anthropic for the notes, and its folder stayed on Sam’s Mac.

Saved on your Mac

Lumora kickoff · saved on this Mac

Meeting recordings and their folders (audio, transcript, notes)
Your videos, always, before any upload
Recent dictations
Recap’s activity log

Sent, and why

While you dictate or record
Audio streams live to Deepgram to become text, with your Dictionary words as hints.
If Deepgram can’t be reached
Apple’s speech recognition takes over: on your Mac when it can, otherwise on Apple’s servers.
AI features
Text goes to Anthropic for AI Polish, meeting notes, suggested to-dos, filing the to-dos you say, Ask, titles, Recap and AI Chat, routed through our server and rate-limited.
When a video gets a link
At Stop, by default, the file uploads to Cloudflare R2 and its transcript is stored in Supabase. Switch off “Copy a share link when I stop recording” and videos stay on your Mac until you share one.
Sync
When you’re signed in, to-dos, categories and Dictionary words sync through Supabase. A shared category also goes to your team.
Meeting exports
Copies of the future calls you choose go through our server to your own webhook.
Incoming API
To-dos come in from the tools you connect, and signed status updates go back to them.

Fig. 1 — Everything in the dashed box stays on your Mac. Each line out is one thing that leaves it: what goes, where and when.

Worth knowing

Speaker names travel with the transcript to Anthropic, so the notes can say who said what.
Share links are unlisted, not private: anyone with the link can watch.
SwitchDesk doesn’t announce itself on the call, so tell people you’re recording. Laws vary by place.
Auto-record is a setting, and it’s off. Nothing records until you press Record.
Auto-record when opening a meeting
Clicking Open Meeting also starts the recorder. Stop any time from the Recording pill.

Your controls

Four switches decide what’s logged, named and shared.

Try the switches.Tap the switches.

Recap’s activity log

Settings → Dictation

Recap keeps a log of what you dictate and check off, so it can tell you what you got done today or this week.

Making a recap sends the relevant text to Anthropic. Switch the log off and Recap has nothing to read.

Activity & Recap

What’s recorded: the text of your dictations, which category you complete todos in, and a rough sense of the kind of app (email, chat, message…) — never the app’s name. It stays on this Mac, auto-deletes after your retention window, and you can clear it or turn it off any time.

Keep history for

Older entries auto-delete. Recaps you’ve generated are kept regardless — they hold no raw text.

Don’t log from these apps

Dictations into these apps are never recorded. Password managers are excluded by default.

Speaker names

Settings → Meetings

Names come from Google Meet’s own captions and participant list while you record, read with the Accessibility permission. No voiceprints: nobody is identified by their voice.

On other call apps, lines read “Me” and “Them”. Switch names off to see it.

Who said what

Identify speakers by name

When a name can’t be observed, that line stays unlabelled rather than guessed.

Keep Meet captions on while recording

Names come from the meeting’s own captions, which label each line with who said it. If captions are off, SwitchDesk presses Meet’s Turn on captions button for you — you’ll see them appear. If they go off during the call, they’re turned back on — unless you switch them off again right after, which leaves them off.

Settings → Videos

Every video is saved on your Mac first. Changed your mind after sharing one? Choose “Stop Sharing…” in My Videos and confirm:

“The link stops working right away and the online copy is deleted. The video stays on this Mac.”

Team visibility

Settings → Teams

Sam shares Fernhill with his team. Personal, Family and Pottery Shop stay off.

His team sees Fernhill’s to-dos, including the ones he moves into Today.

Shared with team

Categories you toggle on are visible to teammates. Untoggled categories stay private.

The details

Seven services get data, and here’s exactly what each one gets.

Services that receive data from SwitchDesk: what each gets, what it doesn’t, and why
Service	What it gets	Why
Deepgram	Audio while you dictate or record a call, streamed live, with your Dictionary words as hints. For a video with a link, its audio track. Doesn’t get: Your account or email: the app connects with a short-lived key from our server.	Speech to text: your dictation, the meeting transcript and its live captions, and the transcript on a share page.
Anthropic	Dictated words for AI Polish (with the app’s name when App-aware modes are on), the to-dos you say with your category names and bios, meeting transcripts with speaker names when they were identified, video transcripts, your AI Chat messages and the files you attach to them, and Recap’s activity text when you make a recap. Doesn’t get: Any audio or video.	AI Polish, meeting notes, suggested to-dos, filing, Ask, titles, Recap and AI Chat. Requests go through our server and are rate-limited.
Apple	Audio, only when Deepgram can’t be reached and speech recognition can’t run on your Mac. Doesn’t get: Anything while recognition runs on your Mac.	A fallback, so speech still becomes text.
Supabase	Your sign-in email; your to-dos, categories and Dictionary words; your team and the categories you share; a shared video’s title and transcript. Our server runs here too. Doesn’t get: Your recordings: audio and video files never go here.	Sign-in, sync between your devices, teams and share pages. The server relays AI and transcription requests, and incoming to-dos and webhooks.
Cloudflare R2	A video, its audio track and a thumbnail, once that video has a link. Doesn’t get: Videos without a link.	It plays on the share page. “Stop Sharing…” deletes the online copy.
Vercel	Requests from people who open switchdesk.org, including share pages. Doesn’t get: The video file: it streams from Cloudflare R2.	It hosts this website and serves each share page to the people you send the link to.
RevenueCat	An anonymous ID for this copy of the app, its app and macOS versions, your locale, and any App Store purchase, each time it starts. Doesn’t get: Your email or name.	It checks which plan the app is on.

What macOS asks for

macOS asks for each one when a feature first needs it. Switch any off in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

macOS permissions SwitchDesk asks for, and what uses each one
Permission	Used for
Microphone	Voice Dictation, Meeting Notes, and narration in Create Video.
Accessibility	Voice Dictation, to type into the app you’re in. While you record a call, it also reads participant names from Google Meet’s captions.
Input Monitoring	Voice Dictation, so holding the Globe key works in any app. It sees modifier keys only, never the letters you type.
Calendar	Meeting Notes, for “Countdown before meetings”.
System Audio Recording	Meeting Notes, to hear the other side of the call.
Screen & System Audio Recording	Create Video, for the screen, window or area you pick.
Camera	Create Video’s optional webcam bubble.
Speech Recognition	The Apple fallback, only when Deepgram can’t be reached.

If you cancel

Keeps working

Your to-do list and sync.
Meetings, videos and notes stay readable and exportable.

Stops

Dictation, recording, AI and uploads.

For how long

Share links stay live for 90 days, then show as “paused”.
Cloud data is kept for 12 months.

Reporting a vulnerability

Found a security problem? Email support@abstrakt.group.

Last updated Oct 5, 2026

Try it on your Mac, and check every switch in Settings.

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