Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Alder (“we”, “our”, or “us”) respects your privacy. Our core philosophy is simple: what happens on your Mac, stays on your Mac. This Privacy Policy explains how our macOS application and website handle your data.

2. What stays on your Mac

Alder processes dictation, cleanup, personalization, translation, and delivery on your Mac. Your microphone audio, transcript text, dictation history, personal dictionary, snippets, and app context are not sent to us for recognition or language processing.

• Alder does not upload your voice recordings for recognition.
• Alder does not send your transcript text to a cloud language model.
• Recovery audio may be stored locally so interrupted recordings can be recovered or reprocessed. You control its retention in Alder’s settings.
• Free-plan usage is counted on your device. Alder does not receive your dictated words or a transcript of what you said.

3. Purchases and license data

Alder does not receive or store your full payment-card details.

• Direct purchases: Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record, processes checkout, tax, receipts, and refunds. We may receive the purchaser email, order identifier, license status, and related purchase metadata needed to deliver, activate, recover, support, or refund a license. Lemon Squeezy’s handling of checkout data is governed by its privacy policy.
• App Store purchases, if offered: Apple processes payment and account information. Alder receives only the transaction and entitlement information needed to verify or restore the purchase, not your card details.

License activation and validation may send the license key, activation status, a device-scoped identifier, and standard network metadata such as IP address and request time. Update checks may send the current app version and operating-system version. These requests do not include microphone audio, transcript text, vocabulary, snippets, or dictation history.

4. Website analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics 4 and first-party site analytics to understand aggregate traffic and improve the purchase and download experience. These services may process page views, interactions, referrer and campaign information, browser or device details, approximate location, IP address, and cookie or similar identifiers. Website analytics never contain your Alder microphone audio or transcript text.

5. Optional app diagnostics and support reports

• Optional anonymous diagnostics: Alder may send a random installation identifier, app version and build channel, macOS version, Mac hardware model, coarse country, event timing and status, permission results, model-download or configuration stages, and non-content error domains or codes. The edge service hashes the random installation identifier before storage. Sharing is on by default. Uncheck it on Welcome or in About Alder to stop. First-run events stay on this Mac until you continue setup. You can turn sharing off at any time.
• Content is excluded: Anonymous diagnostics never include microphone audio, transcript text, dictation history, personal dictionary entries, snippets, filenames, app names, prompts, document content, license keys, or purchase data.
• User-initiated support reports: If you choose Report a Problem and press Send Report, we receive the problem description you typed, your optional reply email, a diagnostic zip containing app logs, macOS/app/hardware details, permission state, speech-engine health, and troubleshooting metadata such as audio device names. Support reports do not include microphone audio, saved transcript text, dictation history, vocabulary, custom words, or license keys unless you type that information into the description yourself. Diagnostic report metadata is retained for up to 90 days.

6. Retention, sharing, and your choices

Local content remains under your control and can be deleted in Alder or by removing the app and its local data. Purchase and license records are retained as needed to provide the license, prevent fraud, issue refunds, and meet tax or legal obligations. Anonymous app diagnostics and user-initiated diagnostic report metadata are retained for up to 90 days.

• We do not sell or rent your personal information.
• We share information only with service providers that help operate Alder, process purchases, host the website, deliver downloads, analyze website traffic, or provide support; or when required by law or necessary to protect users and the service.
• You may request access, correction, or deletion of personal information we control by emailing [email protected]. Some purchase records may need to be retained for legal, tax, fraud-prevention, or contractual reasons.

7. Children, changes, and contact

Alder is not directed to children under 13. We may update this policy as Alder or applicable law changes; the date above identifies the current version. Questions or privacy requests can be sent to [email protected].