Yap stays on your Mac.
Your voice, your screen and your words are processed on your Mac. There's no account and no telemetry, and nothing is uploaded unless you set it up yourself.
What Yap keeps
Everything Yap stores is on your Mac, in places you can open, move or delete.
- Recordings, captions and notes~/Movies/Yap (you can change the folder)
- Dictation history~/Library/Application Support/Yap/history.json
- Downloaded Whisper models~/Library/Application Support/Yap/Models
- Diagnostic log~/Library/Logs/Yap.log. Events and timings, never what you said.
- API key for a custom server, if you add oneThe macOS Keychain
What Yap can access, and why
Yap asks for each permission when it first needs it, and Settings → Permissions shows their status at any time.
- MicrophoneHear you while you dictate or narrate a recording.
- Input MonitoringNotice your dictation key. Yap only listens for it; it never blocks or changes your typing.
- AccessibilityPaste at your cursor and read selected text for Command Mode.
- Screen & System Audio RecordingRecord your screen, only while you're recording.
- Camera (optional)Show the camera bubble in a recording.
- Local Network (optional)Only after you pair an iPhone, to find it on your Wi-Fi.
When Yap uses the network
Speech recognition, cleanup and summaries run on your Mac with Apple's on-device models by default. Yap reaches the network only in these cases:
- Downloading a modelOnly when you choose to download a Whisper model.
- A second model you set upIf you point Yap at a server (Ollama, LM Studio or another), text for that job is sent there. Settings warns you when that model isn't on your Mac.
- Checking for updatesRelease builds ask GitHub whether there's a new version. It's a request for a small public file and includes nothing you said, recorded or typed. Builds you compile yourself don't check.
- Yap MicAudio from your iPhone travels over your Wi-Fi to your Mac, encrypted with a key only your phone and Mac share. It stays on your local network.
Check for yourself
Yap is open source, so you don't have to take our word for any of this. Read the code, build it yourself, or watch its traffic. If something looks wrong,report it privately. We take anything that sends data off your Mac without you setting it up as a vulnerability.
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Last updated 16 October 2026.