"Private" gets used loosely. This page lays out what each Mac dictation app actually sends where, so you can pick on facts rather than marketing copy. Apple Dictation, Murmur, VoiceInk, MacWhisper, SuperWhisper, Wispr Flow, Aqua Voice.
Verified May 2026 · written by the Murmur team
"Private dictation" is a phrase that hides three separate questions:
An app can be private on one axis and not the others. Apple Dictation, for example: audio stays local (good), transcribed text stays local (good), nothing goes anywhere (great). But it has no AI polish step at all (which is why some people don't use it). Wispr Flow does the opposite: audio uploaded, text processed in cloud, polished output is excellent.
Honest summary, no spin:
For sensitive material, the cluster you want is the first six (audio stays local). The split inside that cluster is whether the LLM polish step is acceptable to you.
"I work for a company that processes regulated data." You want audio on-device. Murmur Quick mode, Apple Dictation, or VoiceInk + local LLM. Don't use Wispr Flow or Aqua Voice for work content.
"I dictate about clients but my polish step is fine on Claude." Murmur AI mode is built for this. Audio is local, your Claude API key handles the polish, and Claude API traffic is not used for training by default. You can also redact before triggering AI mode.
"I want zero LLM contact with anything I dictate." Murmur Quick mode, Apple Dictation, or VoiceInk with local Ollama. No outbound text traffic for the LLM step.
"I just don't want my audio in someone's training set." Any on-device app: Murmur, Apple Dictation, VoiceInk, MacWhisper, SuperWhisper. Avoid Wispr Flow, Aqua Voice.
"I trust the major cloud vendors and want the most polished output." Wispr Flow. Read their privacy policy first.
You can verify what an app sends with the Mac built-in Activity Monitor (Network tab) or with Little Snitch, which shows every outbound connection per process. Open the dictation app, dictate a test sentence, and watch what gets uploaded.
For Murmur, you'll see api.anthropic.com when you trigger AI mode or Silent mode (and only then). Quick mode produces no outbound traffic. Update checks hit GitHub Releases. That's the full surface area.
For cloud apps, you'll see traffic to their domain on every dictation. That's expected, that's how they work. The question is whether you're OK with it.
Apple Dictation, Murmur (Quick mode), VoiceInk, MacWhisper, and SuperWhisper all transcribe on-device. Audio never leaves your Mac. Of these, Apple Dictation and Murmur Quick mode have no AI step at all, so nothing leaves your machine in any form.
No. Audio is transcribed on-device by Whisper. The audio buffer is held in RAM and discarded. AI mode and Silent mode send the transcribed text (not audio) to Claude via your own API key. Quick mode is fully offline.
Yes. Both transcribe in the cloud, which means the audio file is uploaded to their servers for processing. Their privacy policies cover retention and training-data use, but the upload itself is fundamental to how they work.
Depends on what you mean by private. If "private" means "audio doesn't leave my Mac," then yes. If "private" means "no LLM ever touches what I dictated," you need Quick mode (raw transcription) and skip the AI polish step.
Use Activity Monitor (Window > GPU Dashboard > Network) or install Little Snitch, which shows every outbound connection per process. Open the app, dictate a test sentence, and watch the network calls. For Murmur, you'll see api.anthropic.com on AI mode triggers and nothing else.
Murmur is the cheapest dictation app on Mac that keeps your audio on-device while still offering AI polish via your own Claude API key. Quick mode is fully offline; AI mode and Silent mode call your key transparently.