Is Apple Dictation Private? What Apple Keeps

Apple Dictation processes your words on your Mac only when the Keyboard settings say the text is processed on your device. Otherwise your speech goes to Apple's servers. Apple says it does not store that audio unless you choose Share Audio Recordings, but it may keep request history, including transcripts, for up to two years under a random identifier. This guide uses Apple's own pages, read on October 16, 2026, and gives the steps for macOS Tahoe 26 with the older path noted. For the rest of the setup, see our overview of dictation on Mac.

On-device dictation processes your audio on the Mac; server dictation sends it to Apple

Apple has two ways of processing dictation on a Mac, and the difference is the whole privacy question. For general text, such as messages and notes, Apple says that voice inputs and transcripts can be processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers ¹. This is the on-device speech recognition mode. The check excludes the Dictation search box, which is not general text: Apple's note covers messages and notes, "but not dictating in a search box" ².

You do not have to guess which mode you are in. Apple says Keyboard settings shows whether your audio and transcripts are processed on your device, or sent to Apple servers ³. The indicator is the test to use, rather than an assumption about your Mac.

If the indicator says the text is not processed on the device, the speech goes to the server. Apple's privacy page says those things are "sent to and processed on the server, but will not be stored unless you opt in" to Improve Siri and Dictation ⁴. The table shows what each mode means for what Apple keeps.

The on-device mode covers fewer languages than Dictation as a whole. Apple's feature availability page lists 63 Dictation language and region variants ⁷. Its on-device and modeless list has 48 variants ⁸. Automatic punctuation is listed for 33 variants ⁹. These counts are from Apple's page as we read it on October 16, 2026, and the lists change with each macOS release, so check the page for your version. Lists differ by release, and so do the languages you can dictate in on a Mac.

To see which mode your Mac uses today:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Keyboard in the sidebar. You may need to scroll down, and Dictation must be turned on ¹⁰.
2. Read the line below Dictation. It says whether your voice inputs and transcripts are processed on the device or sent to Apple servers ³.
3. If the line says sent to Apple, check whether you shared audio. The switch is under Privacy & Security, then Analytics & Improvements, as Improve Siri & Dictation ¹¹.

The on-device list does not cover every language, so check the indicator for every language you dictate in ⁸. If you need dictation with no connection at all, see our guide to offline dictation on Mac.

Apple keeps audio recordings only if you opted in to Share Audio Recordings

The choice that decides whether Apple stores audio is the Share Audio Recordings prompt. Apple's Mac Help says that if you are asked whether to improve Siri and Dictation, clicking Share Audio Recordings lets Apple store audio of your Siri and Dictation interactions from your Mac, and that Apple may review a sample of stored audio ⁶. The setting is named Improve Siri & Dictation in System Settings. Apple's privacy page describes the same setting as allowing Apple to store and review a sample of audio interactions with Siri and Dictation ¹².

Apple says the people who can access that audio are narrow: only its own employees, under confidentiality obligations, can access the audio ¹³. That protection is a company commitment rather than something you can inspect on your Mac, so treat it as policy.

The risk is not theoretical. A Guardian report in 2019 said Apple contractors regularly heard confidential medical information as part of their quality control work on Siri ¹⁴. In January 2025, Reuters reported that Apple agreed to pay $95 million in cash to settle a proposed class action claiming that Siri violated users' privacy ¹⁵. That case concerned Siri, not Dictation alone, but it involved the same kind of voice recordings. For the wider question of who listens to recordings, see whether companies listen to voice recordings.

What Apple says it keeps, how it is linked to you and for how long

Turning off Share Audio Recordings does not mean nothing is kept. Apple's privacy page says your request history, which includes transcripts and related request data, is associated with a random, device-generated identifier that rotates multiple times per hour, and is not tied to your Apple Account or email address. Apple may retain and use that data for up to two years ⁵. This answers the question of whether Apple keeps recordings of what you dictate: not the audio by default, but the history, yes.

The same page covers human review of text, not only audio. Apple says it may review a subset of the transcripts of Siri interactions, and that the small subset it has reviewed may be kept beyond two years ¹⁶. That sentence names Siri. The surrounding text covers Siri and Dictation together, so the page does not separate dictated text from Siri requests. Assume that dictated transcripts may fall in the same group.

Here is what the two limits mean in practice. Server dictation history that is less than six months old can be deleted from the Mac's settings, as long as the Mac is online at the time ^{17 18}. Apple's deletion steps cover only history less than six months old, while Apple's privacy page says the history may be kept for up to two years ⁵. Apple's pages do not say how the two-year period is counted, so treat two years as the limit Apple states, not a period you can count on.

The table sets out the periods Apple states and who controls each one.

You can opt out and delete your Siri and Dictation history in System Settings

You can stop future sharing and delete past history. These are two separate settings, and this guide's steps for each are below.

To stop sharing audio on macOS Tahoe 26:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Privacy & Security in the sidebar. You may need to scroll down ¹¹.
2. Go to Analytics & Improvements, then turn Improve Siri & Dictation off ¹¹.

To delete Siri and Dictation history on macOS Tahoe 26:

1. Open System Settings, then click Apple Intelligence & Siri in the sidebar, or Siri where that is the name shown. You may need to scroll down ¹⁹.
2. Open the Siri settings, click Delete Siri & Dictation History, then click Delete ²⁰.

Two limits apply. First, you must be connected to the internet to delete the history ¹⁸. Second, the steps delete request history, both audio recordings and transcripts, only when it is associated with a random identifier and less than six months old ¹⁷. The steps do not describe removing older items. Apple's privacy page says request history may be kept for up to two years ⁵, so older history is left with Apple. We found no self-service way to remove it, and Apple's steps do not offer one. Our question on deleting Siri and Dictation history on a Mac gives the short version.

The menu names change between releases. On macOS Sonoma 14, the first step starts from Siri & Spotlight in the sidebar ²¹. If the names on your screen differ from these, check your macOS version in our guide to Mac dictation by macOS version.

Health, legal and client data need more than consumer privacy settings

Apple's default settings suit personal notes. Protected health information and client files raise a different question: whether the company holds a contract that makes it answerable to you under the law. HIPAA lets a covered entity allow a business associate to create, receive, maintain or transmit protected health information on its behalf if the entity obtains satisfactory assurance that the business associate will appropriately safeguard it ²².

HHS's cloud guidance is the closest official answer on how that assurance works for data a provider cannot read. It says that lacking an encryption key does not exempt a cloud provider from business associate status ²³, and that the covered entity and the provider must sign a HIPAA-compliant business associate agreement ²⁴. That guidance is written for cloud providers, not for dictation apps, but it shows how regulators read a service that holds data it cannot decrypt: the key does not settle the question.

Apple's published privacy pages for Siri and Dictation do not mention HIPAA or a business associate agreement. Vendor blogs that sell compliance products say Apple does not offer a BAA for Siri or Dictation, but those are commercial sources, and we could not confirm Apple's position from its own terms. Ask Apple's business or healthcare team for a written answer before you rely on it. For the full compliance question, see our guide to HIPAA-compliant dictation, and for a direct answer, read is Apple Dictation HIPAA compliant?.

The HIPAA Security Rule adds a technical requirement as well. Its audit controls standard calls for mechanisms that record and examine activity in information systems that contain or use electronic protected health information ²⁵. Apple's request history is tied to a random identifier rather than to your account, which makes it a poor substitute for the records a practice reviews.

Before you dictate patient or client information, check these five things:

1. Whether the Keyboard settings say the text is processed on your device for the language you use ³.
2. Whether Share Audio Recordings is off, so that Apple does not store audio of your dictation ⁴.
3. Whether a written agreement covers the data. HHS says a covered entity and a cloud provider that holds its health information must enter into a HIPAA-compliant business associate agreement ²⁴.
4. Whether you can show who accessed a record, since the audit controls standard asks for that kind of record of activity ²⁵.
5. Whether your practice's or firm's own policy allows the tool. A settings check does not replace that decision.

Lawyers face a parallel question. ABA Formal Opinion 512 concludes that informed consent is required before client information is entered into self-learning generative AI tools whose outputs could disclose it ²⁶. Apple Dictation is not generative AI in that sense, but the test carries over: who can see the client's words, and did the client agree. Our guide on dictation for lawyers and privilege covers the details. This is general information, not advice for your practice or case.

How Apple's approach compares with cloud dictation apps

Apple's on-device mode is the clearest option in the table below, because Apple says speech is not sent to its servers ¹. Other tools send audio to a server by design, and each one says something different about what it keeps. The table lists what each company or its own documents say, dated October 16, 2026.

For more on the tools themselves, see our guide to the best dictation apps for Mac. A rate of human review tells you how often a person hears a sample, not whether your sample is in it, so read each company's policy for the opt-out and for who can listen.

Read together, the table shows a trade. On-device dictation leaves no server copy to manage, but it covers fewer languages and needs its setting checked. Server dictation covers more languages and features, but it adds the two-year history, the possible review of transcripts and, for regulated work, a contract question. Cloud apps add their own retention terms, and each company's policy decides them. Apple's settings are a reasonable default for personal notes. For regulated work, they are the start of the check, not the end.

Among dedicated apps, Yap, which we make, is an on-device dictation app for Mac and Windows. It belongs in a fair comparison, but read its privacy terms as you would any app's, and do not rely on our summary. For how the recognition itself works in each path, see how Apple Dictation works, and for the wider choice between on-device and cloud, see is voice to text safe.