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Synopsule Privacy Policy

Synopsule is a Mac and iPhone app — with an Apple Watch companion recorder — that records, transcribes, and (optionally) summarizes conversations on your device. This policy explains what data the app handles, where it goes, and the choices you have.

TL;DR

• Audio never leaves your device. Recordings are stored locally on your Mac or iPhone (Apple Watch recordings transfer to your paired iPhone); raw audio is never uploaded.
• Transcripts stay on your device by default. Transcription happens fully on-device.
• AI summaries and "Ask your meetings" are optional and opt-in. They are the only paths where any of your content (transcript text) leaves your device, and only with your explicit consent. Audio is never sent. Summarizing automatically after a recording is a setting you control, and it never starts sending to an outside provider on its own.
• Your calendar, your notifications, and your Lock Screen stay local. Reading your calendar is off until you turn it on, and what it reads is never uploaded. Notifications are posted by your own device. The Lock Screen recording card shows a clock and nothing else.
• Backups are yours to place. A library backup is an ordinary ZIP file you create and choose a location for. Synopsule never uploads one.
• Anonymous product analytics, easy to turn off. We send anonymous usage events (e.g. "a recording was started", "the export sheet was opened") to help improve the app. No transcript text, no audio, no account, and no advertising identifiers — and you can disable it any time with the Share anonymous analytics switch in Settings.

What we collect

Synopsule itself does not collect, store, or transmit personal data to its developer. Specifically:

• Microphone audio (and, on a Mac, that Mac's system audio) captured during a recording are processed locally on your device. While a recording is in progress, the in-flight audio is held in an encrypted temporary vault on your device; after processing succeeds and your transcript is saved, new audio is deleted by default. You can enable “Keep audio after processing” in Privacy settings for playback and re-analysis. Audio from unfinished processing remains available locally for recovery, and audio is never uploaded.
• Apple Watch recordings are captured from the watch's microphone, stored locally on the watch, and transferred to your paired iPhone over Apple's Watch Connectivity. From there they are processed on-device like any other recording — nothing is uploaded.
• Transcripts and recording metadata (titles, speakers, timestamps, your local notes) are stored in the app's local storage on your device. They remain on your device and are not transmitted to us.
• Settings and preferences (selected model, source toggles, AI provider choice, consent acknowledgements) are stored in the app's local preferences on your device.
• API keys (if you bring your own LLM key) are stored in your device's Keychain. We never see them.
• Audio files you import are decoded and transcribed on your device exactly like a recording Synopsule captured itself. The file you picked stays where you left it.
• Calendar events are read only if you switch on meeting awareness, and only to offer to record a meeting and name the recording after it. See below.
• Library backups are files you create and place yourself. See Backups you create.

Calendar, notifications, and the Lock Screen

Synopsule can now speak up on its own — telling you a transcript is ready, or offering to record a meeting that is about to start. Everything it needs to do that is read and displayed on your device.

• Meeting awareness is optional and reads only calendars you select from Apple Calendar, including synced Google accounts. Synopsule uses event names, times and invitee names to suggest recordings. It inspects event links and dial-in details locally for the optional joining-details reminder filter; calendar notes, joining links, phone numbers and guest email addresses are not saved. It never changes calendar events. A uniquely matching meeting can name a recording. When you choose a meeting to record, its title, event reference, scheduled start and invited-name suggestions are saved locally with the recording. Invitee suggestions do not automatically identify speakers. Calendar selections, dismissed occurrences and muted recurring-series identifiers are saved as local preferences. Muting a series is reversible in Settings. Disabling calendar awareness stops reads and cancels scheduled meeting reminders. Recorded metadata stays with the recording until you delete it; a library backup you export includes that metadata. A meeting title or a speaker name you confirm can appear in transcript exports and in text you authorize an AI provider to process. Calendar data is never used for analytics.
• Meeting-app detection (Mac only, and also off until you switch it on) offers the same thing when a video-meeting app comes to the front. It looks only at which app is frontmost — never at what is on screen, and never inside another app's windows.
• Notifications are delivered locally by macOS or iOS. Transcript notifications and meeting reminders have separate opt-in controls. Meeting reminders let you choose timing and sound, and optionally show the meeting title; title previews and sound are off by default for meeting reminders. A reminder carries an opaque event reference so tapping it can open the current meeting; it never carries attendee names or calendar notes. Your device’s notification settings and Focus can silence or delay delivery. Calendar changes refresh when Synopsule runs; a scheduled reminder may be stale until then, so the event is checked again when opened. Existing transcript notifications can include the recording title. No notification service or server receives this content.
• The Live Activity on the iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island carries exactly two facts: when the recording started, and whether it is paused. No meeting title, no transcript text, no speaker names. A Live Activity is drawn on a locked screen in front of whoever is in the room, so that ceiling is deliberate.
• Shortcuts, Siri, the Action button, the Control Center control, and the Home Screen widget can start, pause, and stop a recording. They carry the same instruction a button inside the app does, and no transcript content. The widget cannot see your library and never displays any of it.

Anonymous product analytics

Unless you opt out, Synopsule sends anonymous usage events to Mixpanel (mixpanel.com) so we can understand which features are used, where users get stuck during setup, and which errors are most common. We use this data to prioritize improvements.

What is sent:

• Event names like app_launched, recording_started, recording_stopped, summarize_completed, purchase_completed, export_failed, and similar product-interaction events.
• Coarse metadata about those events: app version, OS version (macOS or iOS), plan type (free vs Pro), recording duration, error category, export format, and similar non-identifying signals.
• A randomly-generated device identifier ("distinct ID") that Mixpanel assigns automatically.

What is NOT sent:

• Audio, ever.
• Transcript text or summaries.
• File names, paths, or session titles.
• Your name, email, IP-level account, advertising identifier, or any contact information.
• API keys.
• The text of any search query you type.

The data is not linked to your identity, not used for tracking across apps or sites, and not shared with advertisers. It is used only by us to improve Synopsule.

Turning it off: Open Synopsule's Settings — Privacy on a Mac, Privacy & Microphone on an iPhone — and switch off Share anonymous analytics. Synopsule stops sending events immediately and clears any queued ones. You can turn it back on at any time.

When data leaves your device

The only time any of your content leaves your device is if you choose to use an AI feature — generating an AI summary, or asking a question with "Ask your meetings". In either case, only the transcript text required for the request is sent — never the audio.

You can use AI summaries in one of two ways:

Bring your own key (BYO)

If you configure your own LLM API key, your transcript text is sent directly to the provider you select, not through Synopsule:

• OpenAI — transcript text is sent to api.openai.com.
• Anthropic — transcript text is sent to api.anthropic.com.
• Google Gemini — transcript text is sent to generativelanguage.googleapis.com.
• LiteLLM-compatible gateway — transcript text is sent to the base URL you configure.

These requests use your API key and are subject to that provider's privacy policy. We never see them.

Synopsule subscription

If you subscribe via the App Store, transcript text is sent to the Synopsule API Worker (hosted on Cloudflare), which validates your App Store subscription receipt and forwards the request to OpenAI to generate the summary. We do not store the transcript text after the request completes.

Ask your meetings

"Ask your meetings" lets you ask a question across your recordings. To answer it, Synopsule sends transcript excerpts from the relevant recordings — which can span multiple meetings — to the same AI provider you configured for summaries (your own key, or the Synopsule subscription). It is gated by the same explicit consent as summaries and never sends anything without it. Audio is never sent.

Automatic summaries

Synopsule can summarize each recording as soon as it finishes transcribing, so a meeting isn't left sitting behind a button. This is a setting — Settings → AI Summary → Summarize automatically — and three things are true of it:

• It does nothing until you have set up a summary provider.
• It never sends a transcript to a provider you have not already consented to. An automatic run is never the moment you are asked for consent.
• It is off for an off-device provider unless you turn it on. Allowing one transcript to go to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or a gateway of your choosing answers a question about that transcript — it is not a standing subscription to sending every future recording. So the first time you grant that permission, Synopsule writes this setting off for you. If automatic summaries are on for an outside provider, it is because you switched them on.

On an on-device provider (Apple Intelligence or a local Ollama), an automatic summary runs on your own machine and nothing is sent anywhere.

Before the first off-device summary or "Ask your meetings" request on either path, Synopsule asks for your explicit permission and names the destination provider. You can revoke this permission at any time in Settings → AI Summary → Reset AI consent, and you can stop using these features entirely by simply not using them — your recordings and transcripts continue to work fully offline.

Subscriptions and payments

Subscriptions are sold through the Apple App Store. Apple processes payments — we never see your payment information. To validate active subscriptions, Synopsule sends the App Store-signed transaction (a JWS token, not any personal data) to the Synopsule API Worker, which verifies it with Apple's servers.

Permissions

• Microphone access is requested (on Mac, iPhone, and Apple Watch) so the app can capture your voice and in-room speakers. Audio capture happens entirely on your device.
• Audio recording access (macOS only) is requested so the app can capture this Mac's system audio for remote meeting participants. The iPhone app records from the microphone only and does not capture system audio.
• Calendar access is requested only when you switch on meeting awareness, and only for reading. Synopsule uses it to know when a meeting starts and what it is called, so it can offer to record and name the recording. It never changes calendar events. Selected meeting metadata is saved locally as described above. Leave the setting off and the app never asks.
• Notification permission is requested only when you switch notifications on, so your device can remind you about meetings or tell you a transcript is ready. Notifications are composed and delivered locally.

Everything above is optional except the microphone, which is what a recorder is for. You can change or revoke any of these permissions at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security on iPhone, or System Settings → Privacy & Security on Mac.

Recording other people

When you capture this Mac's system audio during a meeting, you are recording the other participants on the call. You are responsible for obtaining their consent as required by the laws and norms of your jurisdiction. Synopsule will remind you of this when you first enable system audio.

Children

Synopsule is not directed to children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from children.

Recommending Synopsule uses your device’s share sheet and includes only the public app link and recommendation text. It does not include your recordings, transcripts, or speaker names.

Data retention and deletion

• Transcripts are kept on your device. From version 2.2, new audio is deleted after processing and a successful transcript save by default. Explicitly enable “Keep audio after processing” to retain new recordings for playback and re-analysis. Existing saved audio is unchanged. Nothing is uploaded.
• You can delete any recording at any time in the app's Library (on Mac, a keep-or-delete prompt after a recording finishes also lets you discard the audio right away). Deleted recordings are removed from your device. On Mac you can also remove the app's Application Support folder.
• The encrypted temporary vault is cleared after processing and a successful transcript save. If processing, speaker separation, or saving is unfinished, recovery audio stays on your device until you finish processing or delete the recording.
• Uninstalling the app removes its data from your device. It does not remove backups you made, exports you saved, or files you shared elsewhere — those are yours to manage.

Backups you create

Synopsule does not sync. There is no Synopsule account and no server holding your library, so nothing arrives on a second device on its own. What there is instead is a backup you make yourself: Backup in Settings (Backup & restore on a Mac) writes your library to a single file, and restoring reads one back.

• The backup is an ordinary ZIP file. Nothing in it is encrypted or obfuscated by Synopsule, so you can open it with the tools you already have — which is the point, and also the reason to think about where you put it.
• It contains your transcripts — the recording titles, the speaker-attributed text, your notes and flags, and any summaries — and, if you leave Include the audio switched on, your recorded audio as well. Audio is by far the larger half. Turn that switch off for a transcripts-only archive.
• You choose where it goes. If you put it on a shared drive, in a cloud folder, or in a message to someone, it is as readable there as it is on your Mac — treat it as you would the recordings themselves.
• Restoring merges: it adds recordings that aren't already on the device and leaves the ones that are exactly as they were. It never overwrites and never deletes.
• This is also the honest answer to moving a library between a Mac and an iPhone: both build the same file and read it the same way. Nothing passes through us at any point.

Security

• Audio and transcripts are stored in your device's user-protected app directories.
• API keys are stored in the device Keychain with at-rest encryption and per-item access control.
• All network calls use HTTPS.

Third parties

Synopsule only contacts third parties in the specific cases above:

We only share data with these third parties to provide the functionality you request, and we require that any third party with whom we share data provides the same or equal protection of your data as stated in this policy. We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with data brokers.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that affects how your data is handled, we will update the Effective date above and describe the change on this page.

Contact

Questions or requests? Email rxv2dev@gmail.com.