Privacy policy

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What stays on your Mac

Aiolos recognizes speech with Whisper right on your Mac. Your voice does not leave the Mac for this. The app keeps the audio of a dictation only in memory and discards it after recognition. It does not store dictated text; it keeps only the last one in memory until you quit, so you can copy it again.

During a meeting, the app writes the audio to a folder on your Mac while it records, so a crash loses nothing. Once the transcript is saved, it deletes the audio. If transcription fails, the audio stays until you try again or delete the meeting.

The app stores transcripts, notes, your own notes, settings, dictionary, snippets and statistics in the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Aiolos. The statistics only count words and minutes. Keys and sign-ins, such as your OpenRouter key, are kept in the macOS Keychain. We have no access to any of this. The app needs no account and contains no analytics, advertising or crash reporting services.

Everything stays until you delete it: meetings in the app, everything else with the folder above. When its log in the “logs” subfolder is larger than 5 MB at launch, the app starts a new one and keeps only the previous one. What you dictate is not in it.

What the app needs permissions for

The app needs the microphone for dictation and meetings. It needs Accessibility for the dictation key and shortcuts, to insert text, to read selected text you want to correct, translate or give to the assistant, and for speaker names (below). It uses Screen & System Audio Recording only while it records a meeting, for the sound your Mac plays, such as the other people in a call; it does not capture images of your screen. It reads your calendar to suggest upcoming meetings and never writes to it. It controls the Notes app only if you connect Apple Notes as an export target, and it opens your Documents and Desktop folders only if your Obsidian vault is there.

To offer you a recording, the app also checks whether another app is using the microphone for a call. To insert text, it puts the text on the clipboard briefly, marks it as transient so clipboard history apps don't keep it, and then restores what was there before. All of this happens only on your Mac.

Who is in your meetings

If you start a recording from a calendar event or link it to one, the app stores the event's title, location, description, organizer and invitees with the meeting. If speaker names are on, which they are from the start, the app reads during the recording who Google Meet in Chrome or the Teams app shows as participants and as speaking, and writes the names into the transcript.

This information stays on your Mac unless the AI writes the notes in the cloud or you export the meeting (both below). You can turn off calendar suggestions and speaker names in the settings, and calendar access in the macOS System Settings. If you record other people, you are responsible for their data; tell them beforehand (see the terms of use).

AI in the cloud through OpenRouter

The AI is off until you turn it on. When it runs in the cloud, the app sends text from your Mac directly to OpenRouter, using your own OpenRouter key. We receive none of it. You enter into the contract with OpenRouter yourself, and its terms and privacy policy apply. The provider is OpenRouter, Inc., 169 Madison Ave #2404, New York, NY 10016, USA.

What is sent: in the Correction, Prompt and Assistant modes, the recognized text of your dictation; when you correct or translate with a shortcut and with the assistant, the selected text. For meeting notes, after each recording and when you have the notes created again: the transcript with who is speaking, your own notes and, if available, the details of the calendar event and the names from the call. When you rewrite a point of the notes: the point, your instruction and the matching part of the transcript. In Raw mode and with the AI on your Mac, nothing is sent. The app never sends audio.

OpenRouter receives the request, according to its data processing agreement on servers in the USA, and passes it on to the provider of the AI model. The default is the EU region: dictation then runs on Google (Vertex AI) in the EU, meeting notes on Microsoft (Azure) in the EU. There, the app only allows providers that neither store your texts nor use them for training, and it does not fall back to others. If you choose “Worldwide” for dictation or “US” for notes in the settings, dictation runs on Google (AI Studio or Vertex AI) and notes on OpenAI in the USA; whether these providers store texts then depends on their terms.

According to OpenRouter, it does not store your texts unless you allow it to store or use them in your OpenRouter account yourself. For every request, OpenRouter stores metadata such as the time, the model and the number of tokens, and links it to your account through your key.

AI on your Mac

You can also run the AI on your Mac, with a Gemma model from Google. Then no text leaves your Mac. The model runs in a program of the app that can only be reached on your Mac and only accepts requests from the app.

Downloading speech and AI models

The app downloads the models for speech recognition (Whisper) and for the AI on your Mac (Gemma) from Hugging Face when you start the download: from huggingface.co, which forwards to its download network on Amazon Web Services. Hugging Face sees your IP address, the time and which file you download. The app sends no account, cookies or identifier of your Mac. The provider is Hugging Face, Inc., 20 Jay Street, Suite 620, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA. The legal basis is providing the app you use (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Updates

If “Check for updates automatically” is on, which it is from the start, the app asks our server for a new version one minute after launch and every six hours after that (getaiolos.com/updates/latest.json). We receive only your IP address and the name of the update component, neither your version nor an identifier of your Mac. The app downloads the update itself only when you click “Install and restart”. Server and log are the same as for the website, so the log has no IP address (see “When you visit this website”). The legal basis is our legitimate interest in keeping the app secure and up to date (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can turn the check off in the settings under Updates.

Activating your license

When you enter your license key, the app sends it to our server (getaiolos.com/api), together with an identifier of your Mac, its model name (such as “Mac16,8”) and the app version. The app derives the identifier from your Mac's hardware ID; it cannot be turned back into that ID, and it cannot be matched with identifiers of other apps. The server answers with a signed proof that lets the app run for 30 days even without a connection. As long as a key is stored, the app fetches a new proof about once a day and sends the same details.

With your key, we store your Mac's identifier, model and app version, and when you activated the key and last renewed it. Key and proof are kept in the Keychain on your Mac. “Sign out this Mac” deletes your Mac's entry on the server. The legal basis is providing your license (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). The server uses your IP address only briefly and in a form that does not reveal it, in memory, to fend off too many requests; it does not store it.

Feedback

The app sends feedback only when you send it from its feedback window. Our server then receives: your message, whether it is about a problem or an idea, your email address if you give it for questions, and technical details: the versions of the app and of macOS, your Mac's model and processor architecture, the languages of the interface, dictation and meetings, where the AI runs and in which region, and the speech recognition model. Other settings and your keys are not included.

Images are included only if you attach them. The app converts them to JPEG first, which removes extra data such as the location. The log is included only if you tick “Attach the log”: the last 400 lines, without what you dictated, and with your home folder shortened to ~. It may contain the names of your audio devices, for example.

Our server files the report as an issue in a private GitHub repository, with attached images as files next to it. GitHub is a service of GitHub, Inc., 88 Colin P. Kelly Jr. St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. Data is transferred to the USA in the process; GitHub is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR). The legal basis is our legitimate interest in fixing problems and answering your questions (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete the report once the matter is settled. Here too, the server uses your IP address only in memory and in a form that does not reveal it, to limit abuse.

Exports and connections you set up

Meetings go only where you export them. Every export contains the notes, the participants, the date and time, and the full transcript.

Notion: you connect Aiolos to your Notion account in your browser and choose there which pages Aiolos may see. The app passes the sign-in code, and later the renewal of its access, to Notion through our server, which stores none of it. The app keeps the access in your Mac's keychain and your workspace's name and icon in its settings. “Disconnect” deletes both on your Mac; in Notion you remove Aiolos under Settings → Connections. Alternatively, you enter the key of a Notion connection of your own. When you export, the app sends the meeting to Notion, along with details such as its duration and the AI model used. The provider is Notion Labs, Inc., 685 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94105, USA.

OneNote: you sign in with Microsoft in your browser. The app then stores a sign-in token and, for display, the name or email address of your Microsoft account. It reads the names of your notebooks and sections so you can choose one, and creates a page there when you export. For users in the EU, the provider is Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, One Microsoft Place, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland.

Apple Notes, Obsidian and Markdown: the app creates the note through macOS in the Notes app, in the account and folder you choose, or writes a file to the folder you choose. This stays on your Mac unless your Notes account or the folder syncs, for example through iCloud.

These services have their own terms and privacy policies. We receive none of this. Keys and sign-ins are kept in your Mac's Keychain; when you disconnect a service, the app deletes them there.

Links in the app

Links in the app open in your browser, for example to OpenRouter, Notion or our website. From then on, that site's privacy policy applies. The link to the Automation Atelier website tells that site that the visit comes from the app, but nothing about you.

Where it runs

The website runs on a server of Hostinger International Ltd., 61 Lordou Vironos Street, 6023 Larnaca, Cyprus, in a data center in Germany. Hostinger works on our behalf and under our instructions (Art. 28 GDPR).

What is processed

For a page to reach you, your browser sends your IP address, along with the address requested, the page you came from and an identifier of your browser and operating system. The server needs this to deliver the page and to protect itself from attacks (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Its log records the time, the address requested, the page you came from and the browser identifier, but not your IP address.

No cookies, visitor counts without recognition

This website sets no cookies and uses no advertising services. The fonts are on our own server; your browser loads nothing from Google.

To see how many visitors open which pages and where they come from, we use Ahrefs Web Analytics by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd., 16 Raffles Quay, #33-03 Hong Leong Building, Singapore 048581. For this your browser loads a small script from analytics.ahrefs.com; in doing so Ahrefs receives your IP address, as with every request on the internet. According to Ahrefs it is not stored: Ahrefs derives country and city from it and builds an identifier from IP address and browser details that is valid for one day only. This counts visitors but cannot recognize them the next day or on other websites. What is stored: the address you open, the page you come from, browser, operating system and device, language, screen size, country and city, and clicks on links that lead away from this website. Ahrefs places no cookies or other identifiers on your device. Ahrefs is based in Singapore, outside the EU. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving the website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). The page on which you confirm your email address does not load the script.

What we store

When you email us, we store your address and your message so we can reply. If it concerns your license or a purchase, the legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR; otherwise it is our legitimate interest in answering inquiries (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete the message once the matter is settled, unless we are required to keep it.

Who forwards and stores the emails

Emails to addresses at getaiolos.com are forwarded by Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA, to our mailbox at Gmail, a service of Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. Data may be transferred to the USA in the process. Cloudflare and Google are certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, for which the European Commission has found an adequate level of data protection (Art. 45 GDPR).

What we store and why

When you claim an early bird spot or join the waiting list, we store your email address. We use it to send you news about Aiolos, ask for your feedback and now and then send you a survey.

Only with your consent

The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). After signing up, you get an email with a confirmation link. You are on the list only once you confirm through it (double opt-in). So we can prove your consent, we store with your address when you signed up and confirmed and which version of the consent text you agreed to, along with your language and whether you have a spot or are on the waiting list. We do not store your IP address. If you don't confirm within seven days, we delete the sign-up, at Mailjet too. To keep anyone from flooding the form, our server briefly counts requests; for this it uses your IP address only in memory and in a form that does not reveal it.

Your consent is the condition for a free early bird spot. You can still withdraw it at any time, and your license stays valid.

Sending

We send the emails through Mailjet, a service of Mailjet SAS, 43 rue de Dunkerque, 75010 Paris, France, part of the Sinch group. Mailjet stores the data in Google Cloud data centers in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and Saint-Ghislain, Belgium. The service works on our behalf and under our instructions (Art. 28 GDPR). Mailjet holds your address, your language, whether you are on our list, and the emails we sent you; the welcome email contains your license key. Mailjet does not record whether you open our emails or click the links in them; we have turned that off. The confirmation email already creates a contact at Mailjet. If you unsubscribe, we delete it there completely.

Unsubscribing

You can withdraw your consent at any time: with the link in every email, with the form above or by writing to support@getaiolos.com. The withdrawal applies from then on. Emails we sent you before remain lawful.

How long we keep it

Your address stays on the mailing list until you unsubscribe. Then we delete your contact at Mailjet. If you have no license, for example on the waiting list, we delete your sign-up with us completely right away. If you have a license, we keep the sign-up with the time you unsubscribed for as long as the license exists: for your license key (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and as proof of your earlier consent (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

What we store

When you confirm your early bird spot, our server creates your license key. You see it on the confirmation page and get it by email through Mailjet. We don't store the key itself, only a check value computed from it (a hash) and its last four characters, linked to your sign-up. This lets us recognize it when the app sends it, but we cannot restore it from our database. What is added when you activate it in the app is described under “The Aiolos app”.

Why and for how long

We need this to give you your license and to check it (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). It stays for as long as the license exists. If you want everything deleted, write to support@getaiolos.com. We then delete your sign-up, your license and the entries of your Macs, at Mailjet too; your license ends with this.

Where the data is

Sign-ups and licenses are kept in a database on our server at Hostinger in Germany (see “When you visit this website”). The server makes a backup copy every day and keeps the last 14. Anything we delete is gone from them after 14 days at the latest.