Privacy
Listen Orb is a commercial Mac app. There is no Listen Orb account, no Listen Orb speech server, and no telemetry in the app. Polar sees checkout and tax data only. Polar does not receive your microphone, API key, or transcripts.
This page may be served from GitHub Pages or from Vercel. When the site is hosted on Vercel, Vercel Web Analytics may record cookieless page views. That script never receives your microphone, API key, or transcripts.
What the app handles
| Data | Where it lives | Leaves the Mac? |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI API key | Process environment, or Keychain item listen-orb-openai | Only as the Authorization header to OpenAI |
| Microphone audio | Memory, only while a listen is active | Yes — OpenAI Realtime transcription |
| Final transcript | Memory, then inserted into the focused app | Yes — OpenAI Responses API, unless polish is off |
| Destination app name and nearby text | Up to 500 characters on each side of the cursor, when Accessibility exposes it | Yes — with the polish request |
| Capsule position and listening style | Application Support (Listen Orb/position.json) | No |
| Clipboard | Temporarily, for one paste of a long transcript | No. Previous contents are restored after the destination reads them. |
Secure text fields are never read. The microphone stream closes when the listen ends.
OpenAI
Audio and text sent to OpenAI are processed under OpenAI’s privacy policy and API data usage. Polish requests set store to false. You are the OpenAI customer; usage is billed to your API project, not to Listen Orb.
What never happens
- The API key is never written or printed.
- Audio and transcripts are never sent to Listen Orb.
- The Mac app has no analytics, crash reporters, or advertising SDKs.
- Keychain is read only for the
listen-orb-openaiitem.
The canonical copy of this policy also lives in PRIVACY.md.