Privacy
What you read with Aloud never leaves your Mac. Aloud is built local-first — and the privacy story is short because we designed it to be.
The short version
The text you ask Aloud to read never leaves your Mac. Voice synthesis happens on-device, in real time. Our servers know your email and subscription status — nothing else. No analytics, no telemetry, no logs of what you read.
What stays on your Mac
- Every character you read with Aloud. When you press the hotkey, Aloud reads the text you've selected, generates the audio on your Mac, and plays it back. None of it is uploaded.
- Your sign-in token, stored in the macOS Keychain (encrypted by macOS).
- Your voice and speed preferences, stored in standard Mac app preferences.
What our servers know
- Your email address — to sign you in and email subscription receipts.
- Your password, stored as a one-way hash. We never see the plaintext.
- Your subscription status, so the app can verify you're a paying customer.
- Stripe's invoice records, for tax compliance.
What our servers never see
- Anything you've read aloud. Not a single character. Not the URL of the website, not the title of the PDF, not the contents of the email.
- Which voice you chose or what speed you used.
- How often you press the hotkey.
What Aloud doesn't do
- No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting.
- No third-party trackers on the website or in the app.
- No background sync of personal data.
The one permission Aloud asks for
macOS Accessibility — used only to read the text you have selected when you press the hotkey. Nothing else. Aloud does not record your screen, log keystrokes, or read text you haven't explicitly selected and triggered. You can revoke the permission at any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
Payment processing
Subscriptions are processed by Stripe. Stripe receives standard checkout data — your email, billing details, and card information — and processes it under their privacy policy. We never see your full card number.
Sign-in and account emails are sent via a third-party email service whose privacy policy is industry-standard. The body of those emails contains only the sign-in link or receipt.
Data retention & deletion
Cancel your subscription via Aloud's Settings → Account → Manage subscription, or via any Stripe receipt. To delete your account record entirely — email and subscription metadata — request deletion from Settings → Account. We remove the record within 7 days.