Your script never leaves your Mac.

Does Tellie send my script anywhere?

No. Tellie reads your script from the document you opened, displays it on your screen, and that is the end of its journey. Your script never touches the internet.

What about my microphone? Is my voice recorded or uploaded?

No. When you click the microphone button, macOS asks for permission the first time. Once you grant it, audio from your mic is passed to Apple's built-in Speech framework, which runs on your Mac. Tellie uses the transcribed words to advance the script and then discards them. Nothing is recorded, saved, or sent anywhere.

Where does the speech recognition actually run?

On your Mac, locally, using Apple's Speech framework. macOS ships with on-device language models for about 50 languages. Tellie asks the system to transcribe with the on-device flag set, so the audio never leaves the device.

You can verify this yourself: open Tellie, put your Mac in airplane mode, and the voice-follow feature still works perfectly.

Does Tellie collect any usage data, telemetry, or crash reports?

No. The app contains no analytics SDKs, no telemetry library, no crash reporter, and no event tracking. We do not know how often you open the app, what scripts you load, or whether anything has ever crashed for you. (If something does crash, please email us and we'll fix it.)

Then why does Tellie need an internet connection at all?

Once a day, Tellie quietly checks a small XML file at tellie.skytech.io/appcast.xml to see whether a new version is available. This is how the auto-update feature works (it uses the open-source Sparkle framework, the standard for Mac app updates).

The check sends only the request itself. No identifier, no Mac serial number, no account, no script content. It looks identical to your web browser fetching any other public file.

Does Tellie keep any history of the scripts I've opened?

No. There is no script library, no recents list synced anywhere, no cloud storage. macOS itself may remember recently opened documents (the same way it does for any app), but that information lives entirely on your Mac in your user account.

Is Tellie invisible to screen recorders by accident or on purpose?

On purpose. Tellie marks its window as excluded from screen capture using a documented macOS API. So when you record your screen, screenshot, or share your screen in Zoom or Google Meet, your script does not appear in the recording. This is both a presentation feature (your script stays private during a livestream) and a privacy feature (your script does not end up in someone else's cloud-stored Zoom recording).

Does the Tellie website use cookies or tracking?

The site uses Google Analytics 4 and Vercel Analytics to count visits and downloads. Both are configured with the standard, anonymous setup most websites use. No personal information is collected. Google Analytics may set its standard cookies; you can opt out via your browser settings or any tracking-blocker extension.

What information do you collect when I download Tellie?

When you click the download button, the site logs the version downloaded, the timestamp, and the channel the link came from (for example, "LinkedIn" or "newsletter"). It does not log your name, your email, your IP address, or any identifier that could trace back to you. The counts are used purely to understand which release channels work and which versions are in the wild.

How do I delete my data?

Tellie does not have any of your data to delete. There is no account, no profile, no synced library. If you want to remove the app from your Mac, drag Tellie.app to the Trash. macOS Keychain may retain the microphone permission entry, which you can clear in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.

What about GDPR or CCPA rights?

GDPR and CCPA give people rights over data that companies hold about them. Since we don't collect personally identifying data, there's nothing to access, correct, port, or delete on our end. If you believe we hold information about you, email steve@skytech.io and we'll respond within 30 days.

Is Tellie safe for children to use?

Tellie is not designed for or marketed to children under 13. It is also not designed to exclude them. Since the app collects no personal information, COPPA concerns don't really apply in the usual sense. That said, the app is named after my granddaughter Ellie, and she thinks the way her name appears in the menu bar is cool.

Will this privacy policy change?

If anything material changes (for example, if Tellie adds an optional cloud feature), this page will be updated and the change will be announced on the homepage and in the newsletter at stevechazin.com. We will never quietly start collecting data without telling you.

Who is "we"?

Tellie is built by Steve Chazin, a one-person operation. There is no parent company harvesting your data on the side. The skytech.io domain is also Steve. steve@skytech.io goes directly to a human.