Privacy

Effective October 17, 2026. Questions or deletion requests: saketh@theintent.co.

Intent is a Mac app that turns what you say into writing in your own voice. This page says what Intent reads, when it asks, where the data goes, who else handles it, how long it's kept, and how to turn each part off and delete it.

Some parts below are marked "Comes with Intent 0.1" (or 0.2, 0.3). Those aren't in the version you can use today. They're described now so you know what they will do before you turn them on.

What you dictate

When you hold the dictation key, Intent records your microphone and streams the audio to Intent's speech server, a GPU server Intent rents from Lambda.

For English, depending on your account, the speech server either streams the audio to AssemblyAI, which turns it into text and sends the text back, or turns it into text itself with an open model (NVIDIA Parakeet) that runs on that server. Intent's AssemblyAI account has model training turned off, and under that setting AssemblyAI keeps no streaming audio or transcripts.

If AssemblyAI fails or returns nothing, the speech server uses Parakeet instead. If the speech server can't turn the audio into text, it may send the recording once to AssemblyAI's batch service, then deletes it there and uses the text only after AssemblyAI confirms the deletion.

With the audio, AssemblyAI receives up to 100 names and words to spell correctly. They come from a fixed list of product names and, if you connected a mailbox, from the people you write to and words in your own sent mail. AssemblyAI doesn't receive your name, email address, account or the app you're typing in.

Intent understands English only today.

Next, the words are turned into written text, with punctuation, numbers and lists. Three formatters work at once and Intent uses the first good answer: Kimi K3 on Fireworks AI, Claude Haiku on Anthropic's API, and an open model (Qwen) on Intent's speech server. Each receives what you said, the text just before your cursor (up to 64 characters), which of four kinds of writing it is (personal, work, email or other), and any names from the spelling list that appear in what you said.

What Intent keeps. The audio, the text it became before and after formatting, the text that was finally inserted, the app and kind of field it went into, your microphone, languages and timings, and what each formatter was sent and returned. Audio is kept in Intent's private storage on AWS, the rest in Intent's database. Both are kept until you delete your account. The speech server keeps only a record that a request happened, with times, the outcome and a coded account reference, and no audio or text.

What Intent reads on your Mac

Intent asks for macOS Accessibility permission so it can type into other apps. It asks for microphone permission the first time you dictate.

When you dictate, Intent reads from the field you're typing in: up to 64 characters on each side of the cursor, any selected text, the field's label and placeholder, which app it is, the website's address for a web page, and what kind of field it is. It uses these to place the text and confirm it landed. The text before the cursor goes to the speech server and formatters, as described above. The app and kind of field are saved with your dictation. The rest stays on your Mac for that request only.

When you dictate into an email with draft writing turned on, Intent also reads that email's body, recipients and subject, the thread visible on screen and the Gmail thread ID, and sends them to Intent's servers to write the draft.

Intent keeps a short queue of dictations waiting to upload on your Mac. Settings, then Clear, empties it.

When Intent writes for you

When you ask Intent to write, such as a Gmail reply or a post for X, Intent's servers send the request to Anthropic's API. Claude Opus writes, and Claude Sonnet reads how you asked. The request includes what you said, the conversation you're answering, and examples of your own past writing chosen for that request.

Intent keeps each draft, what was sent to Anthropic and what came back, and what you did with it, until you delete your account. For an X post, it records whether you posted it and roughly how much you changed it, not the text you posted.

Select to rewrite. Comes with Intent 0.1. Select text in a field you're writing in and say how to change it. Intent sends the selected text (up to 4,000 characters), what you said and the kind of app to Anthropic (Claude Opus), with examples of your own past dictations in that kind of app and, for email, your own sent mail. It works only in fields you can edit, never on text you can only read and never in password fields. Intent keeps the selected text and the rewrite with your drafts until you delete your account.

Gmail

Connecting Gmail is optional. The current version doesn't offer it to new accounts; if you connected it earlier, it keeps working.

Intent asks Google for read-only access (gmail.readonly). It can't send, delete, label or change anything in your mailbox. It copies your sent mail first, then the rest, and checks for new mail about every two minutes. It skips Spam, Trash and unsent drafts, and skips messages that look like they contain passwords, security codes or other credentials. For attachments it keeps only the file name, type and size, never the file. Intent keeps an encrypted key that lets it read new mail.

From that copy Intent learns how you write, finds the thread you're answering and earlier mail with the people you write to, and picks the names and words used to spell your dictation (see above).

Outlook. Intent no longer offers new Outlook connections. If you connected an Outlook mailbox earlier, Intent keeps reading it with Microsoft's read-only mail permission until you remove it, and for Outlook it also keeps copies of attachments.

Turning it off. In Intent, open Settings, then Account, choose the mailbox and press Disconnect. Intent stops reading it and deletes the mail it copied and its key. Intent doesn't remove itself from your Google Account, so also remove it at myaccount.google.com, under Security, then Third-party apps and services. For Outlook, remove it in the same Settings row or at account.microsoft.com, under Privacy, then Apps and services.

After you disconnect or delete your account, Intent keeps a one-way code made from your Gmail address, not linked to your account and not reversible to the address, because Google limits how many people can connect Intent and the code counts you once.

X

Intent doesn't sign in to your X account. If you give it your X handle, Intent reads your public profile and up to 100 of your most recent posts (not replies or reposts) through X's API, and keeps them to learn how you write. Protected accounts are refused. X sees that Intent looked up your handle.

Intent never posts for you. When it suggests a post, it opens X's own compose page with the text filled in, and nothing is posted until you press Post.

To remove your X handle and the posts Intent copied, email saketh@theintent.co. There's no button for it in the app yet.

Bringing in what you've already said

Comes with Intent 0.1.

What Intent keeps from Wispr Flow

Intent reads your Wispr Flow dictations on this Mac unless you turn that off in setup or Settings. It reads Wispr Flow meetings only if you turn them on. Setup says this in one line, and both switches, "Wispr Flow dictations" and "Wispr Flow meetings", are on that screen and in Settings.

Dictations, on unless you turn them off. Intent reads them for two things, and the one switch covers both:

• Your memory. The import starts only after you see the switch on in setup and continue. Then Intent brings in your whole Wispr Flow dictation history, not just recent days, and keeps adding new dictations. If you never continue past that screen with the switch on, nothing is imported. From Wispr Flow's history on your Mac it reads each dictation's text (the formatted words, or the raw transcript when there is no formatted version), the time you said it, and the app it went into. Archived dictations, audio, screenshots and your edits are not read.
• Your evening post suggestion (Intent 0.2, below). This read follows the switch from the moment Intent is installed, so it can happen before you finish setup. Intent reads the last 24 hours of dictations that aren't archived and were formatted or transcribed, at most 200 of them and 12,000 characters. For each it reads an ID, the time and the text, and not the app. They are sent only with that evening's request.

Turning "Wispr Flow dictations" off stops both reads at the next check. What was already imported stays until you delete it.

Meetings, off until you turn them on. From Wispr Flow's meetings on your Mac: each meeting's time, who spoke (as Wispr Flow named them, with your own voice marked as yours), every transcript line, and your corrections to transcript lines. Deleted meetings, meetings whose transcript you deleted in Wispr Flow, and Wispr Flow's demo meeting are not read. Audio, titles, notes and summaries are not read.

Other people. A meeting transcript contains other people's words. Intent keeps them under your account, labeled as theirs, never as yours, and does not merge them with anything else about that person. You can forget a whole meeting at any time.

Where it goes. To Intent's servers, under your account. To write as you and to find what's worth posting, Intent sends the passages a request needs to Anthropic, the AI provider it uses, for that request only. Nothing is shared with other people.

Turning it off. Turning a switch off stops reading at the next check. What was already imported stays until you delete it.

Deleting. Delete what a switch imported, or forget one meeting, in Settings. Deletion removes the text and everything Intent built from it at once. Deleting your account removes all of it. Deleted items do not come back if you turn the source on again.

Backups. Our server backups, and copies we make while updating the server, can hold a copy for a while after you delete. They exist only to recover from a failure.

On your Mac. Intent keeps a small record of what it sent (identifiers and checksums, no text) so it can resume and delete correctly, and the on or off setting for each source.

Granola

Granola can't be imported yet. Granola encrypts its notes on your Mac and only Granola can read them, so Intent doesn't read Granola.

Something true about you, during setup

At the end of setup, Intent may show one thing it noticed about you. To find it, Intent sends Anthropic (Claude Opus) your first dictation in setup, up to 40 passages you wrote from what you imported, and up to 100 of your X posts. Intent keeps a record that this ran and what it cost, and not the sentence or the text it read.

Your day's post suggestion

Comes with Intent 0.2.

In the evening, Intent may suggest one post from something you said that day. If Wispr Flow is installed and "Wispr Flow dictations" is on, Intent reads the last 24 hours of your Wispr Flow dictations as described above and sends them with that evening's request. Intent's servers add your own words from the past week that Intent keeps under your account, such as your Intent dictations, what you imported and your X posts. Anthropic (Claude Opus) picks one thing you said in the last day that's worth posting and writes the post, using up to about 2,000 characters around it and examples of your own writing. Intent doesn't keep the dictations it read for this. It keeps the suggested post, which entries it came from (by ID, not their text), whether you opened it, and what it cost, until you delete your account.

The suggestion waits in Intent's menu, and appears as a notification if you allow Intent's notifications. A notification stays in macOS's notification list until you dismiss it. Pressing the suggestion opens X's compose page; nothing posts until you press Post.

Meetings

Meeting transcripts you bring in from Wispr Flow (Intent 0.1, above) are kept under your account until you delete them.

Messages you owe a reply

Comes with Intent 0.3. Off until you turn on reply reminders.

When you have a free moment, Intent can remind you of a conversation where someone is waiting on your reply, and write a reply in your voice. It brings the reply into that conversation unsent. You read it, change it and send it yourself. Intent never sends a message for you.

To write the reply, Intent sends the recent messages from that one conversation, with the other person's name, to Intent's servers and on to Anthropic (Claude Opus). Intent keeps that request and the reply with your drafts until you delete your account. Other people's messages are not added to your memory; the reply you send is. After a reply is inserted, Intent checks whether you sent it and roughly how much you changed it, and records only that.

Slack

If you connect Slack in Intent, Slack asks you to approve these permissions, for your account only:

• im:read and mpim:read list your direct messages and group direct messages, with who wrote last, when, and how far you've read. For a group direct message, also who is in it.
• users:read turns Slack user IDs into names. Intent discards email addresses and the rest of each profile.

Intent checks every ten minutes. From those checks it keeps only workspace, conversation and user IDs, people's names, who wrote last and when, and how far you've read. When Slack includes a message's text or a full profile in its answer, Intent discards it. Intent asks for no channel access and adds no bot, no slash command and nothing other people in the workspace see. It has no permission to post.

The key Slack issues for your account is encrypted on Intent's server and tied to your Intent account, so it can't be used from any other account.

To disconnect Slack, remove Intent in Slack's app settings. Turning off reply reminders stops the checks but leaves Slack connected. Deleting your Intent account deletes the Slack key and everything Intent found, but doesn't tell Slack, so remove Intent there as well.

iMessage

Reading Messages needs Full Disk Access, which you turn on in System Settings, and access to Contacts for names. For each one-to-one chat, Intent reads who sent the newest message and when, without the text. For one chat where someone in your Contacts has waited between 20 minutes and three days, it reads the last ten messages. Intent keeps none of this on your Mac.

Signing in, paying and this website

You join Intent with an invite code. Intent keeps your account, your devices and a one-way code made from the invite, not the invite itself or your email address.

Paying. Early access is paid through Stripe, which collects your card details. Intent sees what Stripe reports: your email address, the amount, whether it was paid or refunded, and which link you came from.

This website. theintent.co uses PostHog to count visits and clicks, make heatmaps and record sessions on the site. Recordings mask all text and every form field, and Intent removes Stripe's checkout ID before anything is sent.

Problems and crash reports

When Intent fails, it sends Sentry a report: your Intent account ID, the Mac and Intent versions, your Mac's model, how long each step took, and the memory addresses where a crash happened. Reports never contain the text of your mail, drafts, dictations or messages, file names or names of people.

Report a problem, in Intent's menu, sends Intent your note (if you write one), your Intent and macOS versions, which app was in front, the last 30 minutes of named app events, which permissions are on, and counts from mail import. Intent files a ticket in its issue tracker on GitHub with your account ID, the report ID, versions, times and event names. Your note and the app in front stay on Intent's servers.

Who else handles your data

• Amazon Web Services, in Oregon in the United States, stores your account, mail copy, dictations and drafts.
• Lambda rents Intent the GPU server that receives your dictation audio and runs Intent's own speech and formatting models.
• AssemblyAI turns English dictation audio into text, and receives up to 100 spelling hints with it.
• Fireworks AI and Anthropic format dictated text. Anthropic also writes drafts and posts.
• Google provides Gmail, read-only, if you connect it. Microsoft, the same, for an Outlook mailbox connected before.
• X provides your public posts when you give your handle.
• Slack, if you connect it (Intent 0.3).
• Stripe for payment, and PostHog for this website's analytics.
• Sentry receives error reports and GitHub holds problem-report tickets, both without the text of what you write or say.

Neither Anthropic nor Fireworks AI trains its models on what Intent sends: Anthropic's commercial terms forbid it, and Fireworks AI doesn't train on API data. Intent sends nothing from your Gmail through consumer AI subscriptions. Intent doesn't sell your data or use it for advertising.

Nobody else receives your data, except where the law requires it.

Who can see it

You agreed when you installed Intent that it may use your dictations, X posts, activity in the app, drafts and what Intent wrote to improve your writing and the product. People at Intent, and the AI tools they work with, may read those for that purpose.

Your Gmail is treated more narrowly. A person at Intent reads your Gmail content only for specific messages you agree to show us, for security or legal needs, or once it is combined with others' and made anonymous. Your Gmail never trains a model used for anyone but you, and no training set combines two people's mail.

Intent's founders can open an account's activity, drafts, recordings and imported mail in Intent's internal tools, and every time they do, it is logged.

Intent may ask you to join a research program to improve its writing. Only if you agree, and only while you remain in it, may the team check your writing with Pangram, which tells writing a person wrote from AI-written text, and OpenAI's API. Neither trains on what it receives. You can leave at any time, and leaving takes effect at once.

How it's protected

Intent's database runs on Intent's own server at AWS. Intent's private file storage on AWS, which holds your dictation audio, is encrypted at rest and accepts only encrypted connections. Intent's Mac app talks to Intent's servers only over encrypted connections. Mail keys are encrypted again inside the database. Intent's logs record what happened by fixed names, never the text of your mail, drafts, dictations or messages. Credentials and keys are kept in files only the service can read.

How long it's kept, turning it off, and deleting it

Intent keeps your data while your account exists, unless this page says otherwise for a part.

Turning parts off:

• Gmail or Outlook: Settings, then Account, then Disconnect. This also deletes the copied mail.
• X: email us to remove your handle and posts.
• Wispr Flow (Intent 0.1): turn off "Wispr Flow dictations" or "Wispr Flow meetings" in Settings, and delete what they brought in.
• Slack (Intent 0.3): remove Intent in Slack's app settings.
• On your Mac: remove Intent's Accessibility or Microphone permission in System Settings, under Privacy & Security, and, with Intent 0.3, its Full Disk Access or Contacts permission.

Deleting your account. Email saketh@theintent.co from the address you signed up with. There's no delete button in the app yet. Intent stops reading your mail at once and deletes your account and everything kept under it within 30 days: the mail copy, dictations and their audio, drafts, X posts, imports, Slack data and records of what you did.

Backups. Our server backups, and copies we make while updating the server, can hold a copy for a while after you delete. They exist only to recover from a failure.

What stays after deletion: a record that an account was deleted, with no content; the one-way Gmail code described above; and problem-report tickets on GitHub, which hold an account ID and event names. Intent doesn't remove itself from Google or Slack, so remove it there yourself.

Google user data

Intent's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects your data, Intent tells you in the app or by email before the change applies.