Your writing stays yours.

Where your notes live

Your note library is kept locally, in the app’s own storage on your iPhone. As Told doesn’t require an account and doesn’t sync your notes to a server you don’t control. Because there’s no account, there is nothing tying your notes to an identity.

Search and the calendar run against your own device, which is also why they stay fast and work without a connection. In this version there is no built-in sync or backup service, and As Told does not keep a separate cloud copy of your notes.

Keeping your notes on the device also means iOS controls their lifetime. If you delete As Told, iOS deletes the app’s local data — and the notes in it — along with the app, and As Told has no copy elsewhere to restore them from.

Offloading the app instead of deleting it, from iPhone Storage in Settings, keeps that data in place. Whether a device backup or a transfer to a new iPhone brings your notes back depends on your own Apple backup settings.

If a future version adds optional device-to-device sync, it will be exactly that — optional, clearly explained, and off unless you turn it on.

Voice & transcription

Plenty of apps say “nothing ever leaves your device” and quietly mean “except this.” Voice is the one place where something does, so the rest of this section says exactly what, when, and for how long.

What leaves your iPhone

Recording a voice note keeps the audio on your iPhone. It leaves the device only when you choose to transcribe it — and the first time that would happen, As Told tells you and waits for your answer. If you decline, the recording is deleted and nothing is sent.

When you continue, As Told sends that recording securely to OpenAI, through the As Told transcription service, for one purpose: turning your speech into text.

No title, existing note text, search history, or other note content is included. The service receives the recording, a fixed set of transcription instructions, and allowed-language hints, and nothing else.

What stays local

The recording on your iPhone is deleted once the transcript arrives. As Told does not keep the recording or the transcript on its side after the request finishes.

OpenAI’s API documentation states that its audio transcription endpoint does not retain customer content for abuse monitoring or application state.

Recordings kept for a retry

If transcription fails for a reason worth trying again — no connection, a request that timed out, the service briefly unavailable — As Told keeps that recording in its own temporary storage on your iPhone and offers you Retry or Delete Recording.

Nothing is sent while it waits, and nothing is uploaded in the background. A failure that retrying cannot fix, such as a recording with no speech in it, keeps nothing at all.

How long temporary audio remains

A recording kept for a retry is removed as soon as a transcript arrives, as soon as you delete it, and in any case within 24 hours — whether you come back to it or not.

What is written down

As Told’s transcription service logs only technical metadata needed to run reliably: a request identifier, the response status, how long it took, the model used, and the size and length of the audio.

It does not log your audio, your transcript, your note title, your note text, or your search queries. The infrastructure that hosts the service handles ordinary connection information, such as an IP address, to keep it available and to prevent abuse.

Transcription requests are also checked with Apple’s App Attest, to confirm they come from a genuine copy of As Told. That check identifies the app, not you, and is not linked to your notes.

The fair-use counter

Voice transcription is free and costs As Told money to run, so each installation includes up to 60 minutes of transcription a month. Counting that is the one thing the transcription service keeps between requests: a scrambled, one-way form of the App Attest installation identifier, the current calendar month, and a number of seconds.

That is the whole record. It holds no audio, no transcript, no note text, no name, and no email, and it cannot be traced back to you or to anything you wrote — it is a duration, not a history of what you said. If you reach the limit, As Told tells you when voice becomes available again; everything else in the app keeps working.

Your words, unchanged

Your speech is transcribed in your own words. Natural punctuation, capitalization, and paragraph breaks are added so a spoken thought reads like written language — but As Told does not translate, summarize, rewrite, polish, or grammar-correct what you said.

The transcript is meant to be what you actually spoke — in whichever language or mix of languages you spoke it — inserted directly into your note as ordinary, editable text.

Face ID & the app switcher

You can optionally require Face ID (or your device passcode) to open As Told. It is off unless you turn it on. Authentication is handled by Apple’s Local Authentication framework — As Told is told whether you succeeded, and never receives your biometric data.

When the lock is on and the app leaves the screen, your note content is covered before iOS takes its app-switcher snapshot, so your writing isn’t left visible behind the lock.

Your name and settings

The name on your profile is optional and stored only on your device. It isn’t an account, it isn’t sent anywhere, and you can leave it blank. Your theme choice and lock setting are local in the same way.

Advertising, tracking, and analytics

As Told carries no advertising and no tracking. There is no analytics SDK in the app, and no third-party software development kit of any kind. Nothing you write is used to build a profile of you or to target anything at you. If product analytics are ever added, they will never include your note text, transcript text, audio, or search queries.

Children

As Told is a general-audience notes app and isn’t directed at children, and it doesn’t collect personal information to build a profile of anyone.

Changes to this page

If these practices change, this page and the date at the top are updated. Material changes will be reflected before a new version relies on them.