Vel
Privacy Policy
Last updated 30 September 2026
In short: Vel turns your voice into text on your Mac, and your voice and your words never leave it. We don't collect, store or sell any personal data. There are no accounts, no analytics, no tracking and no ads.
This policy explains exactly what Vel does with your information. It applies to the Vel app for Mac and this website. Vel is made by Garunya Narendran, an independent developer in India (“we” below).
Your voice
- Vel uses the microphone only while you dictate: while you hold your dictation key, or in hands-free mode until you finish.
- Your voice is turned into text by a speech model that runs on your Mac. The recording is never sent anywhere, and it's never saved: once your words are written down, the audio is discarded.
Your words and settings
Everything Vel keeps is stored only on your Mac, inside Vel's own private folder:
- History: the text of your dictations, with their time, length and language;
- Dictionary: the words and names you add, and the corrections Vel learns from;
- Snippets, settings and usage statistics (such as how many words you dictated);
- a log of technical events (timings, errors). It never contains what you said.
We can't see any of it. It isn't backed up or synced by Vel, and it isn't shared with anyone.
The clipboard: Vel puts each dictation on your clipboard so you can paste it with ⌘V. Like anything you copy, other apps you use can read the clipboard.
Apple Intelligence
If you turn on “Enhance with Apple Intelligence”, your text is polished by Apple's model that runs on your Mac (Apple's Foundation Models). Vel doesn't use Apple's cloud models for this, so the text stays on your Mac.
What Vel downloads
The only thing Vel connects to the internet for is downloading its speech model, once, after you install it (and again only if you delete it or when an update brings a new model). It comes from our download server, hosted by Cloudflare, or from Hugging Face as a backup. Like any website you visit, those servers see your Mac's IP address to deliver the file. Vel sends nothing else: no dictations, no identifiers, no usage data.
Vel's Console window talks to Vel through a connection that exists only inside your Mac. It can't be reached from the internet or from other devices.
Purchases
Vel Unlimited and the free 7-day trial are bought through Apple's App Store. Apple handles the payment; we never see your card details, name or Apple Account. Apple gives us sales reports (for example, the number of purchases in each country), which don't identify you.
Crash reports
If you've allowed your Mac to share analytics with app developers (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements), Apple may send us anonymous crash reports. They help us fix problems and don't include your dictations.
Permissions Vel asks for
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Microphone | To hear you while you dictate, and only then. |
| Input Monitoring | To notice when you press your dictation key. Vel never records what you type. |
Deleting your data
Everything is on your Mac, so it's yours to delete: in Vel, open the Console → Settings → Data → Delete all my data. Then drag Vel from Applications to the Bin. You can also save a copy of your History first with Export.
Children
Vel isn't directed at children, and it doesn't collect personal data from anyone.
Changes
If Vel ever changes how it handles your information, we'll update this page and the date above before the change reaches you.
Contact
Questions about privacy: support@g-apps.in.