Monologue is a voice journal. This policy explains what the app collects, why, who processes it, and how to delete it.
The short version
Your recordings and transcripts live on your iPhone and in your own iCloud. Our servers hold them only long enough to transcribe them, then delete them. What we keep is metadata: when, roughly where and for how long you recorded, how many words it came to, and whether transcription worked. Never what you said.
What we collect
- Account details. When you sign in with Apple, we receive an account identifier and, if you choose to share them, your name and email address (which may be an Apple private relay address).
- Recordings, briefly. When you are signed in, each recording's audio is uploaded so it can be transcribed. Once your iPhone has the finished transcript, the audio and the transcript are deleted from our servers.
- Metadata about each recording. When it was made, how long it is, how many words it came to, the time of day, which device made it, its title (such as "Morning monologue"), whether transcription worked, its cover image, and its tags. We keep these for as long as you keep the recording.
- Your tags. The tags you make (such as "Work" or "Family"), and which recordings carry them, whether Monologue tagged a recording automatically or you did. They are kept until you delete the tag or the recording.
- Where you recorded, approximately. If you allow location access, the neighbourhood and city a recording was made in (for example "Mission District, San Francisco"). Your coordinates are used on your device to look up that name with Apple's geocoding service, and are not stored or sent to us.
We do not collect your precise location, contacts, or advertising identifiers, and we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
Where your recordings are kept
On your iPhone, and in your own iCloud, in Monologue's private area of your iCloud account. We cannot read it: it belongs to your Apple Account, not to us. Transcripts, titles and places are end-to-end encrypted there with keys only your devices hold. Audio and covers are encrypted by iCloud, and end to end too if you turn on Advanced Data Protection. Signing in to a new iPhone with the same Apple Account restores them.
If iCloud is off on your iPhone, your recordings are kept on that iPhone only.
How it is used
Only to provide the app: to transcribe your recordings, generate their covers, and keep the app working. The metadata also tells us, in aggregate, how the app is used and whether transcription is working. We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or use your recordings to train models.
Who processes it
- Clerk handles sign-in.
- Convex runs our servers: it holds your account and each recording's metadata, and holds audio and transcripts only while they are being transcribed.
- OpenAI transcribes your audio. OpenAI does not use this audio to train its models, and may keep it for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring.
- Typesafe (Jev) reads your transcript to compose a scene for its cover, and to decide which of your tags it is about.
- fal.ai renders the cover image from that scene.
- Apple stores your recordings in your iCloud, under your agreement with Apple.
Using Monologue with Claude or ChatGPT is off unless you turn it on (Settings → Connect your AI → Use with Claude or ChatGPT). While it is on, a copy of your transcripts is kept on our servers so that an assistant you connect yourself can search and read them, along with their titles, dates and places, on your behalf. It never gets your audio, and it cannot change or delete anything. What an assistant reads is then handled under that assistant's own privacy policy. Turning it off stops every connected assistant from reading anything further and deletes the copy from our servers; you can also disconnect it from the assistant's own settings.
Each processes data only to provide its service to us.
Keeping and deleting your data
Deleting a recording in the app removes it from your iPhone, from your iCloud, and removes its metadata and cover from our servers. Settings → Account → Delete account removes your account and everything about it from our servers; your recordings stay on your iPhone and in your iCloud, which are yours. You can remove Monologue's data from iCloud at any time in the Settings app, under your name → iCloud → Manage Storage.
Children
Monologue is not directed at children under 13.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: write to hello@monologueapp.co. We will post any changes to this policy here.