Murmela
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Legal
Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 15, 2026
The short version
- The Murmela app processes your voice, text and translations only on your Mac. Nothing you say or write is sent to us or anyone else.
- The app has no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting and no account.
- This website sets no cookies and uses no analytics, ads or trackers.
- We only receive personal data when you buy, sign up for the launch email or write to us. We never sell it.
Who is responsible
Murmela is made and run by Jonathan Zuecker, Santa Fe, Argentina (“we”, “us”). For anything about your data, write to hello@murmela.com.
The Murmela app
Your voice, text and translations stay on your Mac
Speech recognition, translation and speaker labeling run on your Mac's own chip. Audio from your microphone is written to a temporary file in the app's own folder while it is being transcribed. The audio of your most recent dictation stays there until the next dictation finishes, so that a failed live dictation can be recovered, and is then deleted. We never receive your recordings, transcripts or translations.
What is stored on your Mac
- Your library: dictations, file transcriptions and translations, kept in a local database so you can search them. You can turn history off in Settings and delete entries at any time.
- Files you transcribe: the app remembers where the file is on your Mac. It does not copy or upload it.
- Your settings and vocabulary, and the speech and translation models you download.
- A file transcription log: a plain-text file (
file-transcription.log) with timestamps, job IDs, file names, stages and error messages. It contains no transcript text.
All of this lives in ~/Library/Application Support/com.murmela.app. Deleting that folder, or the app, removes it.
Permissions the app asks for
- Microphone: to hear you, only while you are recording.
- Accessibility: to notice the fn key and paste your text where your cursor is. To paste, Murmela puts the text on the clipboard for a moment and then restores what was there before.
- Automation (System Events): to find out which app is in front before pasting, and to lower the output volume while you record if you turn that option on. macOS shows this as “Murmela wants to control System Events”.
The only times the app goes online
| Model downloads | When you choose a model, it is downloaded from Hugging Face (huggingface.co). Once, shortly after the first launch, the app also downloads a 0.9 MB voice-activity file from the same place, which finds pauses in long recordings. Downloads redirect to Hugging Face's content hosts under hf.co. Like any website, Hugging Face sees your IP address and which file you requested. See the Hugging Face privacy policy. |
|---|---|
| Activating Pro | When you enter a Pro license key, the app sends that key and an anonymous device label (such as “Mac 3f9a2c”) to Lemon Squeezy once, to activate it. The answer includes the name and email on your order, which the app keeps on your Mac to show who the license belongs to. If you choose “Deactivate this Mac”, the app sends the key and the activation ID to free the slot. The app never checks your license again after activation. |
| Update checks | Murmela checks GitHub (github.com) for new versions. GitHub sees your IP address and the request. You can turn automatic update checks off in Settings. See the GitHub privacy statement. |
None of these requests contains anything you said or wrote. After your models are downloaded and Pro is activated, you can block the app's network access completely and it keeps working.
The Security and data page lists every connection, storage location and permission in more detail, with steps to verify them yourself.
This website
Hosting
murmela.com is hosted by Netlify, Inc. (USA). When you visit, Netlify's servers process technical data such as your IP address, browser type and the page requested, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. We don't use this data to identify or track you. See the Netlify privacy policy.
No cookies, no analytics
This site sets no cookies and uses no analytics, advertising or tracking tools. Fonts and images are served from our own domain, so a visit makes no requests to third parties.
Downloading Murmela
The download button fetches the app from GitHub (github.com), which sees your IP address and the request, like any website. See the GitHub privacy statement.
Launch email
Before launch, people could ask to be notified about the free version. We stored those email addresses (through Netlify Forms), send one email now that it is available, and then delete the list. You can ask us to delete your address sooner at any time.
Buying Murmela
Purchases are handled by Lemon Squeezy, our reseller and merchant of record. The Lemon Squeezy checkout loads only when you click a buy button. Your payment details go directly to Lemon Squeezy and its payment processors (such as Stripe and PayPal). We never see your card details.
From Lemon Squeezy we receive your name, email address, country and billing details, what you bought and your license key. We use this to send your download link and license, give support, handle refunds and keep the records that tax law requires. Lemon Squeezy processes your payment under its own privacy policy.
When you email us
If you write to hello@murmela.com, we keep your message and email address to answer you and to help if you write again. Our email is handled by Google (Gmail). We delete support conversations when they are no longer needed.
Legal bases
If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom or a similar jurisdiction, we process your data:
- to fulfil a contract with you: delivering your purchase, license and support;
- with your consent: the launch email, which you can withdraw at any time;
- to meet legal obligations: tax and accounting records;
- for our legitimate interest in running a secure website: server logs.
Where your data goes
Netlify, Lemon Squeezy, Google, Hugging Face and GitHub may process data in the United States and other countries. Where required, these transfers are covered by safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. We share personal data only with the service providers listed here, and only to run Murmela. We do not sell or share personal data for advertising.
How long we keep it
- Purchase records: as long as tax and accounting law requires, usually up to 10 years.
- Launch email list: until we send the launch email, then deleted.
- Support emails: until the matter is resolved and no longer needed.
Your rights
You can ask us to access, correct, delete or hand over your data, and you can object to or restrict how we use it. If we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Write to hello@murmela.com and we will reply within 30 days.
You can also complain to a data protection authority. In Argentina this is the Agencia de Acceso a la Información Pública (AAIP). In the EU, it is the authority in your country.
If you live in California or another US state with a privacy law: we do not sell or share your personal information, and you have the rights described above.
Children
Murmela is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes to this policy
If we change how Murmela handles data, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change takes effect. If the change affects you, for example a new kind of data the app sends, we will also tell you in the app or by email.