Free Flow privacy policy
Effective 31 October 2026
Free Flow is a dictation app for iPhone, iPad and Mac, with its own keyboard on iPhone and iPad, made by MASHBOX Labs.
What we collect
Nothing. Free Flow has no account and no server of ours behind it. It contains no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting code, and it does not track you. We never receive your audio, your text, your dictionary or your history.
Your voice
On iPhone and iPad, Free Flow uses the microphone while you dictate, and while a mic session is on so the keyboard can start without opening the app. iOS shows its microphone indicator the whole time. Sound is recorded only from the moment you start a dictation until you finish or cancel it; between dictations nothing is recorded. A speech model stored on your device turns the audio into text.
While you dictate, Free Flow also writes the audio to its own folder on your device, so a phone call or the app closing does not lose it. That audio is deleted as soon as the dictation finishes. A recording that did not finish, because you cancelled it or a call or the app closing cut it short, is kept on your device so you can transcribe it again. It stays until you delete it or it reaches the age set in Settings, under Privacy, in Delete unfinished recordings after: 1 day, 7 days or 30 days, or Never, which keeps it until you delete it. The setting is 7 days unless you change it. Saved recordings are left out of iCloud and device backups. Settings > Privacy > Delete all recordings removes them all.
Your text
The text you dictate is typed into the app you are using. If you start Free Flow from the Action Button, Control Center, the Lock Screen, Back Tap or Siri without the Free Flow keyboard on screen, the text is copied to your clipboard instead. If you turn on the Copied notice, it says where the text went and never shows the text.
While a mic session is on, the Free Flow Live Activity on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island shows the start of your latest dictation, at most 120 characters, until your next dictation starts or the session ends.
Free Flow keeps your last 500 dictations in History on your device. You can delete any entry or all of them, or turn History off in Settings. History is left out of iCloud and device backups.
To hand your words to the keyboard, Free Flow puts the latest dictation in storage that the Free Flow app and keyboard share on your device. The keyboard removes it as soon as it types it. A dictation no keyboard typed is removed 10 minutes after it was ready if the mic session is still on then. If the session ended first, it is removed after the next session starts, or replaced by your next dictation. That shared storage also holds your dictionary and your settings, and like other app data it is included in your device backup if you use iCloud Backup or back up to a computer.
Your dictionary
Words you add to the dictionary are stored on your device. They are given to the speech model while it transcribes if that model uses them; its card in Models then says Dictionary.
Cleanup with Apple Intelligence
If Clean up with Apple Intelligence is on (Settings > Writing), Free Flow gives the text of each dictation and the style you picked to Apple Intelligence, the model Apple builds into iOS and macOS, which runs on your device. It writes the text in that style, and Free Flow types the result. Free Flow sends nothing to us or to anyone else for this. Turn it off in the same place, and your words go in as heard.
The keyboard
The Free Flow keyboard has no network code and sends nothing anywhere. It does not store what you type. Autocorrect uses a word list built into the keyboard, and it leaves alone the names in your contacts and your text replacements, a list iOS gives every keyboard. The keyboard holds that list in memory only. The keyboard counts key presses, with no text, for the key click check in Settings.
Allow Full Access
iOS does not let keyboards use the microphone, so the Free Flow app does the listening. With Allow Full Access on, the keyboard can write to storage that only Free Flow can open on your device. That is how it asks the app to start listening and gets your text back. iOS warns that Full Access could let a keyboard send what you type over the internet. The Free Flow keyboard has no network code. Without Full Access the keyboard still types; the mic key and key haptics need it.
On a Mac
Free Flow for Mac is the same app built for the Mac, and it keeps the same things on your Mac. It has no Free Flow keyboard.
The microphone is on from the moment you press fn until your words are in, and macOS shows its orange dot while it is on. Settings > Session > Mic after fn can keep it on between dictations for 5 minutes, 15 minutes or 1 hour instead. Sound is recorded only while you dictate.
Free Flow asks for Accessibility so it can see the fn key and press Command-V for you. It looks at key presses only to tell fn, Space and Esc from other keys. It never reads which character you typed and keeps no record of your keys.
To put your words at your cursor, Free Flow puts the text on the clipboard, marked so clipboard managers skip it, presses Command-V, and then puts your own clipboard back unless something else was copied in the meantime. Without Accessibility your words stay on the clipboard. Your last dictation is also held in memory until you quit Free Flow, for Paste last dictation in the menu bar.
Cleanup with Apple Intelligence needs macOS 26 or later.
Stats
Word counts, day streaks, speeds and timings are worked out and kept on your device. They never include your words or audio, and they are left out of backups.
Downloading speech models
When you tap Download, Free Flow downloads the model's files from Hugging Face (huggingface.co), which hosts them, at versions pinned in the app, and checks each file against a pinned SHA-256 hash before the model is installed. These downloads carry no audio, text, dictionary words, account or device identifier, because Free Flow has none to send. Like any website, Hugging Face receives your IP address and the standard details your device adds to every web request, and handles them under its own privacy policy: https://huggingface.co/privacy. We do not receive them.
Links
The About page links to mashbox.gg and to this policy, which open in your web browser, and to our email address, which opens your mail app.
Apple
If you have chosen to share analytics with app developers in your device settings, Apple may send us crash reports for Free Flow. Apple decides what those reports contain and handles them under its own privacy policy.
Children
Free Flow collects no data from anyone, including children.
Deleting your data
Everything Free Flow stores is on your device. Delete history, recordings, dictionary words and models in the app, or delete the app to remove all of it.
Changes
If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date at the top.