Voice input & privacy

What voice input does

Tapping the microphone in a Labbie prompt box lets you speak instead of type. Your words appear in the prompt box as ordinary, fully editable text. You can type before or after speaking, edit what was transcribed, and record again as many times as you like — each new recording is added to whatever is already in the box.

Nothing is ever sent automatically

Voice input only writes text. It never submits. Your prompt is sent only when you choose to send it — by pressing the generate arrow, or by pressing Enter where that already submits. Stopping a recording, staying silent, reaching the one-minute limit, or denying microphone permission never sends anything.

Where the audio goes

• Your browser transcribes it. Labbie uses the speech-recognition feature built into your browser. In Chrome and Edge that service is operated by Google; in Safari it is operated by Apple. Your microphone audio is handled by that provider under their privacy terms, not Labbie's.
• Labbie never receives the audio. No recording is uploaded to Labbie, sent to a Labbie server, or passed to any transcription service Labbie pays for.
• Labbie never stores the audio. It is not written to any Labbie database, file store, backup or log, and nothing is kept after your recording ends.
• Only text is saved, and only if you send it. The transcribed words are treated exactly like text you typed — they are part of your prompt and nothing more.

Because recognition happens through your browser's provider, this is not fully on-device processing, and we do not describe it as such.

Starting and stopping

• Tap the microphone to start. Your browser may ask for microphone permission the first time.
• Tap the round stop control to stop at any moment. Everything recognised so far is kept.
• Recording stops on its own about two seconds after you finish speaking. Background noise such as fans, traffic or typing does not keep it running.
• Each recording lasts at most one minute. When it ends, your text is kept and you can simply tap the microphone again to continue.

If voice input is not available

Some browsers — Firefox among them — do not include a speech-recognition service, so voice input cannot work there. Labbie will tell you underneath the prompt box, and you can always type your prompt instead. Nothing else about Labbie changes.

Turning it off

Voice input is entirely optional and does nothing until you tap the microphone. Microphone access can be revoked at any time in your browser's site settings.