Alma: Privacy Policy
Last updated: 7 September 2026
Alma is a new interface to your computer. Today it supports real time voice dictation with generative edits, voice prompting, and the surrounding features that make those work well.
This policy explains what we collect, what reaches us under each of your data settings, how long we keep it, who processes it, and the rights you have. It is also Alma's data policy.
The controller is Memfold AI Inc., doing business as Alma, 2261 Market Street STE 85610, San Francisco, CA 94114, United States. Contact: support@memfold.ai.
It covers our applications, our website and the services behind them. It does not cover other companies' sites we link to.
1. The short version
- You choose what we get. Three settings, from full data to zero data retention. See section 3.
- We never sell your personal information, and we never use your voice or your text for advertising.
- Improving Alma is your choice, not a condition of using it.
- Our providers do not train on your content, and are contractually barred from keeping it beyond answering your request.
- Alma has no voiceprint. We do not use your voice to identify you.
- Alma is free right now, so we hold no payment or billing data.
2. Why processing happens in the cloud
Alma uses cloud processing to be fast and accurate. Audio and text needed to answer a request may be processed by us and by our service providers while the request is being served.
Cloud processing does not mean we keep your content. What is stored, and where, depends on the setting you choose in section 3. Our service providers are contractually barred from retaining your content beyond answering the request, and from using it to train their models.
3. Your data settings
Your setting decides what we store:
| Setting | What we store |
|---|---|
| Full data | Everything syncs to our cloud: your voice, your transcripts, your history, what Alma has learned for you, and how Alma performed. It may be used to evaluate and improve Alma. Your Mac keeps its own copy |
| Usage data | Numbers only: counts, timings, outcomes and error types. Your transcripts, your history and what Alma learns for you stay on your Mac |
| Zero data retention | Nothing. Requests are processed to answer them and then discarded, and everything Alma keeps stays on your Mac |
You can change the setting at any time. A change applies immediately to anything new, and switching to zero data retention stops sharing, clears what is still waiting to be sent, and resets the anonymous identifier used for counts. It cannot reverse work already done with material shared earlier.
Serving a request and storing it are different things. Whatever your setting, your request travels to the services that answer it. What those services may do with it is covered in section 7.
4. What we collect
Account data. Your email address, your name and profile image where your sign in provider supplies them, sign in events, the Macs you sign in on, and your free allowance and its usage. We hold this whatever your data setting, because an account requires it.
Voice and interaction data. What you give Alma by voice and what it produces: your audio, transcripts, the text Alma writes and edits, instructions you speak and the text they act on, and the app you were working in. What we store from this is set by your data setting in section 3.
Screen context. Optional, and on only if you allow it. When it is on, Alma reads text from the window you are working in so that dictation and formatting come out better, for example by recognising names and specialised terms. It is used to answer your request, and you can turn it off in Settings at any time.
What Alma learns for you. Your history, learned spellings, per app preferences, formatting habits, style notes and snippets. Settings lists them so you can delete any of them. They stay on your Mac unless you choose the full data setting, which syncs them to our cloud as well.
Diagnostics. Where your setting allows it, records of how a request performed: timings, counts, outcomes, error types, crashes and app version. At the full data setting these records also carry your voice and text.
Usage counts. Where your setting allows it, a small fixed set of anonymous events made of counts, durations and closed vocabularies, tied to a random installation identifier rather than to you. There is no free text field in them, so no content can travel this way.
Website and support data. What you send us, and standard web data such as IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed and cookie identifiers.
Payment data. None. Alma is free and we have engaged no payment processor. If that changes we will update this policy first.
5. What we never collect
- Keystroke content. Where Alma counts typing, it records that a key went down, never which key.
- Password fields. Alma stops entirely while a secure input field is focused.
- Voiceprints or biometric identifiers.
6. Why we process data, and on what legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis (GDPR and UK GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Providing the Service: recognising your speech, editing your text, carrying out what you asked | Performance of a contract |
| Accounts, sign in and devices | Performance of a contract |
| Metering a free allowance and enforcing quotas | Legitimate interests in managing our costs |
| Security, fraud prevention and enforcing our Terms | Legitimate interests |
| Diagnosing failures | Legitimate interests, and consent where your setting shares content |
| Anonymous usage counts | Consent, through your data setting |
| Evaluating and improving Alma | Consent, through your data setting |
| Support and service messages | Contract and legitimate interests |
| Marketing email | Consent, withdrawable at any time |
| Legal compliance and lawful requests | Legal obligation |
Where we rely on consent you may withdraw it at any time, without affecting processing that already happened. We make no decision about you by automated means that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
7. Improvement, training, and our providers
Our providers do not train on your content. The third party services behind Alma operate under agreements that prohibit using your content to train or improve their models, and that require zero or minimal retention, no more than is needed to answer your request.
We improve Alma with your content only at the full data setting. There we may use your voice, transcripts and the records of how Alma performed to measure quality, debug failures and improve Alma. At the usage setting we use numbers only. At zero data retention we use nothing.
Google data. Where you sign in with Google, data obtained through Google APIs is used only to sign you in and provide features you asked for. It is not sold, not used for advertising, and not used to develop or improve generalised AI models. Our use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements: https://developers.google.com/terms/api-services-user-data-policy
8. How long we keep things
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Anything synced at the full data setting: voice, transcripts, history and what Alma learned | Up to 12 months, then deleted |
| Diagnostics and usage counts | Up to 12 months, then deleted |
| Account, device and allowance records | For the life of the account, then only as long as needed for legal, security or dispute purposes |
| Support messages | Up to 3 years from the last message |
| Anything on your Mac | Until you delete it or uninstall |
| Aggregated or anonymised statistics | Indefinitely, as they can no longer identify you |
At the usage and zero data retention settings there is no stored voice or text to keep.
9. Security
We use technical and organisational safeguards designed to protect information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access, including:
- encryption in transit;
- encryption at rest for anything we retain;
- role based access controls and restricted production access;
- owner only permissions and the highest file protection class the platform offers, for Alma's files on your Mac; and
- security monitoring and operational controls.
Human access. Our personnel do not access your content except where you ask us to for support, where it is necessary to investigate a security or abuse incident, or where the law requires it. Access is limited to authorised staff under confidentiality obligations.
No system is perfectly secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your personal data we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.
10. Who else processes your data
We use service providers that act on our instructions under contract, may not use your data for their own purposes, and are bound by confidentiality. By category: identity and authentication; cloud hosting and storage; speech and language processing; analytics; software distribution; and email and support tooling.
We also disclose personal data to comply with law or lawful requests, to enforce our Terms, to prevent fraud, security or technical problems, to protect rights and safety, to our professional advisers, and to a counterparty in a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, subject to this policy continuing to apply.
11. International transfers
We are in the United States, and our providers process data there and in other countries where they operate. For transfers from the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum, with appropriate safeguards. Write to support@memfold.ai for details.
12. Your controls and rights
In the app. Choose your data setting; review and delete your history and everything Alma has learned for you; turn screen context off; and revoke macOS permissions in System Settings.
Your legal rights. Depending on where you live you may have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to receive a portable copy, to object to or restrict processing, to withdraw consent, and not to be treated differently for exercising any of these.
EEA and UK. These rights arise under the GDPR and UK GDPR, and you may complain to your local supervisory authority.
California. We collect the categories described in section 4: identifiers, commercial information, internet and device activity, audio and electronic information, and inferences used only to improve Alma. Sources, purposes, recipients and retention are set out above. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross context behavioural advertising. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that would give you a right to limit. You have the rights to know, delete, correct, opt out and appeal, and you may use an authorised agent.
Other jurisdictions. Comparable rights under other state and national laws apply where they cover you, and we honour them on the same terms.
How to exercise them. Email support@memfold.ai from the address on your account. We may verify your identity, and we respond within the time the law allows, usually 30 days. Some data cannot be deleted while your account exists, and some must be kept for legal reasons. If we refuse, we will say why and how to appeal.
13. Children
Alma is for adults. You must be at least 18 to use it, and older where the age of majority where you live is higher. We set one worldwide minimum, above every national digital consent age, including the 13 to 16 range EU member states set under Article 8 of the GDPR, the United Kingdom's 13, and the 13 at which the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act applies, so Alma never relies on parental consent.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18, and no data we believe comes from a minor is used to improve Alma. If we learn an account holder is under 18 we close the account and delete their data. Parents, guardians and schools can write to support@memfold.ai, and may exercise a minor's rights on their behalf.
14. Cookies and tracking
Our website uses strictly necessary cookies, and analytics cookies where you allow them. We honour Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track signals as an opt out of analytics and of any sharing for cross context advertising. The app itself uses no advertising trackers.
15. Marketing email
We send marketing email only to people who have asked for it, every message has an unsubscribe link, and we honour opt outs. We do not buy, rent or scrape email lists, and we do not sell or share your address for anyone else's marketing.
16. Third party links
We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of sites and services we link to. Read their policies before using them.
17. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Alma and the law change. The date at the top shows the current version. If a change materially reduces your rights or expands how we use your content, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect, and ask for consent where the law requires it. Changes are not retroactive.
18. Contact
Memfold AI Inc. 2261 Market Street STE 85610 San Francisco, CA 94114 United States support@memfold.ai
For privacy questions, rights requests, or to ask what we hold about you, email that address.