holdtotype1. What is collected
Nothing. The program has no account system, no licence check, no telemetry, no crash reporter and no analytics of any kind. It does not know your name, your email address or your machine, and it has nowhere to send them even if it did.
There is no server operated by the author that the program talks to. The only addresses it can reach are listed in section 3, and each of them is a public download.
2. Your voice and your text
- The recording is held in memory while you hold the shortcut and dropped as soon as it has been recognised. It is never written to disk as a file, and it never leaves the computer unless you have configured a remote recognition server yourself (section 5).
- The recognised text is pasted into the window that had the cursor. If the history is switched on it is also written to a file in the program's own folder, on your machine, for as long as you set.
- The log records what the program did, not what you said. It counts characters and names the program the text went into. It is written in English, it is a plain text file, and you can read it from the tray menu at any time.
- Nothing is shared between users, sessions or machines. There is no cloud copy of anything.
3. When the program connects to the internet
Three times, and never during a dictation:
- When you download a model. To Hugging Face, over HTTPS, at the moment you press the button. Every downloaded file is compared against a published SHA-256 and deleted if it does not match.
- When it checks for an update. To the GitHub releases API, if you leave that switch on. It sends nothing but the request itself; there is no identifier attached. The installer that comes back is refused unless its hash matches the one published with the release.
- When you search the model catalogue. A search request to Hugging Face with the words you typed.
Everything else — recognition, translation by the model, post-processing, replacements, commands, history — happens between programs on your own machine, over loopback ports that are not reachable from the network.
4. Third parties
The program uses services and components run by other people. Their terms apply to their part:
- Hugging Face — where models are downloaded from and searched. Your IP address reaches them, as it would with any download.
- GitHub — where releases and the source live, and where the update check asks.
- Microsoft WebView2 — a Windows component that draws the settings window. It is part of your system, not something shipped by us.
No data about you is sent to any of them by the program beyond what a plain HTTPS request necessarily carries.
5. Things you can switch on yourself
Two settings, both off by default, send data off the machine when you turn them on. The program says so in the interface at the moment you enable them:
- An external editor model. Post-processing can be pointed at an API you choose instead of the local model. Then the recognised text of each dictation is sent to that address. Audio is never sent. The key is stored encrypted with Windows DPAPI and never appears in the log.
- Recognition on another computer. The recogniser can live on a machine you name. Then the recorded audio is sent to that address instead of to the local engine.
What those services do with what they receive is between you and them. Read their terms before you switch either one on.
6. What is stored on your disk
- config.json — every setting, in plain text, in the program's folder.
- holdtotype-history.json — only if you switched history on. Text only, never audio.
- holdtotype.log — one megabyte plus one older copy, then it rolls over.
- models\ — what you downloaded, untouched by updates.
- A temporary WebView2 folder while the settings window is open, cleaned up afterwards.
Deleting the folder removes all of it. The full list, with what survives an update, is in the reference.
7. This website
No cookies, no analytics script, no tracking pixels, no fonts loaded from anybody's CDN. Nothing in these pages watches you, and nothing is stored in your browser.
What does exist is what any web server keeps: the machine that serves this site counts requests. Those counts are aggregate — how many pages were served on a given day, roughly how many different visitors, which countries they came from — and they are produced by the hosting itself, not by anything embedded in the page. No profile is built, and nothing is passed to a third party for advertising.
Downloads are served by GitHub, whose own terms apply once you follow the link.
8. Your data, your machine
Because nothing is collected, there is nothing to request, correct, export or have deleted, and no processor to ask. Everything the program keeps is a file in a folder you control: open it, edit it, or delete it whenever you like.
If you use the program for material that falls under rules of its own — medical, legal, financial, or your employer's — that assessment is yours to make. See section 9.
9. Disclaimer and limitation of liability
the program is provided as is
HoldToType is free software published under the MIT licence. It is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement.
The author does not warrant that the program will be accurate, uninterrupted or error-free, that recognition will be correct, that text will be inserted into the intended window, or that it will meet any particular requirement of yours.
no liability
In no event shall the author be liable for any claim, damages or other liability — whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise — arising from, out of or in connection with the program or its use, including without limitation any loss of data, loss of text, incorrect or missing recognition, text inserted into the wrong place, downtime, lost profits, or any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages.
You use the program at your own risk, on your own equipment, and you are responsible for what you dictate, where it is inserted, and for any external service you choose to connect it to.
models and third-party components
Recognition and editing models are made by other people and are downloaded from their repositories under their own licences. The author makes no warranty about their accuracy, their behaviour or their fitness for any purpose, and accepts no liability for their output. The same applies to every third-party library and engine listed on the what is inside page.
not for regulated use unless you have checked
The program is a general-purpose dictation tool. It is not certified for medical, legal, safety-critical or any other regulated use, and nothing here should be read as advice that it is suitable for one. If your context has rules, verify compliance yourself before using it.
changes
This page describes the version named at the top. Later versions may behave differently, and this page will be updated with them. Continued use after a change means you accept the terms as they then stand.
10. Contact
Questions about any of the above, including anything that looks wrong or unclear, go to holdtotype@outlook.com or to the issue tracker. Replies come from the person who writes the program.
MIT © Vitalii Yemets. The full licence text is in the repository.