Repeat That

Privacy

Repeat That handles other people's voices, so privacy is a core design rule, not an afterthought.

What the app does with audio

  • Memory only. Captured audio is held in a fixed-size in-memory ring buffer. It is never written to disk — no temp files, no cache, no crash dumps containing audio.
  • Two small files on disk, neither with audio. The settings file (settings.json in the app's config folder, %APPDATA%\me.roboroads.repeat-that on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/me.roboroads.repeat-that on macOS, ~/.config/me.roboroads.repeat-that on Linux) holds your settings: the chosen app's name and the path to its program file, the buffer length, the hotkeys, the output device. The duck journal (duck.journal in the app's local data folder, %LOCALAPPDATA%\me.roboroads.repeat-that on Windows, ~/.local/share/me.roboroads.repeat-that on Linux) lists the volumes that capture lowered while ducking, so they can be restored after a crash. It holds identifiers of audio sessions (PipeWire streams on Linux) and volume levels, nothing else. macOS has no duck journal: macOS removes the app's mute by itself when Repeat That quits or crashes, and the app keeps no record of it. The Start at login switch adds a small file that says which app to start, a launch agent in ~/Library/LaunchAgents on macOS and ~/.config/autostart/Repeat That.desktop on Linux, and it goes away when you turn the switch off. The end-to-end test runs the app with its home, temp, config, data and cache folders in one scratch folder and checks that a run with capture and replay leaves no audio file in it.
  • Short-lived. The buffer only holds the last X seconds of speech (configurable). Older audio is overwritten continuously, and the whole buffer is wiped when you stop capturing or quit the app.
  • Local only. Nothing is uploaded. There is no telemetry and no account. Transcription (planned) runs on-device.
  • One app at a time. The app only captures the application you explicitly select, and never your microphone. On macOS the system asks you before Repeat That may capture another app's audio, and you can take that permission back at any time, which ends the capture. While an app is ducked on macOS, Repeat That plays that app's audio again at the lower volume, straight from memory; that audio isn't kept either.

This website

The website at repeat-that.roboroads.me is hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub logs the IP address of visitors to a Pages site, as described in GitHub's privacy statement. The site itself sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other websites: no fonts, scripts, images or embeds. The home page reads your browser's user agent to highlight the download for your operating system. That happens in your browser and the result isn't sent anywhere. The download links go to GitHub, which sees the request when you follow one. The introduction video, when there is one, comes from the site itself and isn't requested until you press play.

A note on recording laws

Laws about recording conversations differ by country and region. Some places require consent from everyone in the conversation; others treat short-lived buffers that are never stored differently from recordings. Repeat That is designed to act like a short "memory aid" rather than a recorder, but you are responsible for using it in line with the laws that apply to you and the policies of your employer or the platform you're using. When in doubt, let the people you're talking to know you use it.

This is not legal advice.

This page is PRIVACY.md in the repository.