Your work stays yours.

Unfinished captures. One unfinished capture keeps its recording and recovery text on your Mac until you save or discard it. Quit stops recording but keeps the recovery for the next launch; a successful save releases it. This cleanup never deletes imported audio originals, and recovery is outside photo and scene sync.

Cleaning up dictation. Original keeps the transcription as heard, and Light applies local cleanup rules; neither calls a model. Natural uses Apple’s on-device model or an Ollama server on this Mac. Speech recognition and cleanup are separate choices, and downloading a model is separate from choosing it. The original transcription is always kept, a fallback to Light is reported, and Workbench never silently switches to a cloud text model.

Personas. Importing a persona makes a local copy of its image. Removing a persona keeps the image for any scene that uses it.

Local transcription server. The selected audio and model name go to the loopback address you configured. Remote addresses and redirects are refused. The server is separate software and may forward audio, so check its settings.

Ollama. Model details are checked before the transcript and editing instructions go to the loopback address. Remote addresses, redirects and models identified as cloud-backed are refused. These checks rely on what the server reports; they don’t audit the server or prove it never forwards text.

Retired Read text. Read text-to-speech and its online providers are removed. An old Read draft is preserved exactly as a text file in Library, while the original saved fields remain available for recovery. Existing audio exports, credentials and model caches are not deleted. Workbench no longer reads those TTS credentials or sends text to a reading provider.

Shortcuts. Apple’s Record Audio action owns recording and its Stop button. Transcribe with Workbench uses your selected speech engine, and the actions after it decide where the text goes, including services that sync online.

Experimental features starts off. Snap & Talk’s controls, shortcuts and background work stay inactive until you enable it. Disabling it preserves your session folders. Workbench performs no meeting detection.

Import Desktop screenshots… reads your Desktop only when you choose it, saves the screenshots to History and moves the originals to the Trash. Keep new screenshots off the Desktop changes the macOS save location to ~/Pictures/Workbench Screenshots.

Only pictures you choose go to a private CloudKit container in your Apple Account. It needs a configured, signed build and the same Apple Account on both devices; the notarized Mac Preview includes this configuration. There is no full-library upload.

The sender keeps the original. The copy is a freshly rendered JPEG, at most 3,840 pixels on the long edge, without copied GPS or camera metadata. iCloud stores the picture, an optional title, the capture time, a source-platform label and technical validation data. Pictures and titles can still identify people or workplaces. Apple’s policies and storage apply.

Turning it off stops cloud work and keeps local photos. Cloud removal deletes the cloud record only; local copies and pictures placed in scenes stay, and local removal is a separate action. Hand-off doesn’t transfer recordings, text, scene documents or wallpaper settings.

In a configured build, saved scenes go to a private CloudKit database: existing scenes, later edits, names, layout and crop settings, and every image they use, including logos and persona artwork. It’s for your own devices only, with no team workspace or public link.

Packages keep image bytes plus original artwork for recovery. Imported images may keep camera or location metadata, so remove it before importing. Sync runs while Workbench is active; edits transfer after a short pause, and delivery depends on connectivity, Apple and the receiving app being active.

Turning sync off stops new cloud work, keeps local copies and doesn’t remove earlier uploads. Changing Apple Account pauses transfers and keeps local work. Deleting a scene sends a deletion marker, but the Preview keeps the package and its assets, so this isn’t permanent erasure from the device or iCloud; there is no in-app permanent purge yet. A conflicting unsent edit may survive as a kept copy, and independent copies are unaffected. Recordings, transcripts, standalone persona groups and system wallpaper settings are never synced.

Development of these is paused and none is offered for download. These notes apply only to test builds that are already installed.

Chrome extension (paused Preview). It works with the matching Workbench Preview for macOS to save named web destinations and return to explicitly paired Chrome profiles. It handles destination names and profile labels you type, a generated profile identifier, saved addresses and temporary tab and window identifiers. The popup reads the current tab’s address locally; query parameters and fragments are stripped before saving or sending, and embedded usernames and passwords are rejected. It checks the current and pending addresses of permitted tabs. It doesn’t read page content, forms, stored passwords, cookies or history, and doesn’t sign in or rotate credentials.

Chrome stores the label, identifier and pairing state locally; session storage holds tab bindings and an unfinished draft, and a permission-step draft can be restored for 15 minutes (an expired one may remain until overwritten or the session ends). Tab identifiers are never stored durably and Chrome Sync isn’t used. Names, addresses and labels go through native messaging to the Mac app’s Library, which owns the records, and aren’t part of photo or scene sync. Nothing goes to a developer server or third parties, with no analytics, advertising or sale of data. Opening a destination contacts that site normally, and no site credentials are requested. Site access is optional, requested on Allow this site to inspect tab addresses and focus a tab; a new tenant subdomain needs a new grant. There are no content scripts and Incognito is disabled. Removing the extension removes its Chrome data and closing Chrome clears session storage; the Mac Library records stay. The extension states compliance with the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including Limited Use. Please keep private destinations and customer details out of public issues.

iPhone and iPad (paused). Apple’s on-device SpeechAnalyzer runs after you explicitly prepare its speech assets, unsupported devices and languages are reported, and there is no cloud fallback. Audio stays in the app’s container with one recovery slot, and recording stops when the app leaves the foreground. Reading uses Apple voices, and the Lock Screen shows a generic title instead of your passage. Photos and Files imports are your choice, and saving to Photos asks for add-only permission. It doesn’t inspect the photo library, watch the clipboard or set the wallpaper. Local copies stay in the container and the Preview keeps imported originals after records are deleted; deleting the app can remove local work, so export first, and backups follow your Apple settings. No analytics, tracking or account; cloud transfers need photo hand-off or scene sync turned on. The Mac-only local server, Speko, Accessibility and overlay features don’t apply there.