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Working Offline

Echophrase is built to work offline - including in airplane mode. The Free tier offers 100% offline transcription and is unlimited - no account and no internet connection required, ever. Transcription itself never needs the internet - audio is processed locally on your GPU, and your voice never leaves your device.
One exception: the first run. Models are downloaded on demand, so you need an internet connection once - to fetch whichever model(s) you want to use. After that model is on disk, transcription never touches the network again. The default Parakeet-TDT 0.6B v3 is ~2.5 GB; see Models for the others.
What about telemetry? Separately from transcription, Echophrase collects anonymous, non-identifiable usage telemetry by default - things like GPU backend, selected model, and settings/session events, plus crash reports - never audio or transcript content. The consent box is pre-checked on first run, but every event honors your answer, and you can opt out anytime in Settings > Data > “Send anonymous app stats” (or launch with DO_NOT_TRACK=1). See the full event-by-event list at What We Collect. With no internet connection (airplane mode included), there’s nothing to send either way - transcription works exactly the same.

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What Works Offline

All Transcription

Every transcription feature - global hotkey, clipboard copy, paste-at-cursor, model switching - works fully offline, in airplane mode too.

Local Models

Once a model is downloaded, it runs entirely on your device. No round-trip to a server.

Settings & Hotkeys

All app settings, hotkeys, and audio device selection work without any connection.

No Voice Upload

Your audio never reaches our servers. Ever. Even when online, transcription is local.
There is nothing to verify, ever: the Free tier has no account, no login, no grace period, and no expiry. Transcription never contacts our servers, so there is no online requirement to fall out of compliance with. If you never sign in, this entire page could be one sentence: it just works, offline, forever.

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Pro Subscriptions & Offline (Pro Only)

If you’ve signed in for Pro, the app refreshes your entitlements online roughly once a day, silently in the background. If your device stays fully offline, Pro features keep working for a 90-day offline grace period. Past that, the app simply runs as the (still unlimited) Free tier until you reconnect - nothing is deleted, your account stays active, and your subscription is not cancelled. Why 90 days? It’s long enough for travel, outages, and air-gapped setups, while keeping entitlement state honest - and it applies only to Pro. You can sign in with email () or Google. Once signed in, your stays valid for 30 days - reconnect within that window and you’re kept signed in silently. Past 30 days offline, you’ll need to sign in again (your 90-day Pro grace period is a separate clock - the two don’t have to line up).
Reconnecting and signing in restores your paid entitlements immediately - no waiting, no re-purchase, no support ticket.

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What You Won’t Lose

On the Free tier: nothing - there is no account or server dependency to lose. For Pro subscribers past the 90-day grace period:
Going past the 90-day Pro grace period never deletes your data, locks you out, or wipes your settings.
  • Your transcriptions and any local content remain intact
  • Your account stays active
  • Your subscription is not cancelled
  • Your settings, hotkeys, and downloaded models are untouched
The only thing that changes is which Pro-only features are available, and that reverses the moment you sign in again.

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Cloud-Only Features

A few features intentionally require a connection because they sync with our servers:
  • Cloud sync of application settings (Pro, opt-in - settings only, never audio or transcriptions)
  • Account management and billing
  • Subscription tier upgrades / downgrades
These will simply be unavailable when offline. They do not affect transcription itself.

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See Also

Privacy Policy

Full details on what data we do and don’t collect.

Models

How model downloads work and where they’re stored locally.