Application data
Your settings, dictation history, debug logs and any saved audio:
Inside it:
Downloaded models
Local speech and AI models are downloaded on first use and cached outside the application-data folder, so you can reclaim the space without losing settings:
Whisper models sit in
whisper-models/ inside it. Deleting anything here is
safe — the app re-downloads what it needs next time you select it.
You don’t have to do it by hand: Settings → System → Data
Management → Model cache has Open, which shows you the folder, and
Clear cache, which empties it. Reset app data in the same section is the
bigger hammer — it deletes local settings, transcriptions, recordings and
models together.
On Windows the uninstaller clears this folder for you. On Linux, .deb and
.rpm packages do the same on removal; AppImage and tar.gz don’t, because
there’s no uninstaller to run.
Note files, if you turned them on
Save notes as files (under Settings → Preferences under App) mirrors your notes as Markdown into a folder you choose. It’s off until you turn it on, and the location is entirely yours — the app writes into it and nothing else does. That folder is also the Obsidian answer: point it at a vault and your notes appear there as ordinary Markdown. Export your notes covers the detail.Credentials
API keys and enterprise credentials aren’t in either folder. They go to the operating system’s own credential store — Keychain on macOS, DPAPI on Windows, libsecret on Linux — and are never sent to us. How OpenWhispr is secured explains the one Linux caveat worth knowing on managed fleets.Backing up
If you want a copy of everything local, take the application-data folder while OpenWhispr is closed. Copyingtranscriptions.db while the app is running can
catch it mid-write.
The models cache isn’t worth backing up — it re-downloads.