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Plenty of people install OpenWhispr on a work machine. This is what to do when that machine has opinions.

If you can’t run an installer

Nothing OpenWhispr installs requires administrator rights to run, and everything it writes stays in your user account — see where your files live.

If the network is filtered

The app makes outbound HTTPS connections on port 443, and everything else it runs binds to your own machine by design. It honours system proxies on all three platforms. Network allowlist is written to be forwarded to a firewall administrator: the hostnames, split into what’s required and what’s optional. Local transcription needs the internet exactly once — to download the model. After that it works offline entirely.

If security software blocks it

New signed applications get flagged before they build reputation, and OpenWhispr’s Windows build has been caught by Norton in the past. Antivirus blocks OpenWhispr covers what to check and what to send us.

If your policy says nothing may leave the device

That’s a supported configuration, not an argument. Choose Local for transcription and a local model for AI, and no audio or text reaches our servers — or anyone else’s. Two settings worth pairing with it:
  • Data Retention off, if nothing should be written to disk either.
  • Cloud backup stays off unless you turn it on. It already is by default.
Where your data goes has the full picture, mode by mode.

What to send your security team

One page: answering a security review. It collects the DPA, privacy policy, security overview, trust centre and compliance posture, plus what the product does with data — the questions a vendor review asks, answered in the order they usually arrive. If your organisation is on a Business or Enterprise workspace, an administrator policy can restrict which transcription and AI modes are permitted, which providers may be used, retention limits and more. It’s applied by us on request today rather than configured on a screen — that same page explains how to ask.