Privacy Policy

Last updated: 20 August 2026

This policy explains how Fuchsia Studio ("the app", "we", "us") handles your information. Fuchsia Studio is a macOS application for documentary and podcast producers, published by Fuchsia, LLC.

1. Our approach: privacy by design

Fuchsia Studio works with intimate material — people's interviews, memories, and voices. We treat that material as something to be protected, not harvested. Wherever a feature can run on your device, it does. The app's privacy boundaries are enforced by design, in code.

2. Information the app accesses

Fuchsia Studio works with files and recordings that you choose and that stay under your control. Specifically:

Your audio, recordings, and media

You grant the app access to a folder (your archive) that you select. Your source audio and any takes you record stay on your Mac, inside the locations you choose. Audio is never uploaded to us or to any third party.

Transcripts and derived data

The app transcribes your audio on-device using Apple's built-in Speech framework, and builds a private, searchable index (transcripts, timecodes, and speaker labels) so you can find moments in your own material. This derived data is stored locally alongside your project.

Microphone

With your permission, the app uses your microphone to record narration and takes in your own voice. These recordings are saved to your project on your device.

Optional AI features

No AI service is contacted until you configure one. Studio's optional AI features — the tape "reads", the speaker-name suggestions, and the Thread assistant — run through Anthropic's Claude models, using your own Anthropic API key and your own Anthropic account. When they run, text derived from your tape is sent to Anthropic — never your audio, and the request goes directly from your Mac to Anthropic under your own agreement with them. Fuchsia does not receive, process, store, or have access to that text or your API key.

Once a key is saved, importing a tape starts a reading of it by default which sends that tape's transcript to Anthropic unless you decline in the Import Tape dialog. If you decline, Studio will always ask for your consent the first time something would send material derived from that tape off-device.

"Text derived from your tape" covers more than a single excerpt, and the app's built-in Help sets it out route by route under What gets sent. In summary: reading a tape sends its whole transcript; reading a show sends the stored readings of tapes already read, including their verbatim quotations; Suggest names sends the transcripts of every tape in your library in which an unnamed voice speaks; and a message to the Thread can carry speaker names and short quotations from the clips in the story you have open. A reading also leaves behind a short, model-written list of themes and questions for that tape's story, which travels with later readings in the same story.

The one control that guarantees nothing derived from your tape leaves this Mac is not configuring an Anthropic key. With no key, none of the above can happen. Declining the automatic read of an import is a real choice about that import; it is not a bar on everything else.

No account, no tracking

Fuchsia Studio does not require you to create an account. We do not use advertising, and we do not include third-party analytics or tracking SDKs. We do not build profiles of you or sell data — we don't have it to sell.

3. When the app uses the network

Almost everything Fuchsia Studio does happens on your Mac and needs no connection: importing, transcribing, separating speakers, building the index behind search, searching, editing, assembling and finishing. Below are the only times the app does reach the network as far as we are aware.

The optional AI features

This is the only one that carries material derived from your work, and it happens only when you have configured an Anthropic API key. It is set out in full under Optional AI features above.

Apple's speech model

Transcription runs on your Mac using Apple's on-device speech engine, which uses a model supplied and installed by Apple. If your Mac does not already have it, macOS downloads it when you launch Studio for the first time. When it is installed, no further request is made. This is a one-way download: no audio and no transcript goes anywhere. Until the model is present, transcription won’t work. Studio will tell you. Importing, playing and editing will work as normal.

Your trial, your purchase, and your licence

Fuchsia Studio's free trial and its one-time unlock are both handled by Apple through the App Store, so the app asks the App Store what you are entitled to — shortly after launch, and again when you start a trial, buy, or use Restore Purchases. Nothing about your recordings, transcripts, or work is sent, and none of it reaches us. If the app cannot get an answer, it assumes in your favour and carries on. See Purchases.

Checking an API key

Saving an Anthropic API key sends nothing anywhere. Settings offers a Test button beside a saved key, and pressing it sends one minimal request to Anthropic to check that the key works, so you find out there rather than failing later. That request carries the saved key and nothing derived from your tape. If you never press Test, the request is never made.

Links the app opens for you

Some menu items and buttons open a page in your browser — our website, or the Claude Console where you manage your key — or a pre-addressed message in your mail client. Studio has no built-in web client and will never send an email without your confirmation.

4. How information is used

Information is used only to provide the app's features to you: transcribing your audio, making it searchable, helping you assemble stories, and — if you choose — providing AI assistance. We do not use your content to train models, and we could not: we never receive it. We do not use it for advertising.

5. Where your data is stored

Your recordings, transcripts, and project data are stored locally on your Mac, in the folders you choose. They are protected by your device's own security (such as FileVault and your macOS user account). Backups are under your control — for example, Time Machine or any backup service you use. Because your data lives on your device, deleting it is entirely in your hands.

6. Sharing and disclosure

We do not sell, rent, or trade your information. We do not share your content with third parties for their own purposes. We never receive your recordings, transcripts, or project data in the first place — there is no server of ours for them to go to. The one transmission that carries material derived from your work is the tape-derived text sent to Anthropic for the optional AI features you choose to use, and it goes from your Mac to Anthropic directly, under your own account. The app's other uses of the network are described in section 3; none of them carries your material to anyone.

7. Third-party services

Fuchsia Studio relies on Apple's on-device Speech framework, which processes your data on your Mac. It also relies on Apple for two things that do involve Apple's servers: supplying the speech model macOS transcribes with, and handling your trial and purchase through the App Store. Apple's handling of those is governed by Apple's privacy policy.

If you enable the optional AI features, tape-derived text is processed by Anthropic under your own Anthropic account; Anthropic's handling of that text is governed by Anthropic's privacy policy and terms, not ours.

Speaker separation uses an open-source component. Its models are shipped inside the app and run on your Mac, and it is configured so that it cannot fetch a model over the network.

8. Purchases

Fuchsia Studio is sold through the Mac App Store, and starting the free trial is itself an App Store transaction — of a free item — so Apple is involved whether or not you ever pay us anything. Your trial and your purchase are handled by Apple under Apple's privacy policy. We receive only the anonymized, aggregate sales information Apple provides; we do not receive your name, your Apple Account, or your payment details. Restore Purchases asks Apple directly for your purchase history, and Apple may ask you to sign in when you use it.

9. On-device models and open-source components

Fuchsia Studio includes on-device machine-learning models and open-source components, used for tasks such as speech processing, speaker separation and search. These are shipped inside the app, run locally on your Mac, and send nothing off your device. Apple's speech model is the exception, and it is not one of ours: macOS supplies and installs it, downloading it if this Mac does not already have it (see section 3). Licenses and attributions for the components we ship are listed in the app under Help ▸ Acknowledgements.

10. Diagnostics and support

Fuchsia Studio contains no analytics, crash-reporting or telemetry software of any kind, and sends us no automatic diagnostics. If you choose to email us a bug report or contact support, we receive whatever you include in that message. The app's Report a Problem command opens a draft in your own mail client with your macOS version and the app's version filled in — you can read and edit everything before you send it, and nothing is sent unless you send it. No logs or files are attached; anything attached is attached because you chose to attach it.

11. Your rights and choices

• Permissions: You can grant or revoke microphone and file access at any time in macOS System Settings → Privacy & Security.
• Access and deletion: Because your data is stored locally in folders you control, you can view, export, or delete it directly. Deleting your project files removes your recordings, transcripts and stories from your device. Two smaller things live outside those folders and survive deleting the app: any Anthropic API key you saved is held in your macOS Keychain — remove it with Remove… in Settings — and Studio's own preferences are held in macOS's preferences store.
• AI features: Not configuring an Anthropic API key keeps everything derived from your tape on your Mac. If you do configure one, you can decline the automatic read of any import in the Import Tape sheet, and keeping a tape unread keeps its transcript out of the readings.
• Regional rights: Depending on where you live (for example, under GDPR or the CCPA), you may have rights to access, correct, or delete personal data. Because we do not collect or hold your personal data on our servers, these rights are largely exercised directly on your device; contact us if you have questions.

12. Children's privacy

Fuchsia Studio is a professional tool intended for adults and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

13. This website

This site is a set of static pages. We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking on it, and it sets no cookies of its own. As with any website, our hosting provider necessarily handles the technical information your browser sends in order to be served a page, such as your IP address.

Our typefaces are served from this site, not from a third party. Reading this page makes no request to any outside font service, and beyond the hosting described above no other company receives your IP address as a result of it.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app evolves. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, provide a more prominent notice.

15. Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or your privacy, email us at support@fuchsiaprojects.com. Fuchsia Studio is published by Fuchsia, LLC.

Fuchsia Studio is published by Fuchsia, LLC. © 2026 Fuchsia, LLC. All rights reserved.