How Sayburst makes sure you never lose what you said

The worst thing a dictation app can do is lose a paragraph you just said. The second worst is type it into the wrong window. Most of Sayburst's engineering effort went into making sure neither happens.

#Your audio hits the disk while you speak

Sayburst writes the recording to a file as it comes in, not just to memory. If your Mac sleeps mid-sentence, the app crashes, or the power goes out, the recording is still there. Next time Sayburst starts, it transcribes it and puts the text in your history marked Recovered.

The file is deleted once your text is safely saved — unless you've chosen to keep recordings so you can re-run them with a different model.

#It won't type into the wrong place

When you start dictating, Sayburst notes which app and field you were in. When the text is ready, it checks again:

• You switched apps? It doesn't type. The overlay says where your text is and offers Copy and Paste here.
• A password field is focused? It doesn't type, ever.
• No Accessibility permission? It keeps the text and tells you how to fix it.

#Your clipboard comes back

Pasting is the most reliable way to insert text into every kind of app, so Sayburst briefly uses the clipboard. Before it does, it saves everything on it — text, images, files, rich text — and restores it about half a second later. If you copy something new in that half second, Sayburst leaves your new copy alone. It also marks its temporary entry so clipboard managers skip it.

Sayburst also finds the key that types "v" in your current keyboard layout, so paste works on Dvorak, AZERTY and others.

#Three ways back to your last dictation

• The overlay's Copy / Paste here buttons.
• The menu bar, which always shows your last dictation.
• ControlOptionCommandV, from anywhere.

And everything you've said is searchable in History — or not saved at all, if you turn history off. Even then, your last twenty dictations stay in memory until you quit, so a mistake is never final.