Terms for using NoteHand.

1. The licence

When you unlock NoteHand, BITSUMMIT Corporation ("we") grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use the app on Macs that you own or control. The unlock is a one-time payment; there is no subscription, renewal or recurring fee for the app itself.

Purchases through the Mac App Store are tied to the Apple Account that made them and can be restored on Macs signed in with that account. The licence covers one person. Each additional person needs their own unlock. Organisations that want to buy for several people or for company-managed Macs should contact us first so that the purchasing route and who holds the licence are agreed in writing; see Teams and IT.

A licence bought directly from notehand.io is unlocked with a licence key instead. We email the key to the address used at checkout, and you paste it into Settings › About. One key unlocks the app on up to three Macs at a time, and you free a place by deactivating a Mac from that same pane. The app checks the key with our licensing service when you activate it and about once a day after that, so a Mac needs to reach the internet from time to time to stay unlocked; it keeps working for a while if it cannot.

You may not sell, rent, sublicense or redistribute the app, remove its notices, or attempt to work around the unlock. The app's code, design and name remain ours.

2. Free trial

Before you buy, you may record three meetings and use dictation up to 25 times with every feature available. A meeting counts when a recording completes and produces a meeting in the Library; a recording that fails before producing anything does not count. No account or payment details are needed for the trial.

After the trial, starting a new recording or dictation requires the unlock. Everything you recorded during the trial stays on your Mac and remains readable in the Library and in your export folder, whether or not you unlock.

3. Mac App Store purchases

If you obtained the app from the Mac App Store, Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement also applies to that purchase. Where it conflicts with these terms on matters it governs, it prevails. Apple is not responsible for the app or for supporting it; we are.

4. Your responsibilities

Consent. Recording laws differ by country, state and province. You are responsible for knowing the rules where you and the other participants are, and for obtaining any consent they require before you record. The app asks you to confirm this during setup, starts recording automatically when it detects a supported meeting, and does not announce itself to the other people on a call.

Your files. The recordings, transcripts and notes the app produces are yours and are stored on your Mac. Backing them up, sharing them appropriately and keeping them confidential is up to you. We do not have copies and cannot recover them for you. If you place your export folder in a synced location, that service holds copies under its own terms.

Your AI provider accounts. If you connect an OpenAI, Anthropic or other endpoint, you are responsible for that account, its charges and its terms, and for deciding whether your meeting content may be processed there.

5. Third-party services

Speech recognition runs on your Mac using Whisper models; the model file is downloaded once from Hugging Face. With the default setup, Coach and notes run through Ollama on your Mac and no third-party service receives meeting content. If you choose OpenAI, Anthropic or a custom endpoint, transcript text is sent to that provider under your account and its terms, not ours. Audio is never sent to any provider.

Purchases and updates for the App Store version are handled by Apple under Apple's terms. Direct purchases are taken by Stripe under its terms; we receive the email address on the receipt so we can send you the key, and no card details reach us. The service that issues and checks licence keys, and the storage that holds the direct download, run on Microsoft Azure for BITSUMMIT. If you use Send Feedback, your submission is stored for BITSUMMIT on Supabase, as described in the privacy policy. What the download form records is set out in the privacy policy too.

6. Updates

Updates released for NoteHand are included in the price. App Store copies update through the App Store. The direct build has no automatic updater in this release, so updating it means downloading the current disk image from notehand.io again and replacing the app; your licence key stays valid. We may add, change or remove features over time, and system requirements may change with macOS. If a version changes what the app sends or stores, we say so in the release notes and the privacy policy.

7. Accuracy, warranty and liability

Review important information before relying on it. Transcription, Coach suggestions and generated notes are automated and may contain errors or omissions. Check important names, dates, amounts and commitments against the recording or with the participants before acting on them.

The app is provided as is. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the app, and our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid for it. Nothing in these terms limits rights that consumer law gives you and that cannot be excluded.

8. Refunds

Mac App Store. Purchases made through the Mac App Store follow Apple's refund process, which you start from your Apple Account. Apple decides those; we cannot grant or refuse one on Apple's behalf.

Direct purchases. Apple is not involved, so ask us. Write to support@notehand.io within 14 days of your purchase, from the address you bought with or quoting your licence key, and we refund the full US$19.99 to the card you paid with. You do not have to give a reason. The refund goes back through Stripe; how long it takes to appear is your bank's business, and is usually a few working days.

What happens to the key. A refund cancels the licence. When Stripe tells our service the payment was refunded, the key is marked refunded and every Mac it had unlocked is deactivated. Those Macs stop being unlocked the next time the app checks in. It checks about once a day while it is running, and on launch if it has not checked for a week, so a Mac that is rarely used can stay unlocked for a few days after a refund. Nothing you recorded is touched: your meetings, transcripts, notes and exported files stay on your Mac and remain readable.

After 14 days we are not obliged to refund, but write to us anyway if something is wrong. We would rather fix it, or make it right, than leave you with software you cannot use. Nothing here limits rights that consumer law gives you and that cannot be excluded.

9. Ending the licence

You can stop using the app at any time by deleting it. Your exported Markdown files stay in your folder, and the app's own storage stays on your Mac until you remove it. We may end the licence if you breach these terms in a way that is not fixed after we ask. Because there is no account, ending the licence means we ask you to stop using the app; it does not delete anything on your Mac.

10. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Where consumer protection law in your own country or province gives you additional rights, those rights are unaffected.

11. Contact

Questions about these terms: support@notehand.io. BITSUMMIT Corporation, Oakville, Ontario, Canada. For how the app handles your data, see the privacy policy and the Security page.