Is TurboScribe safe for private recordings? What its own pages say
By TurboScribe's own pages, read on 3 November 2026, your files are encrypted, it trains no AI on them and it transcribes them on machines it owns or controls. It also keeps what you upload on its servers in the United States until you delete it or close your account, with backups purged within 90 days. Whether that is safe for a private recording depends on whether the recording may leave your hands at all. We make Burncaps, a rival tool that works in your browser, so read the rest as a competitor's page.
- Read 3 Nov 2026
- Written by a rival, said up front
- Burncaps: video never uploaded
Live preview, rendered on this page by the same engine that burns your video.
The short answer, from TurboScribe's own pages
| Question | What TurboScribe's pages say |
|---|---|
| Does my recording go to TurboScribe's servers? | Yes: you upload it to be transcribed, and its privacy policy says it stores on its servers “the content that you upload or receive or maintain in your product accounts”. |
| How long does it keep it? | “Unless you delete this content, we may keep this content as long as your account is active.” Deleted content becomes inaccessible at once and is “fully purged from our systems within 90 days”, counting its backups. |
| Does it train AI on my recordings? | Its Security and Privacy FAQ says no: “We don't train AI or machine learning models on your media files or transcripts.” |
| Who transcribes it? | TurboScribe itself, by the same FAQ: it uses no third-party transcription service and runs all transcription “in-house on machines we own or control”. Its home page says it is powered by Whisper. |
| Where is it kept? | In the United States. Its privacy policy tells people in the EU, the UK and elsewhere that what they provide “will be transferred to and stored in the United States”. |
| Is it encrypted? | Its FAQ says files and transcripts are encrypted at rest, with algorithms “such as AES-256”, and that it refuses unencrypted connections over the public internet. |
| Does it own what I upload? | No. Its terms: “We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Services.” |
| Who else is involved? | Its privacy policy says it uses third-party subprocessors to run its apps, “cloud and analytics providers” among them, and that browsing data on its site is tied to your account while you are signed in. |
From TurboScribe's Terms of Service (last updated 21 September 2022), Privacy Policy (last updated 23 August 2022), Security and Privacy FAQ (published 18 March 2025) and home page, all read on 3 November 2026. The terms and the privacy policy are those of Leif Erikson Ventures, LLC, the US company behind TurboScribe. If its pages have changed since, they are the authority.
What those pages mean for a private recording
TurboScribe works the way cloud transcription services do: you upload the file, its servers transcribe it, and the file and the transcript stay in your account so you can come back to them. Its pages make clear promises about what happens there: encryption, no AI training, no outside transcription service. What an upload cannot give you is a recording that never leaves you. A copy sits on another company's servers, in the United States, for as long as your account keeps it.
When it is likely fine
A lecture, a podcast you will publish anyway, or your own notes. Its pages answer the usual worries plainly, and the free plan lets you try it on a file that matters little.
When to think twice
A recording under an NDA, a client's confidential call, or research interviews whose consent terms say where the audio may be kept. Then the question is not how well a server protects the file but whether it may be on one at all, and for anyone outside the United States, in another country.
What you can do in TurboScribe
Read its terms, privacy policy and security FAQ yourself. Delete each file once you have its transcript: its FAQ says you can delete any file at any time, and its privacy policy counts 90 days for the backups. Its blog describes optional ways to use a transcript in ChatGPT; a transcript you put into ChatGPT is then also under OpenAI's terms.
TurboScribe and Burncaps, side by side
| What matters | TurboScribe (its pages, 3 Nov 2026) | Burncaps |
|---|---|---|
| Where the recording goes | Uploaded to its servers and kept in your account, in the United States | The video stays in your browser; the sound goes to our speech service only as set out below |
| Who writes the words | Its own machines, with no third-party transcription service | Your own device, or our speech service (Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU) on a phone by default and on a computer by choice |
| How long it is kept | While your account is active, unless you delete it; backups purged within 90 days | Nothing of the video; by Microsoft's terms for the service, it stores none of the sound |
| Training AI on it | No, by its Security and Privacy FAQ | No: the video never reaches us, and we train no AI on anything you make |
| Longest file | 10 hours on Unlimited; 30 minutes free | Three hours for the script and its files; ten minutes for captions burned into a video |
| Who is speaking | Speaker recognition, by its home page | No speaker names: the text file holds the words only |
| Price | Free: 3 files a day, each up to 30 minutes. Unlimited: $10 a month billed yearly, or $20 billed monthly | Free: 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark, no sign-up. Then try Captions + Clips free for 7 days, no card. Captions + Clips is $29 a month for unlimited clips and captions; Captions is $9.98 a month or $49 once. |
Where TurboScribe is the better fit
Hours of audio every month, files longer than three hours, or speaker names in the transcript: its Unlimited plan is built for that, and Burncaps is not. Burncaps is for the recording that should stay with you, and for turning a talk into captions or clips.
How to transcribe a private recording without uploading it
Burncaps opens the file in your browser and writes every word as a script under the player; correct any word with a click, then download a text file, or SRT or VTT subtitles. Text and subtitle files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes, with no sign-up. For a recording that must stay with you, use a computer and tick Keep everything on this device: the sound is then heard on your own device, and no request carries its sound or its words.
1. Open the Network tab
In Chrome or Edge on a computer, press F12 (Cmd, Option and I on a Mac) and choose Network. Tick Preserve log, because a video dropped on this page opens in the editor on the front page. Then drop a video and let it caption.
2. Read what goes out
Choose Fetch/XHR. The requests to burncaps.app are small, and clicking one and opening Payload shows what it carries: a step name or a random ID, never your file. The large rows are downloads coming in, such as the speech model, once.
3. Read the page's own lock
Click the first row, the page itself, and open Headers. Its Content-Security-Policy, under connect-src, names the only addresses the page's code may connect to. The browser refuses every other address.
What does leave, and only then: the sound, to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off and on a computer only if you choose it; the transcript text, to our AI, only when you choose Clips, type names to spell right or pick a caption language other than the one spoken; step counts with no identifier; and a small export check with two random IDs. Ticking Keep everything on this device stops every request that carries sound or words. Every request the page can make.
Questions, answered plainly
Is TurboScribe safe to use?
By its own pages, read on 3 November 2026: your files and transcripts are encrypted, it says it trains no AI on them, and it transcribes them on machines it owns or controls. It also keeps what you upload on its servers in the United States while your account is active, unless you delete it, and its privacy policy says deleted content is purged from its backups within 90 days. We make Burncaps, a rival, so read TurboScribe's pages for yourself.
Does TurboScribe use my recordings to train AI?
Its Security and Privacy FAQ says no: it does not train AI or machine learning models on your media files or transcripts. Its privacy policy, last updated 23 August 2022, does not mention training either way.
Where does TurboScribe store my files?
In the United States. Its Security and Privacy FAQ says its primary data infrastructure is there, and its privacy policy tells people in the EU, the UK and elsewhere that what they provide is transferred to and stored in the United States.
How long does TurboScribe keep my recordings?
As long as your account is active, unless you delete them, by its privacy policy. Deleted content becomes inaccessible at once and is purged from its backups within 90 days. If you cancel your account, its terms say content is deleted from active systems within 7 days and from backups within 90 days.
Does TurboScribe share my audio with other companies?
Its Security and Privacy FAQ says it uses no third-party transcription service and transcribes in-house on machines it owns or controls. Its privacy policy says it uses third-party subprocessors, including cloud and analytics providers, to run its apps. Its blog also describes optional ways to use a transcript in ChatGPT; a transcript you put into ChatGPT is then also under OpenAI's terms.
Is TurboScribe free?
It has a free plan: 3 files a day, each up to 30 minutes, one at a time and at lower priority. TurboScribe Unlimited is $10 a month billed yearly or $20 billed monthly, with files up to 10 hours. Both from its home page, read on 3 November 2026.
How can I transcribe a private recording without uploading it?
Use a tool that does the work on your own device. Burncaps, which we make, opens the file in your browser and never receives the video. On a computer, English is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service, and ticking Keep everything on this device keeps the sound and the words there too. On a phone the sound goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone.
Burncaps facts, checked 3 November 2026
What it is: a browser tool that burns animated word-by-word captions into a talking video, or finds the best moments of a talk, podcast or interview and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips.
Price: free for 2 videos every 30 days, each one recording with its captioned video and up to 3 clips, no mark and no sign-up; then the free 7-day Captions + Clips trial, no card (your email only); then Captions + Clips, $29 a month, gives unlimited clips and captioned videos, or Captions, $9.98 a month or $49 once, gives unlimited captioned videos. Captions paid once is not a subscription.
Privacy: the video never leaves your browser. The sound goes only to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off, on a computer only if you choose it. Because the video never reaches us, we cannot keep it or train AI on it, and we train no AI on anything you make.
Files: MP4 or MOV in, MP4 out. Captions on the whole video: up to ten minutes. Clips: up to three hours, on a phone or a computer. SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes; a longer recording, up to three hours, gives its script and those files (the first ten minutes free, all of it as one of your free videos, in the trial or with Captions + Clips or Captions) and its clips (every one found and shown before you sign up; up to 3 from each free video exported free, every one in the trial or with Captions + Clips).
Clips: about one clip for every two minutes of talk, up to 30, ranked, the ones we would post first circled, each showing the words it opens and ends on and the reason it was chosen; each cut to 9:16 with ums and dead air removed, an opening card and captions, framed on whoever is talking. Every clip of the whole recording is found and shown, free and with no sign-up; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and the 7-day trial and Captions + Clips export every clip, unlimited.
Languages and styles: captions in the language spoken, twelve Indian languages heard on your device, translation into 59 languages, 60 caption styles.
After it listens: correct any word (one click changes it everywhere), add or cut words, one to six words at a time, position, size, text and highlight colours, and names this browser remembers, all free and without listening again.
Made by: Jordan Labs Ltd, UK company no. 17358646.
Against other tools: sixteen caption tools compared, from the vendors' own pages.