✓ Verify, don’t trust
Don’t take our word for it.
Pribble’s audio never leaves your Mac, and you don’t have to believe us. Here’s how to check for yourself in five minutes — with a free firewall, a Terminal command, or just airplane mode.
What you’ll see
The result depends on Pribble’s Privacy Level. For the cleanest “nothing leaves” test, switch Pribble to Airgap first. Audio never leaves in any mode.
Zero outbound from Pribble. The clean test — switch to Airgap first.
No conversation content reaches any cloud AI. Updates & iCloud still work.
Only what you opted into — your own API key (text only), iCloud, a one-time model download, the update check — each labeled in Pribble’s network monitor.
→ Four ways to check
Pick your level of paranoia.
Airplane mode
Anyone · 30 seconds- While online, let Pribble finish downloading its models (Settings → Models).
- From the macOS menu bar, turn on Airplane Mode (or switch Wi-Fi off).
- Record or import audio. Watch it transcribe, identify speakers, and summarize — fully, offline.
That’s proof the core needs no network. (Cloud summaries via your own key and iCloud backup won’t run offline — by design.)
macOS built-in (no install)
Intermediate · Terminal- Open Terminal and run one of the commands below while using Pribble.
- In Airgap you should see no remote connections — only possibly 127.0.0.1 (the on-device model). Activity Monitor → Network also shows Pribble’s “Sent Bytes” staying flat.
# live per-app connections (loopback 127.0.0.1 is on-device, fine)
nettop -p $(pgrep -x Pribble)
# or list Pribble’s open network sockets
lsof -nP -i -a -p $(pgrep -x Pribble)Little Snitch
Recommended · best per-app view- Install Little Snitch (or the free Little Snitch Mini monitor).
- Open its Network Monitor and filter the list to Pribble.
- Use Pribble normally. In Airgap → nothing (or only localhost). In Standard → only the endpoints you enabled, each named — never your audio.
- Bonus: create a rule to deny all of Pribble’s outbound, then confirm it still records, transcribes, and summarizes.
Wireshark
Advanced- Capture on your active interface (en0).
- Put Pribble in Airgap and start a recording.
- Apply a display filter for your AI provider — you should see nothing leave for those hosts.
ip.addr == api.anthropic.com || ip.addr == api.openai.comHonest caveat: Wireshark captures all system traffic and can’t filter by process. For true per-app attribution, Little Snitch or nettop (above) is the better tool.