Your audio recordings and session transcripts only exist on your device, since Confidant does not have cloud servers. Your clinical data stays on your device until you decide otherwise. Confidant gives you precise control over when each is deleted, automatically by policy, or manually, one session at a time.
What's kept by default
Out of the box, Confidant keeps everything on your computer forever:
Audio recordings stay on disk until you explicitly delete them
Transcripts stay in your encrypted database until you explicitly delete them
Notes are always preserved — no setting can delete them automatically
If "keep forever" is what you want, you don't have to change anything.
Audio retention policies
Open Settings › Privacy › Data & retention. Under Audio recordings there are three choices:
Keep forever (default) — audio files are never automatically deleted
Delete once transcribed — audio is removed as soon as transcription completes. Notes and transcripts are preserved.
Delete when the note is finalized — audio is removed when you click Finalize on the note. Notes and transcripts are preserved.
Most therapists end up on "Delete when the note is finalized" — the audio served its purpose once the note is locked, so keeping it adds storage without adding clinical value.
Transcript retention policies
On the same page, Transcripts has its own three choices:
Keep forever (default) — transcripts are never automatically deleted; you can still delete them by hand
Delete when the note is finalized — the transcript is removed when you finalize the note. The note itself is preserved.
Delete 30 days after the session — for sessions that already have a generated note, the transcript is cleared 30 days after the session was recorded. Sessions that don't yet have a note keep their transcript so you can still generate one.
Tighter transcript retention is useful if you want a "the recording was a working step, not the final record" posture. Once the note is locked, the transcript stops being clinically necessary.
Manually deleting audio or a transcript for one session
Independent of any policy, you can remove the audio or transcript for a specific session by hand:
Open the session from the patient's session list
In the session panel, open the Details tab
Under On this Mac, the Recording and Transcript rows each have a Delete button (whichever still exists)
Click the one you want, then confirm
The session itself, the diagnosis, and any notes you've written stay intact — only the audio file or the transcript text is removed.
If you want to remove an entire session — recording, transcript, and notes — click Delete session… at the bottom of the Details tab. That one is irreversible; the dialog lists exactly what will be removed. It isn't offered once the note is finalized — unlock the note first.
What "deleted" means
When Confidant deletes an audio file, it's removed from disk — gone from the data folder, no recoverable cache, no cloud copy (Confidant doesn't have one). Standard caveats apply: if you have your own backup running (Time Machine, file-sync apps, an off-site backup), a copy may exist there. That's outside Confidant's reach.
When Confidant deletes a transcript, it's cleared from the encrypted database — no copy is retained anywhere inside the app.
What's never deleted automatically
Notes (Subjective/Objective/Assessment/Plan, or Data/Assessment/Plan for DAP) — always preserved. You can delete an entire session manually if you need to remove the note as well.
Diagnosis selections on a patient or note
Patient records themselves — archive a patient you've stopped seeing, or delete one yourself from Client settings (see Archiving a patient)
Choosing a retention posture
A few common postures:
"Belt and suspenders" — Keep everything forever. Maximum review-ability; uses the most disk.
"The note is the record" (common) — Delete audio after note finalized, keep transcripts forever. Audio is a working file; the note is the record of care.
"Tightest" — Delete audio after transcribed, delete transcripts after the note is finalized. Smallest disk footprint. The note is the only thing that lives long-term.
You can change the policy at any time. New settings apply going forward — they don't retroactively delete files (changing "Keep forever" to "Delete once transcribed" won't remove old audio that's already past transcription, for example).