your script is your work. it shouldn't have to ride up to someone's cloud so you can read it on camera. open prompter keeps it on the phone you're holding.
that's not a marketing line. it's how the app is built, and the code is public so you can check.
the stance#
a teleprompter holds the most personal thing on a creator's screen. the unreleased pitch. the apology you're drafting. the launch nobody's seen. the cold email you're rehearsing before you send it.
so it's strange how many apps in this category treat that text as theirs. you paste your script into their box, it lands in their database, and now your words live on a server you don't control, governed by a policy you didn't read.
open prompter takes the opposite position. the file is yours, it stays yours, and the app's job is to read it, not to hold it.
what open prompter actually does#
the app reads files you already have. you point it at a folder once. it reads the markdown sitting in there. there's no paste step and no import step, so there's no moment where your script gets copied into the app's own storage.
from there, the privacy posture is short to describe.
- no account. you don't sign up. there's no login, no profile, nothing tied to you.
- no analytics, no tracking. the app doesn't watch what you do and report it back.
- no third-party SDKs. no ad networks, no measurement kits, none of the usual passengers.
- no network calls of its own. the app doesn't phone home. it has nothing to phone home about.
voice tracking and the camera follow the same rule. the speech recognition that scrolls the page runs on-device, so your audio never leaves the phone. recording is local too. when you save, open prompter asks only for write-only Photos access. it can hand a finished take to your library. it can't read your library back.
your cloud, not ours#
here's the part people mix up. open prompter reads from iCloud Drive, an Obsidian vault, Dropbox, any folder iOS can reach. so isn't your script "in the cloud"?
it can be, sure. but that's your cloud, set up by you, governed by the provider's policy. iCloud is between you and Apple. Dropbox is between you and Dropbox. open prompter just reads the file that sync already delivered to the phone. it isn't a hidden upload by the app.
the distinction matters. when a teleprompter app demands you paste your script into its box, your text now sits in that company's database under that company's terms. when open prompter reads a file out of your iCloud folder, nothing new leaves your control. the sync you already trust is the only sync involved.
it cuts the other way at save time too. turn on "save next to the script" and the finished take copies back into the same folder the script came from. if that folder is shared, the take lands right beside the script for whoever you're working with. iCloud delivers it to your mac next to the script. no Photos library hunt, no AirDrop dance. still your storage, still your terms, still no detour through us.
open source is the proof#
every app claims to respect your privacy. you're meant to take it on faith.
open prompter is MIT-licensed and the source is on GitHub. so the claims above aren't promises, they're auditable. anyone can read the code and check that there's no analytics call, no tracking SDK, no quiet network request firing off your script in the background. you don't have to trust the about page. you can read the file.
that's the difference between "we don't track you" printed in a privacy policy and "we don't track you" that anyone can verify by opening the repo. one is a statement. the other is a fact you can confirm yourself.
it also means the project outlives any one decision. if a future version ever added something sketchy, it would be in the open, in the diff, for everyone to see. open source doesn't only prove the privacy posture today. it keeps it honest tomorrow.
the pattern this breaks#
the teleprompter category has a default shape, and it's worth naming the pattern without pointing at any one company.
the usual deal goes like this. you make an account. you paste or type your script into the app, where it lives on the company's servers. the good features sit behind a subscription. and your text, the personal stuff, the unreleased stuff, is now part of someone else's system, synced through their infrastructure, kept under their policy.
none of that is necessary to put words on a screen and scroll them while you talk. it's a business model, not a technical requirement. the script doesn't need to leave your device for any of this to work. the apps that move it have chosen to, usually because owning your content is convenient for them, not for you.
open prompter is the proof that you can have the whole feature set without the trade. markdown reading, front-camera recording, voice-tracked scrolling, a Bluetooth remote, mirror mode for a beam-splitter rig. free, MIT-licensed, and not one byte of your script uploaded by the app to do it.
the short version#
your script stays on your phone. the audio from voice tracking stays on your phone. there's no account, no tracking, no SDKs, and no network calls from the app itself. the only cloud in the picture is the one you already set up, doing the syncing you already asked it to do.
and because it's open source, you don't have to believe any of that. you can read it.
if open prompter saved you a subscription, the support link is there. but the privacy isn't the paid tier and it isn't a favor. it's how a teleprompter should have worked all along.