About Brain Dump
Brain Dump is a voice notes app for iPhone that turns your spoken words into clean, formatted Markdown text. We built it for people who think better by talking than by typing.
Why We Built Brain Dump
The best ideas don't arrive at your desk. They come during walks, in the shower, while making dinner, or at 2 AM when you can't sleep. But by the time you sit down to write them, they've evaporated.
We created Brain Dump to solve a simple problem: capturing thoughts the moment they appear, without breaking your flow. No opening apps, no waiting for cloud services, no friction. Just lift your iPhone, speak, and your words become text instantly.
How Brain Dump Works
Brain Dump uses on-device speech recognition built into iPhone 12 and newer. Your voice is transcribed directly on your phone — nothing is sent to external servers unless you explicitly enable optional AI features.
- Tap the record button in the Brain Dump app
- Speak naturally for as long as you need (even in Airplane Mode)
- Get instant Markdown saved to your iCloud Drive
Your notes are saved as plain text files that work with Obsidian, VS Code, Git, and any text editor. No proprietary format. No vendor lock-in. Your words stay yours.
What We Believe
- Clarity beats perfection: Capture now, revise later. Done is better than perfect.
- Your notes are yours: Saved to your iCloud, not our servers. No database, no data mining.
- Privacy first: On-device transcription means your voice never leaves your phone.
- Open formats: Plain Markdown files work everywhere. No lock-in, no export hassles.
Who Uses Brain Dump
Brain Dump is used by writers drafting novels during morning walks, engineers capturing bug reports between meetings, journalists interviewing sources, therapists taking session notes, students recording lecture insights, and anyone who needs to get thoughts out of their head quickly.
Our users have captured over 500,000 notes, from 30-second voice journal entries to hour-long meeting transcriptions. They use Brain Dump because typing creates friction, and friction kills momentum.
Technology & Privacy
Brain Dump leverages Apple's on-device speech recognition API, which achieves approximately 95% accuracy on recent iPhones. Transcription happens locally on your device using the Neural Engine, which means:
- Works in Airplane Mode with no internet connection
- No data sent to external servers during transcription
- Private by default — your voice stays on your iPhone
- Custom dictionary learns your jargon, names, and acronyms
Optional features like AI summaries and rewrites use your choice of AI provider, but they're disabled by default. You control what, if anything, gets sent to external services.
Our Commitment
We're committed to building tools that respect your privacy and your data. Brain Dump will never mine your notes for advertising, sell your data, or lock you into a proprietary ecosystem. Your files are yours, stored in your iCloud, accessible with any text editor.
We respond to every support email within 24 hours. We ship updates based on user feedback. We're building Brain Dump for the long term, not for quick growth metrics.
Get Started
Brain Dump is available as a free download on the App Store. It works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac (via iCloud sync).
Have questions? Email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.