Data Layer

Your Data

Understanding how Talkie stores and manages your data locally. You own your data—it's in readable formats on your disk, and you can export it anytime.

Data Philosophy

Your voice recordings are personal. They might contain private thoughts, business ideas, or sensitive conversations. Talkie treats this data with the respect it deserves:

  • Local storage — Data lives on your Mac, not in someone else's cloud
  • Standard formats — SQLite databases, M4A audio files, plain text exports
  • No lock-in — Export everything with one click
  • Optional sync — iCloud sync is available but never required

Where Data Lives

Talkie stores data in the standard macOS Application Support directory. This makes it easy to back up, migrate, or inspect your data.

Databases

Database Location
~/Library/Application Support/Talkie/
└── talkie_grdb.sqlite      # Unified recordings, settings, workflows

# This is a standard SQLite file. You can inspect it with:
sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Talkie/talkie_grdb.sqlite ".tables"

All data lives in a single unified recordings table in talkie_grdb.sqlite. Both memos and dictations are stored here, distinguished by a type field. Both Talkie (main app) and TalkieAgent (dictation helper) write to this database.

Audio Files

Audio Storage

Voice recordings are stored as M4A files (AAC codec) for good quality at reasonable file sizes.

~/Library/Application Support/Talkie/Audio/

Core Data Models

Understanding the data model helps when building integrations or inspecting your data directly.

Memo

A voice recording with transcription and metadata

idUUID
titleString?
transcriptString
audioPathString?
createdAtDate
durationTimeInterval
isFavoriteBool

Dictation

A live dictation session from TalkieAgent

idUUID
textString
appBundleIdString?
startedAtDate
endedAtDate?

Workflow

An automation rule with triggers and actions

idUUID
nameString
isEnabledBool
triggerTriggerConfig
steps[WorkflowStep]

Export Options

Available Formats
  • .txtPlain text transcription
  • .mdMarkdown with frontmatter metadata
  • .jsonFull data with all metadata fields
  • .m4aOriginal audio recording

Export from the memo detail view (Share → Export) or bulk export from Settings → Data → Export All.

Sync Architecture

Talkie uses a GRDB-primary architecture. The local SQLite database is always the source of truth. Sync (when enabled) is an additive layer on top.

Sync Flow
  1. App writes to local GRDB database
  2. Change observer detects new/updated records
  3. Sync bridge pushes changes to CloudKit (if enabled)
  4. Remote changes are pulled and merged into GRDB

Key benefit: The app works perfectly offline. Sync catches up when connectivity returns.

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