Does clearing Siri & Dictation History delete your voice memo transcripts?

It is an easy thing to conflate. Both involve a microphone, both involve iOS turning speech into something usable, and both sit under the same general heading of "the phone doing something with your voice." One button clearing all of it would be tidy. It is also not how any of this is actually organised.

What that button is actually for

Under Settings → Siri & Dictation (Settings → Siri & Search on older versions of iOS) is a control to delete Siri & Dictation History. It clears interaction history Apple associates with your own use of the Siri assistant and of keyboard dictation, kept so Apple can improve those two specific features. It is a privacy control aimed at Apple’s own assistant and its own keyboard input method — not a general switch for every app that has ever asked to turn audio into text.

Why a recording app’s transcripts do not live there

A transcript in a recording app has nothing to do with Siri or the keyboard. It exists because the app asked Apple’s Speech Recognition framework to turn one specific recording into text, and whatever came back was saved by that app, in that app’s own storage. Clearing Siri & Dictation History has no path into another app’s files, in the same way that clearing a browser’s history does not touch a document sitting in Notes. They are simply different data, kept by different things, for different purposes.

Where a transcript is actually stored

In an app with no account and no iCloud sync of its own, a transcript lives in the app’s own storage on the device, and separately, in whatever file you exported it to and sent somewhere. There is no shared "voice data" bucket in iOS that both Siri and a third-party recorder read from and write to — Speech Recognition is a permission granted per app, and each app’s results stay wherever that app decided to keep them.

The one place the two genuinely overlap

It would be dishonest to draw the line too cleanly, so it is worth naming the one real point of contact. Transcription like this does not stay local by guarantee: it attempts the on-device model first, and only if that pass comes back empty or throws an error does it retry using Apple’s server-based recognition — the same broader Speech framework that also sits behind Siri and keyboard dictation elsewhere on the phone. That retry is a one-off processing request for that one recording, not an entry added to a running history the way Siri & Dictation History is, and clearing that Settings toggle has no effect on it either way — nothing to switch off there, and nothing there for a transcript already sitting in an app to depend on.

What actually removes a transcript, if not this

• Deleting the recording in the app. Its transcript goes with it, since the two are stored together as one entry.
• Deleting an exported copy — a TXT or JSON file, or a full backup — wherever you sent it. The app has no way to reach out and remove something once it has left the device.
• Deleting the app itself, which removes its local storage along with everything in it.

None of these have anything to do with the Siri & Dictation History control. That button governs Apple’s own assistant and keyboard, and a recording app was never plugged into it.

How Voice Studio handles this

Voice Studio has no account, no iCloud sync and no analytics of its own, so a transcript exists only in the app’s own storage on the device and, if you choose to export it, in the TXT, JSON or full backup file you send elsewhere. Transcription attempts the on-device model first and only retries through Apple’s server if that local pass comes back empty or errors — a per-recording request, not a stored history entry. Deleting a recording deletes its transcript with it; nothing you do in Settings under Siri & Dictation reaches into either one.

Common questions

Does deleting Siri & Dictation History delete transcripts from a recording app?

No. That Settings control clears history Apple keeps for the Siri assistant and keyboard dictation. A recording app’s transcripts are stored by that app, in its own storage, and are not part of that history.

Where are a recording app’s transcripts actually stored?

On the device, in the app’s own storage, in an app with no account or cloud sync — plus anywhere you separately exported a copy to, such as a TXT or JSON file.

Does Voice Studio ever send audio to Apple’s servers?

Only as a retry: it attempts on-device transcription first, and if that pass comes back empty or throws an error, it retries using Apple’s server-based recognition instead. It does not skip on-device recognition by default.

What actually removes a transcript from a recording app?

Deleting the recording it belongs to, or deleting an exported copy from wherever you sent it. Clearing Siri & Dictation History in Settings does neither.