How Lyra uses the cloud
The short version
Lyra is private by default. Your everyday writing never leaves your Mac. Cloud-grade polish only for the hard cases — Pro only, and only when it counts.
On-device does the work. For the harder cases Lyra also asks a cloud model, but the cloud's answer arrives behind the instant local one — you see the on-device fix immediately and it quietly sharpens a beat later. You never wait on the cloud.
This page is the full account: which features run where, what free and Pro each get, how to switch the cloud off entirely, and what our server sees.
What runs where
| Feature | On your Mac | Cloud | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fix-as-you-type (instant fill) | Always | Never | Everyone |
| Sentence polish — clean English | Yes | No | Everyone |
| Sentence polish — typos, other languages, hard cases | Shows the local result first | Upgrades it a moment later | Pro only |
| Reply & compose drafting | Yes | Yes | Everyone — free is capped at 5 drafts a month |
| Two-tone (⌘⌘) rewrites | Yes | No | Pro |
| First run, while the local model downloads | Not yet available | Temporary bridge, capped | Everyone |
Two things stay on-device forever, by design. Fix-as-you-type fires every fraction of a second — the cloud is simply too slow for it. And the free tier's everyday writing is handled locally, so free stays private.
When the cloud actually fires
On-device handles the common case. Lyra asks the cloud only when the local result is in doubt — a typo the small local model can't fix, another language, a complex rewrite. Clean English never leaves your Mac.
In practice that means a normal typist barely touches the cloud at all. Someone writing in French or Hinglish uses it more, because that is exactly where they need it.
Free and Pro
Free
Everyday writing on the free tier is 100% on-device. The only cloud touches are the 5 reply drafts a month and the one-time first-run bridge described below.
Pro
Pro adds the cloud upgrade on hard cases — other languages, tricky typos, complex rewrites. It is never used for your routine writing, and every request is authenticated as you.
The first-run bridge
Lyra downloads its private on-device model the first time you launch it. Until that finishes there is no local model to rewrite with, so rewrites are served by a secure cloud assist instead. This is temporary, capped, disclosed in the app while it happens, and stops automatically the moment the model is ready. It never happens in Strict Local-Only mode.
Strict Local-Only mode
Settings has a single switch — Local-only mode — that disables all network use for writing features. With it on, Lyra uses nothing but the private on-device model: no cloud upgrade, no cloud reply drafting, no first-run bridge.
You give up quality on the hard cases (other languages, tricky typos, complex rewrites) and keep everything else. It is the one switch that turns "private by default" into "private, absolutely".
Working offline
Your everyday writing needs no connection at all — once the model has downloaded, the on-device path works with the Wi-Fi off. The cloud extras simply pause while you are offline, and are disabled entirely in Strict Local-Only mode.
What our server sees — and does not store
Cloud requests go to a small server we run, which holds the model API key so the app never has to. Concretely:
- It sees the text of the specific sentence being upgraded, for the duration of that one request, and your account identity.
- It does not store your text. Nothing you write is retained, logged as content, or used for training — ours or anyone else's.
- There is no shared password in the app. Every request is signed with your own login, so there is no shared secret to leak and every call is tied to a real account.
- Your plan is checked server-side. The server independently confirms whether you are Pro; the app cannot claim it.
- Usage is capped per account. A generous daily limit, well above any real person's use, means a bug or an abuser cannot run up an open-ended bill.
The model provider for the cloud path is Google (Gemini), reached through our server. See Privacy for the full list of subprocessors and what account data we hold.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you want a detail we have not covered, email founder@heylyra.co.uk.