Your dictation history
See what you said, what was typed, and exactly what cleanup changed — all of it kept on your own PC.
UPDATED 2026-07-28
The most useful thing in the History window is What changed. It sets the raw transcription against the text that was actually typed and shows you the difference, word by word. That is how you decide whether cleanup can be trusted on your writing, rather than taking anyone's word for it.
Open it from the History button on the pill, or from the Retype menu's "Open history…" row.
Checking that cleanup is behaving#
Every entry can show three views of the same dictation:
| View | What it is |
|---|---|
| Final text | What was typed into your window. |
| Original words | The raw transcription, as the speech model heard you. |
| What changed | The difference between the two. |
Read a handful of What changed views on your own dictations, in your own vocabulary, and you will know quickly whether your current cleanup style is tidying your words or rewriting them. If it is doing more than you want, drop to a lighter style — see Cleanup styles.
Some entries carry two further views, Suggested text and Suggested changes, showing what cleanup proposed. They appear whenever there was a proposal to record — whether it was used or set aside in favour of your original wording.
Each entry also carries a processing-time badge that breaks the total into recording, transcription and cleanup, so you can see where the time actually went before changing anything about speed.
The five tiles#
Along the top, grouped under two headings — and the difference between them matters:
| Tile | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Words | Words in the dictations currently in your history. |
| Time saved (shown as "min saved" or "hrs saved") | A rough guess at dictating versus typing, over the same history. |
| Cleanups | How many of those dictations were tidied by a cleanup style. |
| Dictations | Every dictation you have ever done, for all time. |
| Day streak | Your longest run of consecutive days using Blabb. |
The first three describe what is in your history right now, so they fall when history is cleared or ages out under your retention setting. Dictations and Day streak are all-time counters and survive a wipe.
Note
Time saved is an estimate based on an assumed typing speed. It is a nice number, not a measurement — do not put it in a timesheet.
Finding one dictation#
Search by the words in it, and narrow the list with the date filter — Today, Yesterday, This week, This month, or All time. A results count tells you how many entries match, and Reset filters clears both at once. Retry reloads the list if it failed to load.
Per entry you can open the comparison views, copy the text, report AI content you object to, or delete the entry.
One keyboard shortcut is worth remembering:
Ctrl+Z undo the delete you just madeClear history deletes the lot. It confirms first, and it is not covered by undo.
Where it is kept#
History lives in history.db under %LocalAppData%\Blabb, encrypted row by row. The encryption keys are tied to your Windows user account, so copying the file to another machine or another user profile does not make it readable.
It never leaves the PC. There is no sync, no account, and nothing uploaded — the full accounting of what does leave is in Where your data lives.
How long entries are kept is your choice: Keep dictation history in Privacy settings offers Don't save, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or Forever, and starts at 1 week. Set it to Don't save and nothing is written at all — the cost being that What changed, search and Retype have nothing to work from.
See also#
- Privacy settings — retention and deleting what Blabb holds.
- Where your data lives — every file, and what is in it.
- Retype a recent dictation — typing an earlier dictation again.