macai

About

macai (macOS AI) is a simple yet powerful native macOS AI chat client that supports most AI providers, including ChatGPT, Claude, xAI (Grok), Google Gemini, Perplexity, Ollama, OpenRouter, and almost any OpenAI-compatible API. It is macOS-native and lightweight, with a minimalist light and dark UI and a setup meant to be simple for new users. It requires macOS 14.0 or later and supports both Intel and Apple chips.

macai includes vision, image generation, search, reasoning, and import/export features. Its optional iCloud Sync keeps chats, messages, and settings in sync across devices. According to the site, macai collects no telemetry or usage tracking, though Apple may collect anonymized telemetry when iCloud Sync is enabled. The app is open source under the Apache-2.0 license and is in active development.

To use commercial services like ChatGPT or Claude, you need an API token from the provider. For a local option, you can run macai with Ollama, which supports open-source LLM models that run on Apple M1/M2/M3/M4 Macs. The app can be installed from a notarized universal binary on the project's downloads page or with Homebrew using `brew install --cask macai`, and it can also be built from source.