macOS menu bar · free preview

Write with a little momentum

TypingBuddy watches the text field you're already typing in — Mail, Notes, Safari, TextEdit — and offers the rest of your sentence at the caret. One Tab takes it. It runs locally by default and has no Dock icon.

Download for Mac ↓ Read the privacy model
Local by default Cloud opt-in, per app Terminals blocked Tab to accept macOS 14+
Mail — New Message Local

Subject: Thursday handoff

Tab

How it works

A menu bar utility that stays out of the way, until it doesn't

01 / Reach

Works where you already write

TypingBuddy reads the focused text field through the macOS Accessibility APIs, so it works in apps that never shipped an autocomplete of their own — Mail compose, Notes, Safari and Chrome fields, TextEdit. Terminals and code editors are blocked by default, because that's where a wrong guess costs the most.

02 / Gesture

Tab is the whole interaction

A suggestion appears at your caret. Tab accepts it, Esc dismisses it, and anything else just keeps typing. Prefer →? Rebind it. Want a word at a time instead of the whole sentence? Switch to next-word mode.

03 / Model

Local by default

The default provider is a lightweight local heuristic. You can install a bundled Gemma 4 E2B that runs on 127.0.0.1 behind a per-process token, verified against a pinned SHA-256 digest before launch.

04 / Scope

A sentence, not an essay

Suggestions default to sentence scope with a 16-word cap — enough to carry a thought, short enough to read in a glance. Word-only and phrase scopes are there if you want less.

05 / Cloud

Opt-in, per app

Cloud suggestions run through the OpenAI Responses API with your own key, held in the macOS Keychain. Every request must clear the privacy policy first, and it falls back to local on denial, rate limit, network failure, or a slow response.

06 / Presence

Nearly invisible when you don't need it

No Dock icon — just a menu bar item with one obvious action per state. ⌃⌥⌘P pauses autocomplete down to a single shortcut listener; the same keys bring it back. Start at Login is handled through macOS ServiceManagement, and Debug Mode shows a redacted event stream when you want to see exactly why a suggestion did or didn't appear.

Privacy

An autocomplete that reads your typing owes you a precise answer

So here it is, in full. Local mode is the default, and nothing below is a setting you have to go find.

Never sent

  • Window screenshots
  • Full documents or field values
  • Clipboard contents
  • File contents
  • App names as prompt content
  • Your allowed or blocked app lists

Screen Recording is detected as optional and is not required. The prototype captures no screenshots for autocomplete.

Cloud mode sends

  • Recent text before the cursor, capped — read as a range where the app supports it, not the whole field
  • The current partial word or phrase
  • The configured prompt instructions
  • Personalization guidance, only if you wrote some

And only after you turn cloud on, and authorize that specific app.

Declined before a character is read

TypingBuddy gathers only app identity, URL, private-window and secure-input metadata, then applies policy to that — before Accessibility ever reads the text. Any one of these is a refusal:

Secure input active Private browsing window Blocked app Terminal or code editor banking login medical payment checkout

One honest limit: the localhost model boundary protects against other macOS users and stray listeners — not against malicious software already running as you. If mutually untrusted software shares this machine, use a separate macOS account.

Shortcuts

Everything reachable without the mouse

Tab
Accept the visible suggestion. The default gesture.
Esc
Dismiss without accepting — and stop re-suggesting for that context until you change the text or the focus.
⌃⌥⌘→
Accept only the next word of the suggestion.
⌃⌥⌘⏎
Accept the full suggestion, even while next-word mode is selected.
⌃⌥⌘F
Force-enable local suggestions for the focused app session. Never enables cloud.
⌃⌥⌘P
Pause autocomplete, leaving only a shortcut listener. Press again to resume.

Download

Ready when your next sentence is, almost

Download the TypingBuddy preview for Apple silicon Macs running macOS 14 or later. The app is signed with a Developer ID certificate, but this preview is not notarized yet — so macOS will ask you to confirm the first launch. Step two walks through it.

TypingBuddy 0.1.0 
# release
TypingBuddy.dmg  11.9 MB

# requires
macOS 14+  Apple silicon

# SHA-256
d804b2d2c9648d16ab108beae5307ae7
7949416e5dca87143a10f774108d922d

Download TypingBuddy.dmg ↓

  1. Open the disk image

    Open TypingBuddy.dmg, then drag TypingBuddy into the Applications folder.

  2. Allow the first launch

    Open TypingBuddy from Applications. Because this preview is not notarized, macOS says it cannot be checked for malicious software. Click Done, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the message about TypingBuddy, and click Open Anyway. You only do this once.

    Verify the download first if you like — shasum -a 256 TypingBuddy.dmg should match the SHA-256 above.

  3. Grant Accessibility

    TypingBuddy needs Accessibility to read the field you are typing in. Enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, then quit and reopen the app. Screen Recording is optional.

  4. Type somewhere real

    Open Mail or Notes and start a sentence. Local mode is already on. Tab accepts.

  5. Cloud, only if you want it

    Add your own OpenAI API key in Settings — it goes to the Keychain, never to UserDefaults, and never inherits an ambient OPENAI_API_KEY. Then authorize the specific apps you want it in.