Cotypist - Local AI Autocomplete in your voice, anywhere on your Mac
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Cotypist is smart autocomplete for the Mac apps you already write in: Mail, Slack, Notes, docs, even AI prompts. Press Tab when a suggestion fits, or keep typing and watch it update in real time. Runs locally on your Mac. No cloud, no API calls.
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Cotypist
Hey everyone, I'm Daniel, the developer behind Cotypist.
First, a quick thank-you to the Product Hunt team. After Cotypist launched back in May, they reached out and invited me back for a featured relaunch. I'm honestly a little stunned by that, and very grateful to be here again.
A few years ago, I noticed I'd developed a weird habit: copying conversations into Visual Studio Code, just to get GitHub Copilot's inline completions, then pasting them back into the app I should have been writing in. After enough of that, it clicked: autocomplete shouldn't live in one editor. It should work wherever you write.
So I built Cotypist. It's smart autocomplete that runs locally on your Mac (no cloud, no API calls), in basically every app you type into. Install it, give it a minute, and you're writing faster everywhere on your Mac. No long setup. Tab to accept a suggestion, keep going. Words still sound like you.
You can download Cotypist today from https://cotypist.app; there's a free 30-day trial with all the features, and there's also a free plan for casual use after that.
During early access, Cotypist has become a daily driver for founders, marketers, support folks, novelists, physicians, academics, and long-time Mac users. People who type a lot of email, Slack, and AI prompts. Plus a long tail I didn't see coming: non-native English speakers, one-handed typists, and (this still blows my mind!) not one but two Neuralink brain-implant wearers.
What still surprises me about Cotypist, even after building it, is how often it feels like it's reading your mind. Or almost like a colleague finishing your sentences.
Happy to take questions about the product, where it works (and where it doesn't), what's coming next, or anything else. I'll be here all day.
—Daniel
Zengo wallet
@daniel_a_a one of the best desktop apps i tried for a while. i wish it was embedded in ios. but apple will never allow a keyboard that freedom. we already know that from dictation apps
Cotypist
@ourielohayon Thank you for the friendly words! Yes, iOS keyboard extensions unfortunately are very limited in what they can do. Here's hoping that someday this will be possible!
@daniel_a_a Many congratulations Daniel on the launch! :)
Daniel reached out to me, and I found Cotypist incredibly novel. We already have tools like Text Blaze for snippets, Wispr Flow and Aqua Voice for dictation, but this is different: it suggests what to write next while you’re typing, anywhere on your Mac.
The product clearly had real interest behind it since Product Hunt invited Daniel to relaunch, I was happy to support it fully through my hunt.
A few things stood out to me:
It runs locally. No cloud, no API calls, and it works offline on your Mac.
It’s fast. Predictions appear in real time, often with no noticeable delay.
It has a low-risk trial. There’s a free 30-day Pro trial, plus a free plan afterward.
It still sounds like you. Cotypist learns your voice, so the output feels like co-typing rather than AI writing.
It works everywhere. It’s not limited to one editor; it works across Mac apps like Mail, Slack, Notes, docs, and AI prompts.
It works when dictation doesn’t. It’s useful in places where speaking out loud isn’t practical, like libraries, meetings, or flights.
It’s built by someone deeply focused on the problem. Daniel has spent two years refining it, and that shows in the quality of the product and the support behind it.
Overall, Cotypist crosses two important thresholds at once: the suggestions are good enough that you actually want to accept them, and fast enough that they never interrupt your flow.
Give it a try and share your thoughts in the comments. :)
Cotypist
@rohanrecommends Rohan, thank you so much for hunting Cotypist, and for the support! You’ve put your finger on exactly what makes Cotypist special. I’m glad to hear that that is resonating, and am excited to see the positive response from the community.
@daniel_a_a Kudos on the launch. Quick question: what’s one unexpected real-world use or workflow where Cotypist has surprised you by making a big difference?
Cotypist
@swati_paliwal Cotypist's use as an assistive tool has definitely surprised me. I've heard from two Neuralink users with ALS as well as a quadriplegic who are using Cotypist to massively speed up how they communicate with the world. It's heartwarming to see how Cotypist can meaningfully improve people's lives in this way.
@daniel_a_a I'm a huge fan of Cotypist! I use Apple Voice Control to type most of the time due to my disability (born without hands) so I would love to talk to you about some ideas I have for getting them to work together. In the meantime, I'll be over here hitting tab, saving time typing! Thank you for making such a thoughtful and incredible app. It's definitely an app I don't want to use a computer without. Keep up the amazing work.
Cotypist
@hudsonperalta Thank you for the kind words, I am really happy that Cotypist makes a difference in your life! And I have some ideas for additional accessibility features; talk to you soon!
@daniel_a_a Local AI autocomplete is the right move for privacy. How did you handle the latency piece — was keeping responses snappy the hardest technical challenge, or was it more about model selection?
I was in on the early release of Cotypist and saw it had great potential. It was then over-eager in the same way that the usual auto-correct is, causing a lot of backspacing. That is now totally gone with the tab completion. Start typing and it will provide a suggestion and if you like it, just press tab, but if not just keep typing. There's some tweaking when using apps with competing auto-corrects but that's not hard. If you've ever been in a relationship with someone where you get to the point of being able to ccomplete each other’s sentences, this will feel familiar. This goes into the day one new computer setup toolkit.
Cotypist
@technocrat Thank you for the endorsement, Richard! I appreciate your support throughout the early access period and am glad to hear that the improvements I made have made a difference for you. Acknowledged on the conflicts with e.g. the built-in macOS autocorrect; I’ve been thinking whether to offer disabling macOS' built-in autocorrect when installing Cotypist, but didn’t want to mess with the user’s system settings too much. I’ll keep iterating on it, though!
I love it so much I wish I had it on my phone.
Cotypist
@jathan_mccollum Thank you; I'll consider a version for iOS ;-)
What I found interesting is that typing is one of those things everyone does all day, yet most of us never think about improving it. Small gains in speed and accuracy can compound surprisingly fast over time. Nice reminder that productivity isn't always about adding more tools.
Cotypist
@harini_mukesh Indeed! The cool part about Cotypist is that it just accelerates a task you would do anyway — typing — without changing your workflow. Just install it, and gain a quick and easy speed boost throughout your day, without the time investment of learning new tools or setting up complex automations.
Congratulations on the launch! I've been using it for a few months since David Sparks (MacSparky) recommended it. Looking forward to the next stages of this brilliant app 🚀
Cotypist
@atrumgeost Thank you, Jorge! David has been a great supporter of Cotypist since the very beginning; I'm really happy that Cotypist has landed well with him and his community. Looking forward to expanding Cotypist even further in the future!
How do you keep the first suggestion after an idle pause from eating a cold-read penalty? Do you pin a hot subset or just accept the occasional slow first token? Great work, you guys are on the right path!
Cotypist
@artstavenka1 The current context is often relevant only for a few minutes at a time, which is easy to handle. And in the other cases, the occasional slightly longer wait time is usually acceptable.
Hand-wrote 51 cold outreach emails to higher ed in CO last week, would have sold a kidney for autocomplete in my own voice. then I see it's Mac only while I'm staring at my Windows taskbar. genuinely cruel. someone port this.
Cotypist
@david_mchale Sorry to hear that! If you visit https://cotypist.app from your Windows machine, you should have the option to sign up for a waitlist for a potential Windows version.
@daniel_a_a thank you, submitted!
Running a local Gemma model system-wide without choking the GPU is an awesome engineering feat. The privacy angle is a no-brainer, but honestly, just being able to tab-complete in my native flow across Slack and Mail sounds like an instant workflow upgrade.
Out of curiosity, how does Cotypist handle low-level conflicts with native macOS auto-correct features?
Cotypist
@doganakbulut In my experience, those conflicts are surprisingly rare. That being said, for the time being, if this is a concern, I recommend to turn off the macOS autocorrect feature; Cotypist already comes with a built-in autocorrect feature for the current word that can even work as soon as you type the wrong letter but before you have even finished typing the (incorrect) word!
I am thinking about how to even better integrate Cotypist with the macOS autocorrect feature for the future, though.
This app is incredibly useful and I use it daily. It’s crafted with great care.
Keep up the good work Daniel!
Cotypist
@b2a48b Thank you for the kind words! I’m glad to hear that the hard work and care I'm putting into Cotypist don’t go unnoticed.
How Cotypist handles different writing styles across work emails, Slack messages, and personal notes??
Cotypist
@ankur_jeswani Excellent question! Cotypist lets you provide custom instructions to generally tune it to your writing style. In addition, you also have the option to provide additional instructions for specific apps, to e.g. follow a more casual tone in Slack while keeping your emails more formal. Plus, Cotypist is also generally quick to pick up on the style of the current conversation, and will also learn from your writing in each app over time.