The current way of interacting with AI sucks.
Copy. Paste. Wait. Copy. Paste. Wait. No, not like that, stupid. Yell at the AI. Contemplate our inexorable march towards death. Copy. Paste....
Meet Basil
Your new minion.
Just tell it what you need.
It handles the rest. Like a butler, but without the British accent
and uncomfortable power dynamic.
Basil is an AI assistant embedded in your Mac.
Because life is too short to spend it on admin.
(We know AI loves gradients when building a website. But this was a choice. We're just tacky.)
See it. Say it. Done.
Call on Basil in any app, say what you want, and get answers in one pass. Highlight some text first and it works on that text. Stay in the app and Basil pastes the answer back for you.
Hand it the tedious parts.
Describe a job: tidy a folder, research a trip, draft something and file it. Basil works through it step by step and shows its work, like an intern who actually wants you to check. When it needs you, it stops and asks.
An amber marker means it's your turn. Anything that needs your permission waits politely until you give it. Pobody's nerfect, as they say, and we'd rather make it really obvious when things might not be 100% correct.
Just ask. Basil sorts it out.
Type or say what you need on the home board, and Basil sends it where it needs to go. A question opens a chat. A job becomes an agent task. A small notice tells you which one happened, and if Basil guessed wrong, one click sends it the other way. Basil is a good guesser, not a mind reader, but like a psychic at a carnival, it's going to try.
Your To-Dos live here too, with the work the agent did on each one attached, so "did I actually do that?" comes with a receipt.
(Those are the app's actual windows, running on made‑up data. Isn't that sick?)
Built different.
And by that we mean useful.
Voice to text, instantly
Dictate anything. Your transcriptions are searchable and include audio playback.
Local first
Everything runs on your Mac. Cloud models are optional, and your history stays on your Mac.
Actually does things
Not just suggestions. Basil takes real action—organizing files, drafting emails, and more.
Always ready
Use a hotkey you choose, or say "Hey Basil" once you turn voice listening on. No mouse required.
Remembers what you let it (locally)
Your preferences, writing style, and work history, if you choose to share them. Basil can adapt to you.
Sees your screen
When you capture it, Basil sees what you're working on. No need to explain context or copy-paste content.
A second set of ears in the room.
Basil also does standard transcription. But unlike some apps, we don't, like, make that our whole personality.
Notetaker records and transcribes a meeting or call as it happens, then summarizes it and pulls out the action items, so we can stop pretending our attention spans are as good as they were before doom scrolling became a thing. The recordings and transcripts are stored on your Mac.
Turn on the Companion and it sits beside the transcript like the coworker who actually read the pre-read. It speaks up with useful notes, researches from the files you attach, and offers to-dos. Nothing becomes a to-do or a task until you approve it, so it can't volunteer you for things.
Basil can also notice when a call starts and offer to join it. Call detection is off until you turn it on, and unless you choose to start automatically, nothing records or transcribes until you click Join call. No unknown eavesdropping. Just known eavesdropping, which is much less creepy.
↑ (Yeah, we didn't know what to do with this transition either.)
Why Basil
Why not just use the one from the AI company?
(Fair question. And like a politician on a debate stage, we'll refer to the other applications only as “our opponents”.)
Where the thinking happens
Our opponents
Mostly their cloud.
Even the "local" options usually still send what they read there to do the thinking.
Basil
Your Mac, if you like.
Run a model on your Mac and what you ask, say, and show Basil never leaves it. Once it's downloaded, that works wherever your Mac happens to be.
What it costs
Our opponents
A plan or a per-token bill.
Usually. Pick a plan, or pay by the token.
Basil
Free.
Basil is free, and a model on your Mac costs nothing to run. Smaller models are, well, smaller, so for the hard stuff you can bring a bigger one.
Switching models
Our opponents
A gateway or a config file.
Ew.
Basil
A setting.
A model on your Mac, your own Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google key, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Basil and your history stay exactly where you left them.
Your history
Our opponents
Mostly in their account.
Which works fine until you want to take it with you.
Basil
Files on your Mac.
A database and some folders you can find, back up, copy, or delete. No account required, so there's nothing to get locked out of.
And a few things the format has no round for
It takes meeting notes, too.
Notetaker records and transcribes your calls, summarizes them, and pulls out the action items, and the Companion sits beside the transcript with useful notes. The recordings and transcripts stay on your Mac.
You can read it. And it asks first.
Basil is open source under Apache-2.0, so you can see exactly what it does. Anything that reaches outside Basil follows the approval controls you set, and a to-do or task it proposes waits for your yes.
It has some pizzazz.
Just because it's AI doesn't mean it should be soulless. If you're going to spend all day with an agent, shouldn't it have some personality? Basil has a handful of themes, or you set your own and change the look of the whole app to whatever feels right for you.
In fairness
Our opponents are better at a few things: Windows, web, and phone apps, tasks that keep running after you close the laptop, and a spot inside your code editor. (Or as we like to call it, our roadmap.)
Still on the fence? It's free.
Try it on a real chore, and if it's not for you, your history is still yours. After all...
Your data, your call
You choose where the thinking happens.
Seriously, we don't want your data. (Do you have any idea how much liability that would open us up to?)
Run a model on your Mac and what you ask, say, and show Basil stays on your Mac. Want a bigger model? Use your own provider key or a custom endpoint. Then the content of that request goes to that provider, and only that request.
Basil keeps its own history on your Mac, such as chats, tasks, and meetings, so you can reopen them later.
It asks for permissions only when a feature needs them, such as Microphone for live transcription or Screen Recording for screen context. Actions that reach outside Basil follow the approval controls you set.
Basil is free and open source under the Apache-2.0 license, so you don't have to take our word for it. You can read exactly what it does. Inspect or build it yourself.
We think you'll actually like using AI for once.
Or hate it less.
We'll take what we can get.
Download now, while supplies last.(Or until cold economic necessity compels us to stop giving away free software)
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macOS 13+ required • Apple Silicon required • No account needed
(Yes, Apple Silicon only. Your Intel Mac had a good run.)