Privacy
AI search that never uploads your files.
Most AI tools send your documents to a server before they can understand them. SearchOnMac’s AI runs on your Mac, so your files, photos, mail and searches never leave it. No analytics, no tracking, no internet needed to search.
Typical cloud AI
Your files go to it.
- Your files are uploaded to understand them
- Processed on someone else’s computer
- Can be kept, logged or reviewed there
- Stops working without the internet
SearchOnMac
It comes to your files.
- Your files never leave your Mac
- Understood by your Mac’s own chip
- Nothing is stored anywhere else
- Works the same in Airplane Mode
Private by design, not by setting.
Searched on your Mac
The index of your files, and the text found inside them, lives in a private file on your Mac. You can clear it at any time.
No analytics. No tracking.
The app has no analytics or tracking SDKs. What you search, open and copy is never collected. This website uses Google Analytics to count page visits, with ad signals off, and skips it if your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track.
Works offline
Searching never uses the network, so it works the same in Airplane Mode.
AI that stays home
Apple’s on-device models and SearchOnMac’s Local AI run on your Mac. Nothing is sent to a server to be understood.
Everything it sends. The whole list.
Searching never touches the network. The app goes online for only these reasons — and never with anything you searched for.
Never leaves your Mac
What you search for, and everything it finds.
Goes online
License activation and checks
Lemon Squeezy and our license server
Your license key, this Mac’s name and an instance ID
Local AI model
huggingface.co · optional, once
A download request. The file is checksum-verified
Python runtime for Local AI
github.com · optional, once, with your consent
A download request
You choose what it searches.
Every source can be switched off in Settings, and nothing is recorded for a source that’s off. Clear your clipboard history, recent searches and what it has learned with one click in Settings › Privacy.
Try the switches — these are the defaults.
Search
Sources
Browser tabs
Titles and addresses of open tabs, kept on this Mac
Clipboard history
Text you copy; concealed passwords are skipped
Sender, subject and date only — never the message
Remember visible content
On-screen text; the image is discarded at once
Files and apps are always searched on this Mac and never uploaded.
Permissions only when you need them.
File and app search need no permissions at all. Anything else is asked for only when you turn on the feature that needs it.
Accessibility
When you search windows
Reads window titles and switches to windows
Automation
When you search browser tabs
Reads open tab titles and addresses
Full Disk Access
When you search Mail
Sender, subject and date — never the message
Calendars
When you turn on calendar context
Finds files you used around a meeting
Screen Recording
Only for “Remember visible content”
Keeps on-screen text; the image is discarded
Microphone
Never asked
SearchOnMac never listens
Input Monitoring
Never asked
⌥ Space is a standard system shortcut
Stop searching. Start finding.
Press ⌥ Space and type what you remember. Everything on your Mac, one sentence away.
macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon · Cancel anytime