LocalChat.app

LocalChat is a privacy-first Mac AI app for people who need help working with sensitive information without sending files, prompts, or answers to the cloud. It runs AI models directly on your Mac, keeping your documents and conversations on the device. This makes it particularly suited to professionals handling private or confidential material, including lawyers, doctors, therapists, accountants, and researchers.

Instead of relying on pasted snippets, LocalChat is built around full-file conversations. You can add PDFs, spreadsheets, CSVs, Markdown, text files, and images, then ask questions about the entire document. Project workspaces keep files, conversations, and embedded memory together, while optional file-restricted answers provide tighter control over the context used by the AI.

Key Features

On-Device AI

LocalChat processes your files, prompts, and answers directly on your Mac rather than sending them to a cloud AI service.

• Local AI processing
• Files stay on your Mac
• Prompts stay on your device
• Generated answers remain local
• Designed for sensitive and private work

Offline Use

Once installed, LocalChat can work without an internet connection. This makes it useful for private workflows as well as situations where connectivity is limited.

• Works offline after installation
• No cloud connection required for local workflows
• Useful on patchy or unavailable Wi-Fi
• Keep working with local documents without an internet connection

No Account or Usage Tracking

LocalChat does not require a login to use the application and is designed without account-based usage tracking.

• No account required
• No login workflow
• No usage tracking
• Local-first workspace

Full-File Chat

LocalChat lets you work with complete files instead of manually copying selected passages into a chat. Add supported documents and ask questions about their contents directly.

Supported formats and sources include:

• PDFs
• Spreadsheets
• CSV files
• Markdown files
• Text files
• Images

This makes it possible to ask questions across an entire document while keeping the source material on your Mac.

Project Workspaces

Organize AI work around individual projects or matters. Each workspace can maintain its own files, conversations, and embedded memory.

• Separate files by project
• Keep conversations with the relevant material
• Maintain embedded project memory
• Restrict answers to project files when tighter context is needed

This structure is particularly useful when working across multiple clients, matters, research projects, or document collections.

Curated Local Model Library

LocalChat includes a selection of local models covering different AI capabilities, allowing you to choose a model based on the task.

The model library includes:

• Reasoning models
• Vision models
• OCR models
• Embedding models
• Image generation models

GGUF Model Support

Beyond the curated model library, LocalChat also supports GGUF models from Hugging Face, giving users additional flexibility when choosing local AI models.

• Support for GGUF models
• Hugging Face model compatibility
• Expand your local model options
• Choose models for different workflows

Obsidian Vault Support

LocalChat can index an Obsidian vault and follow links between notes, turning connected notes into searchable project memory.

• Index an Obsidian vault
• Search across notes
• Follow note links
• Use connected notes as searchable memory

This can be useful for researchers, writers, and knowledge workers who already maintain structured information in Obsidian.

Swap Models Mid-Thread

Change the active AI model while continuing an existing conversation. This allows the same thread to move between models when a different capability is more appropriate.

• Change models within a conversation
• Continue the existing thread
• Use different models for different tasks
• Keep conversation context while switching

Built For Privacy-Sensitive Work

LocalChat is designed for professionals who need AI assistance while keeping sensitive documents under local control.

It can be useful for:

• Lawyers reviewing contracts, discovery material, and legal documents
• Doctors working with private documents
• Therapists reviewing session notes and intake forms
• Accountants analyzing financial and client documents
• Researchers working with confidential research material
• Privacy-conscious professionals who want local AI assistance

Common Use Cases

Legal Document Review

Ask questions about contracts, discovery material, and other legal documents without moving the files into a cloud-based AI chat.

Therapy and Clinical Notes

Work with session notes and intake forms locally for tasks such as summarization and document review while keeping the underlying material on the Mac.

Accounting and Financial Documents

Review returns, profit and loss statements, engagement letters, spreadsheets, and other client material without uploading the information to a cloud AI provider.

Research and Knowledge Management

Index local research documents or an Obsidian vault and use AI to search, analyze, summarize, and explore connected information.

Offline AI Assistance

Continue working with local files when internet access is unavailable or unreliable, without depending on a remote AI service.

Private AI Without a Cloud Workspace

LocalChat is designed around a different AI workflow from conventional cloud chat applications. There is no account to create, no document upload to a remote service, and no server copy of your working files.

Instead, your Mac becomes the workspace for reading documents, asking questions, maintaining project context, and generating answers. This local-first design makes the application particularly relevant when confidentiality and control matter as much as AI capability.

AI Across Complete Documents

Working with full files changes how document-based AI can fit into professional workflows. Rather than repeatedly extracting snippets and pasting them into a chatbot, LocalChat lets you keep the source material in a project and ask questions against the document itself.

Project-level context can also be restricted to the files associated with that project, helping keep conversations focused on the relevant material.

Why It Matters

Cloud AI can be convenient, but sensitive professional work often comes with privacy, confidentiality, or compliance considerations. Sending documents to an external service may not be appropriate for every workflow.

LocalChat puts the processing environment on the user's Mac, combining offline access, full-file chat, project workspaces, local models, and Obsidian support into one private AI workspace.

Work With Private Documents on Your Mac

Use AI to read, analyze, summarize, and work with PDFs, spreadsheets, CSVs, Markdown, text files, images, and connected notes while keeping your files, prompts, and answers on your Mac.