Cotypist
Cotypist is a macOS app that predicts your next words inline in almost any Mac application. A local language model runs entirely on Apple Silicon, so nothing you type ever leaves your own machine.
What is Cotypist?
Cotypist is a system-wide autocomplete for macOS, published by the German company Accelerated Thought GmbH. Rather than asking you to open a chatbot, write a prompt and paste the result back, it predicts the rest of the sentence you are already typing and shows it inline, wherever you happen to be writing. Pressing Tab accepts the next word, pressing it again takes the one after, and simply carrying on typing dismisses the suggestion. The publisher frames this as augmenting writing rather than replacing it, and claims up to 50% fewer keystrokes.
The defining technical choice is that the model runs locally. Cotypist loads a Gemma 4 model of roughly 3 GB through llama.cpp on the Mac itself, so there are no API calls, no cloud round-trip and no account to create. It works offline, and what you type is never transmitted to the publisher or to a third party. That constraint sets the hardware bar: Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later, with an M1 Pro or M2 and 16 GB of memory recommended, and 1 to 2.5 GB of RAM occupied while the app runs. Intel Macs are excluded.
Coverage is the second argument. Cotypist works in most Mac text fields with no per-application setup: Apple Mail, Slack, Notion, Obsidian, Microsoft Word, Apple Notes, Messages, the major browsers and the system terminals. The situations the publisher highlights are the repetitive ones where keystrokes accumulate, namely email, support replies, marketing copy, social posts, documentation, and the prompts you write for other AI tools such as ChatGPT or terminal coding agents. The app also fixes typos inline, offers emoji from a colon shortcut, and gradually picks up your vocabulary, your proper nouns and your turns of phrase.
Three tiers are offered: a permanent Free plan capped at 100 completed words a day, then Plus and Pro for unlimited completions, stronger personalisation and per-application instructions. Every installation starts with a 30-day Pro trial and no card. Distribution is a notarised DMG downloaded straight from the site rather than the Mac App Store, and the product was announced for launch on 27 May 2026, built by a solo developer in Munich with no venture funding.
What it does
- Predicts the rest of your sentence inline in nearly any Mac application
- Accepts a suggestion word by word, or a whole line, with the Tab key
- Corrects typos as you type, without pop-ups or red underlines
- Learns your vocabulary, your names and your phrasing across apps
- Reads the surrounding screen context so suggestions match the thread or document
- Applies custom writing instructions, globally and per application
- Suggests emoji from a colon shortcut, filtered by shortcode
When to use Cotypist / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Cotypist is the right fit.
When to use Cotypist
- Heavy email and Slack writers who send the same kinds of message all day
- Support agents and technical writers producing repetitive replies and documentation
- Marketers, copywriters and social media managers drafting in their own campaign voice
- Privacy-conscious professionals such as lawyers, physicians and journalists who cannot send drafts to a cloud service
- Writers who type with difficulty: non-native English speakers, dyslexic writers, one-handed typists and people with hand arthritis
When not to use Cotypist
- Anyone on a Windows or Linux machine, or on an Intel Mac, since only Apple Silicon is supported
- People who want an AI to draft a whole document from a prompt rather than finish their own sentences
- Developers looking for completion inside the main editor of VS Code, Cursor or Windsurf, where only the sidebar chat is covered
- Teams needing an API, a web version or a mobile app, none of which exist
- Users on a modest Mac, given the recommended M1 Pro or M2 with 16 GB and the 1 to 2.5 GB of memory the app occupies
How to use Cotypist
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Download the DMG from the site, or leave your email to receive the link when you are back at your Mac
- Drag Cotypist into the Applications folder and open it; setup takes a few minutes and no account is required
- Grant the Accessibility permission, which is mandatory, since without it the app cannot read the field you type in
- Optionally allow Screen Recording so suggestions take the surrounding context into account; declining only makes them more generic
- Start writing normally in any Mac app and watch the suggestion appear inline
- Press Tab to take the next word, press it again for the following one, or keep typing to ignore the suggestion
- Tune the Personalize Word Choice slider in Settings to control how strongly Cotypist leans on your own style
- Fill in the custom writing instructions with your role, audience and tone, then add per-app overrides on Pro
- Enable the special cases you need: Accessibility mode in Google Docs, Text Metrics in Arc and Dia, code editors which are off by default
- Manage or cancel the subscription from the link received on purchase or from the app's own settings
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Everything is processed on the Mac, so no text is sent to a server and the app works offline
- No account needed to install and use it
- A permanent free tier plus a 30-day Pro trial with no credit card
- One installation covers almost every Mac app instead of one plugin per tool
- You stay in control: accept word by word, or reject simply by continuing to type
- Input collection is off by default and all local data can be deleted in one click
- Processors are published with their locations, and the main hosting sits in Germany
Cons
- Apple Silicon Macs only: no Intel, no Windows, no Linux
- Demanding recommended specification of an M1 Pro or M2 with 16 GB of memory
- Occupies 1 to 2.5 GB of RAM, and the publisher acknowledges the energy cost
- The free plan stops at 100 completed words a day
- No API, no mobile app and no web version
- A dozen applications are unsupported, including several terminals and editors, and Google Docs, Arc and Dia need a manual step
- Subscription only, with no perpetual licence, and no published support email
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available, limited to 100 completed words per day, and every installation includes a 30-day Pro trial requiring no credit card. The cheapest paid entry point is the Plus plan at USD 6.00 per month when billed annually, invoiced as USD 72.00 per year; the press kit quotes USD 8 per month for the same plan on monthly billing. Pro is listed at USD 9 per month billed annually, or USD 108 per year. Prices shown on the pricing page vary with the visitor's country and include VAT for customers in the European Union and the United Kingdom.
- no charge
- 100 completed words per day
- suggestions with word-by-word acceptance
- emoji
- multilingual coverage
- typo indicator
- personalisation up to the second step and the curated set of light and mid-size models
- USD 6 per month billed annually (USD 72 per year) or USD 8 per month on monthly billing
- with unlimited completions on one Mac
- full autocorrect
- personalisation up to the fourth step
- global custom instructions and configurable completion length
- USD 9 per month billed annually (USD 108 per year) or USD 12 per month on monthly billing
- covering up to three of your own Macs
- the full model catalogue
- maximum personalisation
- per-app instructions
- clipboard awareness and Cotypist Labs
- 30-day Pro trial included with every installation
- once per user
- with no credit card
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Cotypist handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR implementation is concrete and documented. Accelerated Thought GmbH states it is subject to the GDPR, the German Federal Data Protection Act and the TDDDG, and publishes a privacy policy dated 20 May 2026. It names its legal bases under Article 6, lists its processors in an Article 28 table giving each provider's location and privacy link, and sets out the full catalogue of data subject rights: withdrawal of consent, confirmation, access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, freedom from automated decision-making, complaint to a supervisory authority and judicial remedy. It confirms that no Article 22 automated decision-making takes place. Transfers to US servers are described as exceptional and subject to explicit consent. No Article 27 representative is named, which is consistent since the controller is established in Germany. Privacy requests go to privacy@cotypist.app.
Who owns the data?
According to the site's FAQ you own what you write: Cotypist claims no copyright and no ownership over texts produced with its assistance, and the publisher likens the app to a spell checker, Grammarly or Photoshop, a tool that helps you create without owning the result. The architecture reinforces that position, since your writing is processed on your own Mac and never transmitted to Accelerated Thought GmbH or to any third party; the privacy policy goes as far as stating that the publisher is not the controller for on-device data, having no access to it. One caveat is made explicit: the publisher is not a law firm, and copyright rules for AI-assisted content are still evolving.
Reuse rights
You may reuse whatever you write with Cotypist without asking permission. The publisher claims no rights over the output, so the text is yours to publish, edit or sell as you see fit. Your typing history and the personalisation profile derived from it are equally yours: they stay encrypted on your Mac, with the key held in the macOS Keychain, and you can inspect, disable or delete them at any time, in bulk, per application or per domain. Input collection is off by default and has to be switched on deliberately. What the publisher does receive is limited to anonymous usage counts and crash reports, which can be turned off under General then Privacy, plus the account and payment details handled by Paddle as merchant of record.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The text you type is processed on your own Mac and is not hosted by the publisher at all: the typing history and personalisation profile stay in an encrypted local database whose key lives in the macOS Keychain. What is hosted is the surrounding infrastructure. The website runs on Hetzner in Germany, and the resolved server address sits with Hetzner Online GmbH in Nuremberg. Crash reports go to Sentry, a US company, but are stored in Frankfurt; anonymous usage counts go to Google Cloud EMEA in Ireland with servers in Frankfurt. Content delivery is handled by Cloudflare in the United States, payments by Paddle in England, support by Replies in Switzerland and site analytics by Conva Ventures in Canada. The privacy policy states that personal data may be transferred to servers in the United States only in exceptional cases and with explicit consent, and it warns about the legal implications of doing so. The governing jurisdiction is German law.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Cotypist.
- The mandatory Accessibility permission lets the app read the text field you are actively typing in, which is the price of it working at all
- The publisher itself recommends leaving input collection off for applications where you handle particularly sensitive information
- Password fields are filtered by macOS, but the protection lapses if you click a Reveal Password option
- Anonymous usage statistics and crash reports are on by default and must be turned off manually, taking effect only after a restart
- Leaning on predicted phrasing every day can quietly flatten your own writing voice, since the easiest option is always to accept
- The privacy policy contradicts itself on the minimum age, stating 18 in one section and 16 in another
- Displayed prices depend on your country and a checkout screenshot on the site shows an amount higher than the advertised annual figure, so check what you are actually charged
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low for most people. You drag a DMG into Applications, open the app and follow a short assistant; it takes a few minutes and needs no account. One permission is mandatory, Accessibility, and a second, Screen Recording, is merely recommended. There is no per-application configuration in the general case, and the app suggests a model suited to your Mac. A few exceptions need a manual step: enabling Accessibility mode in Google Docs, turning on Text Metrics in Arc and Dia, and switching on code editors, which are disabled by default.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Cotypist
Fundraising
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Cotypist.
Frequently asked questions
Is the text I type sent to the cloud?
What hardware do I need?
Who owns the text I write with Cotypist?
Is there a free plan?
Which applications does it work in?
Does it replace ChatGPT?
Can I stop it learning from my writing?
How do I cancel a subscription?
Is there an API or a mobile app?
Which languages are supported?
Should you pick Cotypist?
Cotypist makes an unusually clear bargain. It does one thing, finishing the sentence you are already typing, and it does it in almost every Mac application without asking you to change tools or write a prompt. The decision to run a Gemma model locally through llama.cpp is what gives the product its character: no cloud round-trip, no account, offline operation, and the assurance that drafts never reach a third-party server. For lawyers, physicians, journalists and anyone else who cannot paste confidential text into a chatbot, that is not a detail but the entire argument.
The counterparts are equally clear. The app is Apple Silicon only, wants a fairly recent Mac with 16 GB of memory, and occupies a noticeable slice of it. There is no API, no web version and no mobile client. The free tier's 100 completed words a day will feel tight for anyone who writes for a living, and beyond it the model is a subscription with no perpetual licence. A handful of applications, including several terminals and code editors, remain out of reach.
What stands out on the transparency side is the level of documentation: processors are listed with their locations, retention rules are spelled out, input collection is off by default and everything stored locally can be deleted per app or per domain. Two inconsistencies deserve a second look before committing, namely a privacy policy that sets the minimum age at 18 in one section and 16 in another, and a checkout screenshot showing a figure that does not match the advertised annual price.
With a 30-day Pro trial that needs no card, the sensible approach is simply to install it and watch the accepted-completions counter for a week. That number, rather than any review, tells you whether Cotypist is worth a subscription.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.