June 2026

How to get AI autocomplete in any app on your Mac

macOS has word-level predictive text in a handful of apps, but nothing that finishes your sentence everywhere you type. Here is how to get real AI autocomplete in any app on your Mac — in about two minutes, fully offline.

What you're setting up

MacAutocomplete watches the text field you're focused on, predicts what you're likely to write next, and shows it as a greyed ghost suggestion inline at your cursor:

Thanks for the quick turnaround — I'll review it this afternoon and send notes back.

Press ⇥ Tab or → to accept the whole line. Keep typing and it quietly disappears. The completion is computed by a local model on your Apple Silicon Mac, so nothing you type leaves the device.

Step 1 — Install the app

Download the .dmg, drag MacAutocomplete to your Applications folder, and open it. On first launch macOS may ask you to confirm the app — that's the standard Gatekeeper prompt for a notarized app. You need Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) and macOS 14.2 or later.

Step 2 — Grant Accessibility + Input Monitoring

Two permissions make system-wide autocomplete possible. The app links you straight to each pane in System Settings:

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, toggle MacAutocomplete on under both panes, then relaunch the app. These permissions stay on your Mac; they don't enable any network access. Password and secure-input fields are never read, even with permission granted.

Step 3 — Just type

Open Mail, Slack, Notes, Messages, or most browsers and start writing. A greyed suggestion appears after a beat. Because MacAutocomplete works on the macOS text layer rather than inside one editor, it shows up in every app with a standard text field — not just the few Apple's predictive text supports.

Step 4 — Tab to accept

When a suggestion is right, press ⇥ Tab (or →) and the full line is inserted at your cursor. When it's wrong, ignore it and keep typing — there's nothing to dismiss. Slack is a great place to feel how fast this gets; see autocomplete for Slack for the day-to-day workflow.

Where it stays quiet

Some apps don't expose a readable text field. Google Docs and Sheets paint onto a canvas, and the same is true for certain GPU/canvas editors and games — MacAutocomplete simply does nothing there rather than guessing. Everywhere a normal field exists, it writes alongside you.