nowfound

AI · June 29, 2026

Run AI chat, image gen, vision, and voice offline on your Mac

Your Mac can run AI that holds its own against cloud models for the everyday stuff: chatting, making images, reading documents, transcribing voice. The hardware got there a while ago. The software to actually use it locally mostly didn't, so I built Off Grid. Download a model and it all runs on your machine. Ask it something on a flight with no wifi. Summarize a confidential document that never leaves your laptop. Run a hundred image generations in a loop and pay nothing, because it's your own GPU doing the work. Swap your paid dictation app for local Whisper. Talk through a coding problem…

Run AI chat, image gen, vision, and voice offline on your Mac launched on June 29, 2026 with 11 votes, #1,225 of 22,647 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 5% of June 2026

In plain words

Off Grid is software that runs AI models locally on Mac computers for chat, image generation, document analysis, and voice transcription without requiring internet connection or cloud services. It is designed for users who want to process sensitive information privately, avoid subscription costs, or work offline. The software includes a chat interface, supports custom model downloads, exposes an OpenAI-compatible API endpoint for developers, and leverages Mac GPU hardware to eliminate per-use token fees.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Democratizing Intelligence on-device. Off Grid AI has 6 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

Intelligence should live on the devices you already own, with your full context, without handing your life to a cloud you don't control. A note from Mac to the community. None of it is fixed. I'd rather build this with you than for you. The idea I keep coming back to: intelligence should live on the devices you already own, with your full context, without you handing your life to a cloud you don't control. Today, the most useful AI is the one that knows everything about you. Getting that usually means giving everything away. I don't think it should. I didn't start with this thesis fully formed. It got clearer as I built, listened, and solved my own problems. Three of those problems became…from github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

Your Mac can run AI that holds its own against cloud models for the everyday stuff: chatting, making images, reading documents, transcribing voice. The hardware got there a while ago. The software to actually use it locally mostly didn't, so I built Off Grid. Download a model and it all runs on your machine. Ask it…

Does a similar job

all alternatives →
  • Off Grid – Run AI text, image gen, vision offline on your phoneFeb 2026 · github.com · ▲124

    Your phone has a GPU more powerful than most 2018 laptops. Right now it sits idle while you pay monthly subscriptions to run AI on someone else's server, sending your conversations, your photos, your voice to companies whose privacy policy you've never read. Off Grid is an open-source app that puts that hardware to work. Text generation, image generation, vision AI, voice transcription — all running on your phone, all offline, nothing ever uploaded. That means you can use AI on a flight with no wifi. In a country with internet censorship. In a hospital where cloud services are a compliance…

  • I made an app to use local AI as daily driver2024 · recurse.chat · ▲637

    Hi Hackers, Excited to share a macOS app I've been working on: https://recurse.chat/ for chatting with local AI. While it's amazing that you can run AI models locally quite easily these days (through llama.cpp / llamafile / ollama / llm CLI etc.), I missed feature complete chat interfaces. Tools like LMStudio are super powerful, but there's a learning curve to it. I'd like to hit a middleground of simplicity and customizability for advanced users. Here's what separates RecurseChat out from similar apps: - UX designed for you to use local AI as a daily driver.…

  • Ollama Desktop App2025 · ollama.com · ▲481

    The easiest way to chat with local AI

  • Lekh AIJan 2026 · apps.apple.com · ▲80

    Run powerful AI models on your Mac:fully offline and private

  • OfflineLLM – a Vision Pro app running TinyLlama on device2024 · apps.apple.com · ▲126

    Hey, I built this in a day while at Founders Inc Apple Vision Pro residency. Try it out, let me know what you think.

  • Haplo AI2025 · apps.apple.com · ▲98

    Secure & local AI chatbot for iOS and macOS

More ai this month

the category →
  • Video model that turns script into viral social media videos

    AI · 19d ago · spira.ai

  • The browser where Claude Code and Codex work beside you

    AI · 19d ago · rill.love

  • Kolibri is Aleph Alpha

    AI · 20d ago · tej.as

  • Paintings by AI models: programs run through a simulation of oil paint.

    AI · 22d ago · stillwet.art

  • Beam.win▲378

    Run AI agents on one Mac and use its windows on another

    AI · 5d ago · beam.win

  • Route requests to the right LLM for cost, latency & quality

    AI · 23d ago · fastrouter.ai

Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part

Launched alongside, June 2026

the whole month →
  • Fundraisly▲1,537

    AI fundraising agent that finds investors and books meetings

    AI · Jun 2026 · fundraisly.com

  • Today, I’m proud to announce Homebrew 6.0.0. The most significant changes since 5.1.0 are a new tap trust security mechanism, the new faster, smaller, default internal Homebrew JSON API, sandboxing on Linux, better defaults informed by our user survey, many brew bundle improvements, improved performance and initial support for macOS 27 (Golden Gate). Happy to discuss any questions here!

    Dev tools · Jun 2026 · brew.sh

  • Hi HN! I was super frustrated at apps like tiktok and wechat preventing me from saving or downloading the animated gifs, so I made a little tool to turn a screen recording into a slack-sized emoji. Hope you get some value from this!

    Life & fun · Jun 2026 · vorpus.github.io

  • Upstream▲976

    The inbox designed for humans and agents

    AI · Jun 2026 · upstream.do

  • Goldfish▲958

    Press Option. It knows your work and replies like you

    AI · Jun 2026 · goldfish.sh

  • Search 18 years of Hacker News and chart how any topic, tool, or person trended. Overlay terms to compare their rise and fall across 45M posts and comments.

    Life & fun · Jun 2026 · hackernewstrends.com