Autocomplete without uploading your work text
Typeahead completes sentences with a local model on the Mac, so nearby text stays on the device. Typeahead processes writing locally; the only network activity is license activation, optional update checks and the one-time download of your AI model. Those interactions do not include the text around your cursor.
Yes. For inline suggestions on a Mac running macOS 14 or later, Typeahead performs inference locally and does not send your writing to a cloud model. That makes it a private AI writing tool for this specific job: completing a sentence you have already started.
Training exclusion, later deletion and no upload are materially different privacy promises. OpenAI explains that disabling model improvement prevents new conversations from being used for training, while Temporary Chats are retained for 30 days. Google states that Gemini chats are retained for 72 hours when Keep Activity is off.
Yes, suggestions can stay on your Mac
Yes. Typeahead reads the nearby text needed to complete the sentence, runs that text through the model on your Mac and places a suggestion at the cursor. You accept the full suggestion with Tab or one word with the right arrow. During that process, the writing remains on the device.
A precise data path is more useful than a broad privacy label. License activation handles the license, an optional update check looks for a software update and the one-time download retrieves the AI model. Routine sentence completion does not require work text to travel to a cloud model. Local inference changes who receives the draft, not merely how long someone keeps it.
Most writing-tool comparisons organize products around drafting, brainstorming, editing and prose generation. A generator is the better choice when you want a document from a prompt. An editor is the better choice when you want to revise finished prose.
Typeahead serves the cursor instead: you begin the sentence, the local model suggests its continuation and you remain the author. Sentence completion is its own writing job. We built Typeahead for that narrower task, and we describe its data path in the same narrow terms.
Chat is a heavy interface for the next few words.
Inspect the traffic during ordinary typing
The app has narrowly defined setup and maintenance traffic, so an offline label alone does not describe the boundary precisely. Activation, optional update checks and the model download can change the sent and received byte counts. Once activation and download are complete, you can observe whether accepting routine suggestions produces additional network activity.
Run this check with a local text field and sample material that resembles confidential work without containing real confidential information:
- Open Activity Monitor.
- Select Network.
- Find Typeahead.
- Record its sent and received byte counts after activation and the model download.
- Type confidential-looking sample text into a local field, accept suggestions with Tab and compare the counters.
Apple describes the Network view as reporting packets and data sent and received. Stable counters during the typing test support the claim that routine completion creates no network activity for the Typeahead process. Changed counters tell you to repeat the test after confirming that activation, a download or an update check has finished.
Traffic counters are a useful sanity check, with a defined evidentiary boundary. They can show whether a process sent or received data during the test. They cannot reveal the contents of an encrypted connection or prove the product’s architecture by themselves. After setup, ordinary autocomplete does not need a cloud model to return a suggestion.
We use the same acceptance controls throughout the day: Tab when the proposed ending matches the sentence and the right arrow when only the next word fits. The cursor remains in the exact app, and the sentence continues without copying nearby text into a chat window.
Protect the draft and check its destination
Local inference removes the AI provider as a recipient of internal plans, financial details and personnel information during sentence completion. Security for the Mac remains governed by its accounts, permissions and storage protections. Transmission by a synced document, browser field or messaging service remains governed by the exact app containing that field.
That separation matters because text can have more than one data path. Typeahead handles the completion locally. The destination app may save the completed sentence to a company server, a collaboration service or another configured location. Its privacy policy, workspace settings and sync controls determine that separate route.
For someone selecting writing assistance under a no-upload requirement, the useful test has two parts: inference must happen locally and the remaining connections must be disclosed precisely. Typeahead meets that test for inline autocomplete on a Mac running macOS 14 or later. The app is $79 one-time and is available for Mac.
CISA advises workers not to share workplace data or other sensitive and confidential information with generative-AI systems. Local completion provides a direct architectural response for unfinished work because the material used to produce the suggestion remains on the computer running the model.
If your requirement is that internal plans, financial details or personnel information must not reach an AI provider, use Typeahead for inline autocomplete. Then separately check the sync and transmission rules of the exact app containing the field.