Up and running in a few minutes
Download, grant three macOS permissions, let the models download once — then everything runs locally on your Mac.
macOS 13+ · Apple Silicon · v0.1.0 · free
1 · Prerequisites
Apple Silicon Mac
M1, M2, M3 or newer. Intel Macs are not supported — all inference runs on the Apple Neural Engine and GPU.
macOS 13 Ventura or later
Older macOS versions are not supported.
~3 GB of free disk space
The transcription and speaker-separation models are downloaded once, then kept locally. Summary models are optional extras.
Internet — for the first launch only
Needed once to download the models. Afterwards Positronic runs fully offline. No account, ever.
2 · Download & install
- 1
Click Download for macOS to get the .dmg (Apple Silicon, notarized).
- 2
Open the downloaded .dmg and drag Positronic into your Applications folder.
- 3
Launch Positronic from Applications. On the very first open, macOS may ask you to confirm — see Troubleshooting below if it does.
3 · First-run onboarding
The first time you open Positronic, a short setup walks you through four steps:
Welcome
A quick overview of what Positronic does: instant dictation, meeting transcription with speaker separation, and on-demand summaries — all on-device.
Grant permissions
macOS prompts you for Microphone, Accessibility and Screen Recording. Click Allow on each; the screen updates to a green checkmark as soon as a permission is granted. You can also skip and grant them later.
Download the models
Positronic fetches its transcription and diarization models once, with a live progress bar. If it fails (e.g. a flaky connection), just hit Retry — it resumes from where it stopped.
You're all set
Hold Control anywhere to dictate, or open the Activity tab to start a meeting. Nothing you record ever leaves your Mac.
4 · Permissions
Positronic asks for three macOS permissions. You can grant them during onboarding, or anytime from System Settings → Privacy & Security.
Records your voice for dictation and captures your side of meetings.
Lets Positronic paste dictated text at your cursor in any app.
Captures system audio so other participants in a call are transcribed too.
5 · Troubleshooting
“Positronic can't be opened because Apple cannot check it”+
This is macOS Gatekeeper on first launch. Right-click (or Control-click) the app in Applications, choose Open, then confirm. Alternatively, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click “Open Anyway”.
A permission shows as not granted even after I clicked Allow+
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, find Microphone / Accessibility / Screen Recording, and make sure Positronic is toggled on. After changing Screen Recording or Accessibility, quit and reopen Positronic so macOS re-reads the permission.
Dictated text isn't being pasted where my cursor is+
That's the Accessibility permission. Enable Positronic under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, then try again.
Other participants in my call aren't transcribed+
System audio capture needs the Screen Recording permission. Enable Positronic under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording and restart the app.
The model download failed or got stuck+
Check your internet connection and press Retry on the download step. The download resumes rather than restarting. You can re-run this later from the app's model settings.
The app won't install / seems to be the wrong version+
Positronic is an Apple Silicon build for macOS 13+ · Apple Silicon. It won't run on Intel Macs or older macOS. Confirm your Mac from → About This Mac.
Ready to try it?
Free, offline, and yours. No account, no telemetry.
Still stuck? Open an issue on GitHub.