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A small family of Mac tools. AlembicRewrite rewrites selected text in place on a hotkey. AlembicVoice lets you dictate anywhere and reshape your words with spoken commands.
Both run natively in your menu bar. Both are local-first, bring your own key, with your text and keys staying on your Mac.
Select text in any app, press a hotkey, and it rewrites in place through Claude or OpenAI, in the style you choose. No window to switch to, no copy and paste.
Press Cmd+Shift+R and your selected text is replaced in place, no window, no confirmation. Undo from the menu bar within your chosen window, and your clipboard is always restored afterwards.
Press Cmd+Shift+E for a searchable palette of all your styles. Type to filter, arrow to choose, press Return to run.
For styles you set to review first, a panel shows the original beside the rewrite. Not right yet? Iterate with a follow-up instruction, then accept.
Build as many styles as you like. Give each one its own prompt template, pick Claude or OpenAI and the exact model, set the temperature, and bind a direct hotkey.
The flagship default style turns a rough prompt into an effective one using the Directional Prompting method, so you can draft loosely and let the style sharpen it.
Your API keys and history live only on your Mac, with history retention you control. Requests go straight from your machine to Anthropic or OpenAI, with no vendor server in the middle. A running cost meter tracks your spend, and a monthly cap stops rewrites at the ceiling you set.
Highlight any text, in your email, editor, browser, or notes.
Press a style's direct key, or open the palette and pick one.
The selection is replaced in place, in the style you chose.
Glass is for chrome, solid is for reading. The palette and review panel float on frosted glass, while the text you read and edit stays on pinned, opaque paper.
Voice dictation for macOS with spoken rewrite commands. Hold a key, speak, and your words appear anywhere. End a dictation with a command like "reword this as a formal email" and it reshapes what you just said.
Hold the FN key and talk to type into any app, your email, editor, browser, or notes. Let go and the text is in place, right where your cursor was.
Finish a dictation with an instruction like "reword this as a formal email", "turn this into a list", or "turn this into a prompt", and it reshapes what you just said before it lands.
Chain instructions in one breath. Say "reword this and turn it into an email" and both steps apply in order, no menus and no second pass.
Highlight text and speak just a command, with nothing to dictate, and it rewrites the selection in place, the same way AlembicRewrite does from the keyboard.
Fix a word once and it gets it right next time. AlembicVoice learns names and terms from your own corrections automatically, so your vocabulary sharpens as you use it.
Plain dictation works with no key at all, using an on-device speech model downloaded once on first run. Bring your own Anthropic or OpenAI key only when you want the spoken rewrite commands, and your audio and text stay on your Mac.
Spoken words plus a spoken command, landed as polished text. The menu-bar pill shows it listening; your dictation and its closing instruction resolve into finished writing at your cursor.
Open source, GPLv3
AlembicVoice is free and open source under the GPLv3, forked with thanks from FluidVoice.
Download the disk image, drag the app across, and add your own API key. Both apps install the same way, and neither has anything to sign up for.
Grab AlembicRewrite.dmg (6.9 MB) or AlembicVoice.dmg (22 MB) from the download button in either product section, then open it and drag the app into your Applications folder.
Because these apps are not notarised through the App Store, macOS blocks each one once. Double-click the app and let macOS refuse it, then open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway. On macOS 14 you can instead right-click the app and choose Open twice. Once only, either way, and the same flow applies to both apps.
AlembicRewrite asks for Accessibility access to read your selection and paste the rewrite back. AlembicVoice asks for Microphone and Accessibility access to hear you and type where your cursor is. Approve in System Settings when prompted.
Open Settings from the menu-bar icon and paste an Anthropic or OpenAI key into the API Keys tab. AlembicRewrite needs a key to rewrite. AlembicVoice dictates without any key, and only needs one for its spoken rewrite commands. Keys are stored locally and used only for your own direct requests.
In AlembicRewrite, highlight a sentence and press Cmd+Shift+R for an instant rewrite, or Cmd+Shift+E to pick a style. In AlembicVoice, hold FN and speak, then close with a command like "reword this as a formal email". That is the whole loop.