The AI assistant that actually remembers, actually works, and actually stays private.
Built for macOS. Built for privacy. Built for you.
SAM is a native macOS AI assistant built with Swift and SwiftUI. Unlike cloud-only alternatives, SAM keeps your data on your Mac, supports multiple AI providers (including fully local models), and provides powerful tools for autonomous task execution.
Website | Download | Part of Synthetic Autonomic Mind
- Website: www.syntheticautonomicmind.org
- Download SAM: Latest Release
- Documentation: User Guides & Tutorials
- Source Code: GitHub Repository
- Report Issues: Issue Tracker
- Support SAM: Patreon
In July 2025, I set out to build the AI assistant my wife actually wanted: one that adapted to her workflow instead of forcing her to adapt. SAM was made for her - and dedicated to her. It has since grown into a native macOS assistant that anyone can use to get real work done.
A native macOS app designed for non‑developers who want powerful tools in their everyday life.
Review documents, create images, write content, plan projects, or just have a conversation.
Say "Hey SAM" to go hands‑free, or type naturally.
You're always in control.
Your data stays on your Mac. Always.
(Switch to cloud AI providers only if you want to.)
SAM helps you finish things.
Whether it's organizing files, helping you draft documents, creating images, or researching a topic - SAM acts on your ideas.
SAM remembers what matters across conversations.
Create "Shared Topics" to connect chats around the same project, and find anything you've shared with semantic search.
Full voice control lets you keep your hands free.
Ask questions, give commands, or have a conversation - all without touching the keyboard.
Generate beautiful images locally with Stable Diffusion.
No subscriptions, no cloud uploads - just your imagination and SAM's creativity.
Teach SAM about your specific domain with custom training.
Create specialized AI models trained on your documents, conversations, or expertise - perfect for professional workflows.
Use SAM from your iPad, iPhone, or any device with a browser.
SAM-Web lets you chat with SAM remotely when you're away from your Mac.
All your conversations, documents, and memories stay on your Mac.
SAM works with local AI models by default, and only uses cloud AI when you choose to.
Designed for everyday users - not just developers.
SAM's clean interface and natural interactions make powerful AI accessible to everyone.
- Upload and analyze PDFs, articles, and books
- Ask questions about your documents
- Summarize long texts in seconds
- Research online with reliable sources and citations
- Generate custom images from text descriptions
- Browse and apply different art styles
- Edit and refine images with simple prompts
- Get inspiration for projects or presentations
- Draft emails, essays, or reports
- Improve your writing with gentle suggestions
- Brainstorm ideas and organize your thoughts
- Translate text between languages
- Manage files and folders with voice commands
- Create project plans and task lists
- Organize your work in project folders
- Automate repetitive computer tasks
- Access SAM remotely from your iPad or phone
- Train models on your own documents and conversations
- Create specialized assistants for your work domain
- Fine-tune AI to understand your industry jargon
- Build knowledge bases from your expertise
- Ask questions about any topic
- Get step‑by‑step explanations
- Explore new skills and hobbies
- Have thoughtful, engaging conversations
- Multi‑AI support: Choose from OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), GitHub Copilot, DeepSeek, or run models locally (MLX, llama.cpp)
- Voice in & out: "Hey SAM" wake word, speech recognition, and natural text‑to‑speech
- Local image generation: Create images with Stable Diffusion - no internet needed
- Train custom models: Fine-tune AI on your own data with LoRA training
- Remote access: Chat with SAM from iPad, iPhone, or browser via SAM-Web
- Document intelligence: Upload and chat with PDFs, Word docs, Excel files, text files, and more
- Semantic memory: Find past conversations and documents by meaning, not just keywords
- Project workspaces: Keep everything organized in
~/SAM/{project‑name}/folders - Personality system: Choose from friendly, professional, creative, or custom tones
- Dark/light mode: Beautiful SwiftUI interface that fits your style
- 100% free & open source: No subscriptions, no ads, no hidden costs
Get a glimpse of SAM's native macOS interface in action:
User greeting SAM and asking it to describe what it can help with - SAM responds with a friendly, comprehensive overview
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Choose from local models (MLX, llama.cpp), cloud providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek), or image generation models
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User asks SAM to generate an image of a cruise ship sailing in the ocean - created locally without any cloud services
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SAM provides a detailed description of the cruise ship image it just created
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User asks about restaurants in a town they'll be visiting - SAM helps with travel planning and local recommendations
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User inquires about availability and pricing of two items on Amazon - SAM helps with product research
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Configure custom model training with LoRA fine-tuning to specialize SAM for your domain
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Privacy First
- All data stays on your Mac - nothing sent to the cloud unless you choose
- Run completely offline with local AI models
- API credentials stored locally in UserDefaults
- Zero telemetry, zero tracking
Intelligent Memory
- Remember and search across all your conversations
- Import documents (PDF, Word, Excel, text) and ask questions about them
- Share context between conversations when you need it
- Keep conversations private from each other when you don't
Gets Work Done
- Multi-step task execution - describe what you want, SAM handles the details
- Work with files, run commands, research the web
- Generate documents and images
- Handle complex projects autonomously
️ Powerful Tools
- Read, edit, and search files
- Run terminal commands
- Research and browse the web
- Work with Git repositories
- Generate images with Stable Diffusion
Image Generation
- Multiple Stable Diffusion models supported
- Browse and download from HuggingFace and CivitAI
- LoRA support for style customization
- Optimized for Apple Silicon
Train Your Own Models
- Fine-tune local AI models with LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation)
- Train on your conversations or documents
- Custom adapters for specialized knowledge domains
- Real-time training progress with loss visualization
Access Anywhere
- Use SAM from your iPad, iPhone, or any device with a browser
- Web interface (SAM-Web) provides chat and basic features remotely
- Connect over your local network (requires SAM running on Mac)
- Secure API authentication
Flexible AI Provider Support
- Cloud AI: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), GitHub Copilot, DeepSeek
- Local Models: Run AI completely on your Mac with MLX or llama.cpp
- Switch models mid-conversation
- Use custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints
- Download the latest release from GitHub Releases
- Extract the downloaded zip file
- Move
SAM.appto your Applications folder - First Launch: Right-click SAM.app -> Open (macOS Gatekeeper requirement, only needed once)
- Launch SAM
- Open Settings (
,) - Go to AI Providers tab
- Click Add Provider
- Choose your provider:
- Cloud AI: OpenAI, Claude, GitHub Copilot, or DeepSeek
- Local Model: Choose a model to download and run on your Mac
- For cloud providers: Enter your API key
- Save and start chatting!
Press N to create a new conversation, type your message, and press Enter. SAM will respond and can help you with questions, writing, coding, research, file management, and much more.
Want to use SAM from your iPad or phone? Check out SAM-Web - a web interface that provides chat functionality and basic features when you're away from your Mac.
What you need:
- SAM running on your Mac with API Server enabled (Preferences -> API Server)
- Get your API token from the same preferences pane
- Visit the SAM-Web repository for setup instructions
- Connect from your browser at
http://your-mac-ip:8080
Note: SAM-Web provides chat, mini-prompts, and conversation basics. Advanced features require the native macOS app.
Download SAM for macOS 14.0+
Read the guides
View the code
Share feedback
SAM offers a development channel for users who want early access to new features and are willing to help test pre-release builds.
Development builds are released frequently (sometimes daily) and contain:
- New features before they reach stable release
- Bug fixes and improvements being tested
- Potentially incomplete features or breaking changes
Development builds are intended for testing and feedback only. They may contain bugs or unstable behavior. Do not use development builds for critical production work.
- Open SAM Preferences (
,) - Go to the General tab
- Enable "Receive development updates"
- Confirm the warning about potential instability
- SAM will now check for both development and stable releases
You can disable development updates at any time to return to stable releases only.
| Feature | Stable Releases | Development Releases |
|---|---|---|
| Version Format | YYYYMMDD.RELEASE (e.g., 20260110.1) |
YYYYMMDD.RELEASE-dev.BUILD (e.g., 20260110.1-dev.1) |
| Release Frequency | Weekly or bi-weekly | Daily or multiple per day |
| Testing | Fully tested and documented | Pre-release testing |
| Stability | Production-ready | May contain bugs |
| Who Gets Them | All users by default | Only users who opt-in |
If you're using development builds and encounter issues:
- Check GitHub Issues to see if it's already reported
- Create a new issue with:
- Your SAM version (shown in About SAM or Preferences)
- Steps to reproduce the problem
- Expected vs actual behavior
- Relevant logs (Help -> Show Logs)
Your feedback helps make SAM better for everyone!
- Unlimited conversations with automatic saving
- Export to JSON or Markdown
- Rename, duplicate, and organize conversations
- Switch AI models mid-conversation
- Search across all your conversations semantically
- Import documents (PDF, Word, Excel, text files) and ask questions about them
- Search by filename and content with enhanced metadata
- Share context between conversations when needed
- Keep conversations private from each other by default
| Provider | What You Get |
|---|---|
| OpenAI | GPT-4, GPT-4o, GPT-3.5, o1/o3 models |
| Anthropic | Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 4 (long context) |
| GitHub Copilot | GPT-4o, Claude 3.5, o1 (requires subscription) |
| DeepSeek | Cost-effective AI models |
| Local MLX | Run models on Apple Silicon Macs |
| Local llama.cpp | Run models on any Mac (Intel or Apple Silicon) |
| Custom | Use any OpenAI-compatible API |
Work with Files
- Read, write, search, and edit files
- Find files by name or content
- Get file information
Execute Commands
- Run terminal commands
- Manage persistent terminal sessions
- Execute shell scripts
Research & Web
- Search the web (Google, Bing, and more)
- Scrape and analyze web pages
- Gather and synthesize information from multiple sources
Development Tools
- Git operations (commit, diff, status)
- Build and run tasks
- Search code and check for errors
Documents & Images
- Import and analyze PDF, Word, Excel, and text files
- Create formatted documents (PDF, Word, PowerPoint)
- Generate images with Stable Diffusion
- Multiple Stable Diffusion models (SD 1.5, SDXL, and more)
- Browse and download models from HuggingFace and CivitAI
- LoRA support for custom styles
- Optimized for Apple Silicon Macs
Train custom AI models on your own data:
- Fine-Tune Local Models: Specialize MLX models on specific knowledge domains
- Training Data Export: Export conversations or documents as training data
- Flexible Configuration: Customize rank, learning rate, epochs, and more
- Real-Time Progress: Watch training progress with loss visualization
- Automatic Integration: Trained adapters appear immediately in model picker
- Document Chunking: Multiple strategies for processing long documents
- PII Protection: Optional detection and redaction of sensitive information
Access SAM chat from other devices on your network:
- Web Interface: Chat with SAM from your browser (requires SAM running on Mac)
- Multi-Device Support: Use from iPad, iPhone, tablets, or other computers
- Core Features: Conversations, mini-prompts, model selection, and chat
- Responsive Design: Optimized for desktop, tablet, and mobile screens
- Secure Access: Token-based authentication
- Easy Setup: No installation on remote device, just open browser
- All Features Available: Chat, tools, settings, prompts, and more
Visit the SAM-Web repository for setup instructions.
Choose from built-in personalities to customize how SAM communicates:
- General Purpose: SAM (default), Generic, Concise
- Tech & Development: Developer, Architect, Code Reviewer, Tech Buddy
- Domain Experts: Doctor, Counsel, Finance Coach, Scientist, Philosopher
- Creative Writing: Creative Catalyst, DocuGenie, Prose Pal
- Productivity: Fitness Fanatic, Motivator
- Fun Characters: Comedian, Pirate, Time Traveler, Jester
And many more! You can also create custom personalities.
To Use SAM:
- macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later
- 4GB RAM minimum (8GB+ recommended)
- 3GB free disk space for the app
For Local AI Models:
- 16GB+ RAM recommended
- 20GB+ free disk space (models can be large)
- Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) recommended for best performance with MLX
- Intel Macs can use llama.cpp models
- Conversations: Stored locally in
~/Library/Application Support/SAM/ - Memory: Per-conversation databases, never shared between conversations
- API Keys: Stored in UserDefaults for provider credentials
- No Telemetry: Zero usage tracking, zero data collection
When you use cloud AI providers (OpenAI, Claude, etc.), only the messages you send go to those providers. SAM never sends telemetry or analytics anywhere.
- Authorization system for file and terminal operations
- Per-conversation memory isolation prevents data leakage
- Optional auto-approve for operations you trust
- Full audit trail of all actions
~/Library/Application Support/SAM/
├── conversations/ # Your conversation files
├── config.json # App settings
└── conversations/{id}/
└── memory.db # Memories for each conversation
~/Library/Caches/sam/models/
├── mlx/ # MLX models (Apple Silicon)
├── gguf/ # llama.cpp models
└── stable-diffusion/ # Stable Diffusion models and LoRAs
~/SAM/
├── conversation-{number}/ # Working files for each conversation
└── {topic-name}/ # Shared workspace for topics
~/Library/Caches/sam/images/ # Images created by Stable Diffusion
We welcome contributions! To contribute:
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch:
git checkout -b feature/your-feature - Make your changes
- Test your changes
- Commit with clear messages
- Push and create a pull request
See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines.
SAM won't open after downloading?
# Remove macOS quarantine attribute
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SAM.appModel not showing up in the model list?
- Check that models are in
~/Library/Caches/sam/models/mlx/or~/Library/Caches/sam/models/gguf/ - Restart SAM after adding new models
API key issues?
- Verify your API key in Settings -> AI Providers
- Check that your API key is active on the provider's website
- Review any error messages in the conversation
- Documentation: Website and project-docs/
- Report Issues: GitHub Issues
- Discussions: GitHub Discussions
SAM is built with:
- Swift 6 with strict concurrency
- SwiftUI for native macOS interface
- Vapor for embedded HTTP/SSE server
- SQLite for conversation and memory storage
- MLX for Apple Silicon AI models
- llama.cpp for cross-platform AI models
- Stable Diffusion (CoreML + Python) for image generation
For developers interested in the technical architecture, see project-docs/.
For developers who want to build SAM from source, see BUILDING.md for complete instructions.
Complete documentation is available:
- Website - User guides and tutorials
- project-docs/ - Technical documentation for developers
- BUILDING.md - Build instructions
- CONTRIBUTING.md - How to contribute
License: GPLv3 - See LICENSE for details
Created by: Andrew Wyatt (Fewtarius)
Website: https://syntheticautonomicmind.org
Repository: https://github.com/SyntheticAutonomicMind/SAM
Part of the Synthetic Autonomic Mind organization, which also maintains:
- SAM-Web - Remote access for iPad/iPhone
- ALICE - Image generation backend
- CLIO - Terminal AI assistant
Built with open source:
- Vapor - Web framework
- MLX - Apple machine learning
- llama.cpp - LLM inference
- Stable Diffusion - Image generation
- Sparkle - App updates
Special thanks to contributors and the Swift/AI communities.
