Pippa: A Personal AI Assistant for the Mac

Summary

Pippa is a free, open-source personal AI assistant for Macs with Apple silicon running macOS 15 or later. Its AI runs on the Mac after an initial download, so it can work offline without an account or subscription; it connects to the internet only for downloads, updates, and web searches. Users can drop a Downloads folder onto Pippa to preview an organization plan before approving it, and an Undo action can restore the changes. Pippa can explain letters while showing the relevant passage, find files from a remembered topic, read selected emails, check the calendar, add appointments, and prepare replies as drafts for the user to send. It can inspect spreadsheet totals, explain spreadsheets, turn invoices into Excel-compatible tables, and create, compress, combine, or convert PDFs and images without changing office files. Access is controlled separately for areas such as Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Calendar, Reminders, Photos, and Mail, and permissions can be changed in Settings. Pippa says it does not send data to a Pippa server, while conversations go elsewhere only if the user adds a ChatGPT or other AI account. Its memory is stored in a readable text file and excludes passwords and account numbers. The app is distributed under the MIT license, and its actions are limited by confirmation steps, draft-only email handling, and notes describing small changes.