Buddy is a tiny AI friend that lives on your Mac. He walks on your dock, comments on your screen, and is always down to chat. Available now for macOS 13+.
A tiny pixel character that walks along your dock, jumps between apps, and hangs out while you work. He's just... there. Like a good friend.
Click the little Spider-Man and start talking. Ask him anything. Vent about your code. Get help with a problem. He actually listens and says something useful back.
With permission, Buddy peeks at what you're doing and drops casual comments. "oh that's a clean design" or "you've been on this file for a while."
Hold to talk. He listens. He responds with his own voice. Like talking to a friend sitting next to you. 100% private, everything stays on your Mac.
Set a focus session. Buddy guards it. Opens Twitter? He'll gently remind you. Finish without distractions? He celebrates.
Water. Posture. Breaks. Eye rest. He cares about you more than you do. Five different reminder types with cute animations.
Been staring at the same file for 20 minutes? Switching apps frantically? Buddy notices and offers to help.
Tap him. He reacts. Tap more. He escalates. Happy, sad, angry, love, sleepy, celebrating. He's got range.
He remembers your conversations, learns your work patterns, and gets more helpful over time. Your context stays local.
Drop your email and we'll send the download link straight to your inbox. Or grab the DMG directly from GitHub.
Open the DMG, drag Buddy to Applications. First launch may need a right-click → Open to bypass Gatekeeper.
Grab a free Gemini key at aistudio.google.com, paste it in Settings. Buddy comes alive.
Yes. Buddy is free forever and open source under the MIT license. No subscription, no trial. You bring your own AI API key (free tier from Google Gemini works fine), and that's it.
Buddy uses your own AI key so your conversations stay yours. The easiest free option: grab a Gemini key at aistudio.google.com — Google gives you ~100K tokens/day for free. Buddy also works with Claude, OpenAI, and Claude Code CLI if you already have those set up.
Screen context is off by default. Turn it on and Buddy takes occasional screenshots to give contextual comments. Screenshots go directly to your chosen AI provider (Gemini/Claude/etc) and aren't stored anywhere by us. Your chat history and settings stay on your Mac. No analytics, no telemetry.
macOS 13 (Ventura) or later. Intel and Apple Silicon both supported. Buddy is a native Swift app — lightweight, ~132 MB, runs quietly in the menu bar.
Buddy checks for updates automatically via Sparkle (the standard open-source updater for Mac apps). When a new version ships, you'll see a small prompt — one click to update. You can also turn auto-update off in Settings.
Full source on GitHub. Read it, fork it, send a PR. If you want to build from source instead of downloading the DMG, the repo has instructions.
Get a friend who actually gets what you do. Free forever.