Sanctum Private AI

Sanctum Private AI is a native macOS chat app for private, local AI conversations on your Mac.

It is built for people who want a capable AI workspace without sending every prompt, conversation, and file through a cloud chat provider. Core chat runs on device, saved conversations stay on your Mac, and no model API key or account is required.

Why Sanctum Private AI Exists

Most AI chat tools are built around remote services. That can be useful, but it is not always the right default for personal notes, drafts, work context, screenshots, PDFs, or system questions.

Sanctum Private AI gives Mac users a local-first alternative. It combines a fast SwiftUI chat interface with on-device model access, conversation history, speech, markdown rendering, local tools, and practical controls for how the assistant responds.

Private by Default

• ✓ Core AI chat runs on your Mac
• ✓ Saved conversations stay local in SQLite
• ✓ No account, sign-up, or model API key required
• ✓ Optional web search and browsing only run when you ask for them
• ✓ Clipboard access only happens when you explicitly request clipboard context
• ✓ Local tools provide system, text, math, conversion, JSON, hash, and random generation support

Built for Daily Mac Work

Sanctum Private AI is designed as a full chat workspace, not a single prompt box. Keep multiple conversations, stream responses, render markdown clearly, dictate prompts, listen to replies, and tune model settings for different tasks.

You can use it for writing, coding help, local system questions, structured JSON output, document summaries, quick calculations, unit conversions, and offline thinking sessions where privacy matters.

On-Device AI Runtime

The App Store build uses Apple's on-device Foundation Models directly inside the app sandbox. Direct distribution builds can use bundled local helper engines for language, image, and speech workflows.

That means the default experience is local-first, while optional web access remains explicit: Sanctum only sends a search query or requested URL to external web services when you ask it to search or browse.

Capabilities

• Multi-conversation AI chat with streaming replies
• Voice input and on-device text-to-speech output
• Markdown rendering for readable answers
• Image and PDF context when visual or document input matters
• Model controls for temperature, max tokens, context window, JSON mode, seed, and system prompt
• Local MCP-style tools for current date and time, system diagnostics, math, unit conversion, text statistics, clipboard context, JSON formatting, hashing, and random values

Available Local Tools

Sanctum Private AI includes built-in tools that give the on-device assistant precise context when a normal language model answer is not enough. These tools run locally by default, except web search and browsing, which only contact external services when you explicitly ask for current information or provide a URL.

Date & Time

Sanctum can answer with the current date, local time, time zone, weekday, and calendar context from macOS. This helps with prompts like planning a work block, formatting today's date, checking the current local time, or grounding a schedule in the right time zone.

System Diagnostics

When you ask about your Mac's performance, Sanctum can read a local diagnostics snapshot: RAM usage, CPU load, disk space, uptime, and top processes by CPU or memory. It is useful for questions such as why the Mac feels slow, which process is consuming memory, or whether disk space is getting tight.

Math

The math tool handles exact local arithmetic instead of relying on approximate language-model reasoning. It supports calculations such as percentages, powers, square roots, and common functions, so requests like "calculate 15% of 240" or "what is sqrt(144)" return grounded results.

Unit Conversion

Sanctum can convert common units locally across distance, weight, volume, time, and temperature. You can ask for conversions like kilometers to miles, kilograms to pounds, Fahrenheit to Celsius, or time duration conversions without leaving the app.

Text Statistics

The text statistics tool counts words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and estimated tokens for text you paste into the prompt. It is useful for drafts, prompts, summaries, social posts, article snippets, and any text where length matters.

Clipboard

Clipboard access is explicit. Sanctum reads plain-text clipboard content only when you ask it to use your clipboard, then you can summarize copied text, rewrite it, extract tasks, or turn it into a cleaner draft without manually pasting it into the chat.

JSON

The JSON tool validates, parses, and pretty-prints JSON locally. It can tell you whether a payload is valid, surface formatting errors, and return a cleaner formatted version for configuration files, API responses, app settings, or test fixtures.

Hash

Sanctum can generate SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512 hashes for text you provide. This is useful for checksums, comparing values, documenting test data, or creating deterministic fingerprints for local development workflows.

Random Generator

The random generator creates local passwords, hex tokens, and UUIDs. It is designed for quick local test secrets, throwaway identifiers, and development tokens without using a web generator.

Web Search & Browse

Web access is optional and request-driven. When you ask Sanctum to search, look up current information, or browse a URL, it can use configured live search providers such as Brave Search, DuckDuckGo, DuckDuckGo Instant Answers, and Wikipedia fallback, or fetch page content from a requested URL. Only the requested search query or URL is sent to external web services; saved conversations remain local.

Who Sanctum Private AI Is For

Sanctum Private AI is useful for:

• Mac users who want private AI chat without a cloud account
• Developers and technical users working with local context
• Writers and professionals drafting sensitive material
• People who want offline AI assistance for notes, planning, and analysis
• Teams evaluating local-first AI workflows on Apple Silicon

Description

Sanctum Private AI is a private on-device AI chat workspace for Mac. It keeps conversations, speech, image reading, model settings, and local tools on your Mac, with optional web access only when you request it.