Guide
A to-do app with AI that runs on your Mac
TodoCity uses a small language model that runs entirely on your Mac. When you capture text — an email, a Slack message, a web page — it writes the to-do and finds the date phrase, and TodoCity turns that into a real day, time, deadline or repeat. Nothing you capture is sent to an AI service.
- Model
- A small open model, downloaded once (about 2 GB)
- Where it runs
- On your Mac, through llama.cpp
- Internet needed
- Only for the first download
- Macs
- Apple silicon and Intel, macOS 11+
What the AI does — and doesn't
The model has one small job: read what you captured and return three things — the task, the date phrase it found (“by Friday 3pm”), and how sure it is. Plain code then works out the actual date against today's calendar, so dates are never “hallucinated”. If a phrase could mean two days (“next Friday” on a Tuesday), TodoCity asks you instead of guessing.
- “by Friday 3pm” becomes Friday at 3:00 PM, with a deadline.
- “every Sunday” becomes a weekly repeat.
- A bulleted list becomes sub-tasks.
- The task remembers where it came from — the Slack thread, the email or the page — and opens it in one click.
How it runs on your Mac
On first launch, TodoCity recommends a model for your Mac and downloads it once. It starts the model only when you capture something and stops it after five idle minutes, so it doesn't hold on to memory. Developers can point it at an existing Ollama instead.
Safe with text you don't control
Captured text is treated as data, never as instructions: it's wrapped and cleaned, the instructions live only in the system prompt, and the answer must match a strict schema. At worst, a sneaky message produces an odd task title — it can't make TodoCity do anything else.
Optional AI extras
- Watch my screen (off by default) suggests tasks from what's in front of you — asks of you and promises you made — using the same on-device model. Password managers, Keychain, System Settings and terminals are never read.
- AI agents like Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code can add tasks over MCP, on your Mac only. They can never read your list, and you approve each task.
Questions
Does TodoCity use ChatGPT or another cloud AI?
No. The model runs on your Mac. Text you capture isn't sent to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or anyone else.
Will it slow my Mac down?
The model runs only while it reads a capture — usually a second or two — and stops after five idle minutes. TodoCity picks a model size that suits your Mac.