Outbox
Capture by voice
Hold Right Option anywhere, say what you need, let go. Outbox works out whether it's a meeting, an email or a reminder, pulls out the date and the person, and queues it for you to confirm.
Private beta · macOS
Say it once.
It's handled.
Hold a key, say what you need, and Outbox turns it into a real calendar event, a drafted email, or a reminder. It sits in on your meetings and writes the minutes. Your speech is transcribed on your own Mac, and nothing is ever sent without you confirming it.
Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later), macOS 12 or newer. Read the setup steps before you open it — this build isn't notarized by Apple yet, so macOS will stop it the first time.
You hold the key and say
“Set up a GTM sync with Priya tomorrow at half past three, and email Alex the revised timeline before end of day.”
Outbox shows you
- Calendar GTM sync with Priya Tomorrow, 3:30 PM Needs you
- Email Revised timeline → Alex Draft ready Needs you
Both wait for you to press Confirm. Outbox never sends on its own.
What it does
Dictate into any app
Hold Right Command and talk. Your words land in whatever you're typing in, cleaned up — filler words removed, punctuation added.
Meeting notes that do something
A record bar sits at the edge of your screen. Start it and Outbox writes the minutes: a summary, the decisions, and the action items. Your own follow-ups land in the same queue, one click from a real calendar event or email.
Ask about your week
“What's on Thursday?” “Draft a reply to Priya about the deck.” It reads your calendar and mail to answer — and can draft, but never send.
Where your words go
Outbox listens to a lot: what you dictate, and the meetings you record. Here is exactly what happens to it.
Speech
Transcribed by Whisper running on your Mac. The audio never leaves the machine and is never written to disk. A faster cloud option exists in Settings — it's off by default, and the app says plainly what changes if you turn it on.
Turning speech into tasks
On a Mac with Apple Intelligence this also runs on-device, so the words never leave at all. Otherwise the transcript goes to Groq to be structured. Either way the audio stays local.
Meetings
Recorded only when you press Record, with a visible indicator the whole time. The audio is never saved — it is transcribed and dropped. The transcript and minutes stay in a database on your Mac.
Accounts
Google and Outlook sign-in uses OAuth. Tokens live in your macOS Keychain, never in a file. Outbox reads your calendar and mail only when you ask something that needs them.
Sending
Nothing is created or sent until you press Confirm. There is no autonomous mode, and the assistant can only propose — it has no ability to send.
Us
There is no Outbox server. We collect no analytics and have no account system. We cannot see your tasks, your meetings or your transcripts.
First run
This is a beta build, signed with our own certificate rather than one Apple has notarized. macOS will refuse to open it the first time. That's expected — here's the way through.
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Install it
Open the downloaded
.dmgand drag Outbox into Applications. -
Get past Gatekeeper
Open Outbox. macOS will say it “cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified”. Click Done, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway next to the message about Outbox. Confirm once more and it will launch. You only do this once per version.
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Allow the microphone
The first time you hold the capture key, macOS asks for microphone access. Without it you'll get silence rather than an error, so say yes.
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Allow the keyboard shortcut
Outbox needs Accessibility permission so the global hotkeys work while you're in another app, and so dictation can type for you. It's used for that and nothing else. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
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Add a free Groq key
Used to turn speech into structured tasks when your Mac can't do it on-device. Create a free key at console.groq.com/keys — no card needed — and paste it into Settings → AI structuring. It's stored in your Keychain.
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Connect your calendar
In Settings → Accounts, connect Google or Microsoft. This is what lets a confirmed task become a real event or a real sent email — and what lets meeting notes name the people in the room.
What “beta” means here
Rough edges, on purpose
This is early. You're here to find the things we haven't. Expect the occasional mis-heard word and a feature that doesn't quite land.
Known limits
Apple Silicon only — no Intel build yet. Outlook email sending is built but barely tested. In meetings with several people, the far side is labelled “them” rather than by name.
Telling us things
Bugs and ideas both welcome:
hello@outboxai.co.in, or
open an issue. The log at
~/Library/Logs/Outbox/main.log is the single most useful thing to attach.
Good to know
- Does it work on an Intel Mac?
- Not yet — this build is Apple Silicon only. Ask if you need one.
- Does it work offline?
- Transcription does, entirely. Turning speech into tasks runs on-device on Macs with Apple Intelligence; otherwise that step needs a connection.
- Will it update itself?
- No. Download a new build from this page when there is one.
- Is it open source?
- Yes — the source is on GitHub.