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TabType for Mac

On-device AI autocomplete that predicts your next words as you type in any app, no cloud required.

By nilava. Free and open source, MIT licence.

Get it with OpenDMG View source on GitHub

TabType at a glance

Version
2.1.0 (pre-release)
Released
9 October 2026
Download size
17 MB
Works on
Apple silicon and Intel
Licence
MIT
Category
Artificial Intelligence
Developer
nilava
GitHub stars
43

About TabType

Free, open-source AI autocomplete for macOS — on-device ghost-text suggestions in every app. A private, local Cotypist alternative built with MLX.

Screenshots

TabType screenshot 1

How to install TabType on a Mac

  1. Get OpenDMG. It is a free app store for open source Mac apps. Download OpenDMG.
  2. Search for TabType and press Get. OpenDMG downloads version 2.1.0 from nilava's own GitHub release.
  3. Open it. The download is checked against its SHA-256 fingerprint and its signature is checked on your Mac before it lands in Applications.

Updates to TabType show up in OpenDMG and install with one button. No account is needed.

Prefer to do it by hand? The developer's file is on GitHub: TabType-2.1.0.dmg (17 MB).

What is new in TabType 2.1.0

TabType **v2.1.0** closes most of the gap with Cotypist: ghost text that sits where the app's own text would, suggestions that read the conversation you're replying to, longer phrases, and keys that never get in your way.

Every change was measured: on the public 192-case eval set, and on a private set of 867 cases from the author's own messages. **What we found and why each change was made is in the README: [What changed in v2.1 — and why](https://github.com/nilava/TabType#-what-changed-in-v21--and-why).**

## 📈 Highlights
| | Before | v2.1 |
|---|:---:|:---:|
| Suggestions with more than one word (author's writing) | 22% | **57%** |
| Characters saved per suggestion (author's writing) | 1.37 | **1.46** |
| Placements using the app's real font | 0 of 984 | **read from the app** |
| Chat predictions with conversation context (Slack, live log) | 72 of 406 | **captured above the field** |
| First suggestion after launch | ~2.2 s | **~0.24 s** |
| Suggestions after the Mac sat idle | stopped | **reload automatically** |

We also tried Cotypist's own model (Gemma 4 E2B) inside TabType: about 50 ms faster, but 20% fewer characters saved on real writing, so Qwen3-4B stays the default.

## ✍️ Placement
- Ghost text uses the app's own font and colour (read from accessibility, with pixel fitting as a fallback), and wraps onto the next line like real text.
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