Polishly is a macOS menu-bar app that rewrites selected text in place, in any app, using your own API key. No subscription. No background scanning. No middleman between your text and your model.
Free DMG · macOS 14+ · MIT licensed · bring a free Groq or Cerebras key
The actual card UI — recreated here, not a screenshot
Install the signed app, grant Accessibility once, then connect a free Groq or Cerebras API key — or start in on-device demo mode with no key at all.
Direct download — no subscription, no account required for the app itself.
Prefer source? Clone the repo and run ./scripts/package-release.sh — or open Issues on
GitHub.
Polishly reads your selection through macOS Accessibility, sends it only when you ask, and writes the result straight back into the field you were already in.
Mail, Notes, Slack, Teams, your browser — anywhere macOS can read a text selection.
⌃⌥SpaceA small card appears anchored to your selection with a streaming rewrite. Pick a tone tab, or type a free-form instruction with Revise with AI.
A real word-level diff shows exactly what changed. Accept replaces the text in place; Copy leaves it on your clipboard instead.
Every design decision starts from one question: what would make you comfortable giving an app Accessibility permissions?
The app is free and open source under MIT. No subscription tier, no "pro" paywall, no ads.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, or Cerebras — use the provider and model you already trust, at the price they charge you directly.
No key yet? Try the whole interaction model with zero network calls and zero cost using on-device rule-based rewrites.
Nothing is read or sent until you press the hotkey. No continuous scanning of what you type, anywhere, ever.
Rewrites are shown as an actual word-level diff against your original text — computed locally, not model-generated markup.
One app, every app. If macOS Accessibility can see your selection, Polishly can rewrite it in place.
These are real "Revise with AI" outputs captured during testing — not curated marketing copy.
Full test set (10 varied instructions, run against real provider APIs) is in the repo's Tests/PolishlyTests/ReviseQualityTests.swift.
Grammarly and Apple's Writing Tools solve adjacent problems well. Polishly is built around a different bet: explicit invocation, your own key, and no subscription.
| Polishly | Grammarly Desktop | Apple Intelligence Writing Tools |
Wordtune / Notion AI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever | ~$30/mo Pro | Free | Subscription |
| Open source | Yes, MIT | No | No | No |
| Bring your own API key | Yes | No | No | No |
| Explicit invocation (no background scanning) |
Yes, always | Always-on underlining | Mostly on-demand | Varies |
| Works in any app system-wide | Yes | Yes | Only apps that adopt it | Own app / extension only |
| Free-form custom instructions | Revise with AI | Limited | Fixed set of tones | Limited |
| Local, no-network mode | Demo mode | No | No | No |
Competitor details reflect public docs/pricing at time of writing and may change — verify current terms directly with each provider.
Polishly itself never charges you anything. Connect your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, or Cerebras key and pay that provider directly — typically a fraction of a cent per rewrite — or skip the network entirely with local demo mode.
The app is free and open source (MIT license). There's no subscription and no hidden tier. If you use a real AI provider, you pay that provider directly for your own usage — Polishly never sees or marks up that cost.
Nothing is read or sent until you press the hotkey. When you do, your selected text goes directly from your Mac to the provider you configured, using your key — Polishly has no backend server in between. In demo mode, nothing ever leaves your Mac.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, and Cerebras today. The model field is free text, so any model string your provider supports will work.
No — local demo mode runs entirely on-device with simple rule-based cleanup, so you can try the selection → hotkey → diff → accept flow before connecting a real provider.
Not yet. Polishly is built on macOS's Accessibility API; a Windows port would need to rebuild the capture layer on UI Automation.
Right here: github.com/kiranreddi/polishly. Issues and PRs are welcome.
Free, open source, and yours to run however you like.