The best HeyClicky alternatives for Mac in 2026

HeyClicky calls itself an AI buddy that lives on your Mac. Press the hotkey and it sees what you see. Ask out loud and it walks you through whatever you're working on, drawing right on your screen to point the way. Say “heyclicky agent” and it goes and does the task for you. That idea, a voice you can ask about whatever is in front of you, is why so many people like it.

Its changelog shows how much has grown around that: agents that work with apps you connect, like Gmail and your calendar, routines on a schedule, morning suggestions, and dictation. Before an agent clicks or types on your Mac, it asks: Allow once, Always allow, or Not now.

It's Mac only, for macOS Sonoma 14.2 or later, and Windows has a waitlist. We make Koi, one of the apps below, so read this with that in mind. Everything about the other apps comes from their own sites and docs, and prices were checked on October 7, 2026.

HeyClicky is good at what it sets out to do. People still shop around, usually for one of these reasons:

• Agent limits. Talk is unlimited on paid plans, but agent messages are counted: 25 a month on Free, 150 on Pro and 1,000 on Max.
• Everything runs in the cloud. HeyClicky's trust page says nothing is processed locally, and that includes dictation.
• It keeps a written record. Raw screenshots aren't stored, but the AI's analysis of each screenshot and your prompt are.
• You already pay for ChatGPT, Claude or Google, and would rather use that.
• You need it on Windows today, not on a waitlist.

Side by side, from each company's own site or docs.

Koi and HeyClicky are the two built around marking up the screen itself. ChatGPT and Claude, on the other hand, can keep working on a longer task in the background, which Koi doesn't do.

Yes, to start. HeyClicky splits what it does into talk, the conversation, and agents, where it does the work itself. The free plan includes 25 talk messages and 25 agent messages a month, plus what it calls plenty of dictation. Pro is $20 a month with unlimited talk, unlimited dictation and 150 agent messages. Max is $100 a month with 1,000. Yearly billing takes 20% off, and students can ask for 50% off their first month of Pro. Run out of agent messages and talk keeps working; agents wait for the next cycle.

Koi doesn't count messages. It meters time with Koi and shows it as a percentage, and dictation is never counted on any plan. Free gets 15 minutes of Koi once, Pro and Max get a monthly allowance, and Lifetime ($99 once) comes with about 5 hours that never expire. Yearly plans are 20% off too. See Koi's plans and prices.

Yes. Hold Fn + Control in any app, talk, and the text streams in. HeyClicky's changelog says it detects 50+ languages, cleans up grammar and adds words you correct to a dictionary. It's unlimited on Pro and Max, limited on Free, and like the rest of HeyClicky it runs in the cloud.

Koi's dictation differs on that last point. Press Fn + ⌥ and your speech is turned into text on your Mac with Whisper, so it works offline and nothing you say goes anywhere. It detects 57 languages, ignores music and loud rooms, and is unlimited on every plan. It has no custom dictionary.

HeyClicky's trust page is refreshingly direct, which deserves credit. Here's what it says, in short:

• It only sees your screen when you press the hotkey, and nothing runs in the background tracking keystrokes, the clipboard or files.
• Raw screenshots are gone once they're processed. The AI's analysis of the screenshot and your prompt are kept.
• Nothing is processed locally. Requests go to Anthropic or OpenAI, and its privacy policy also names Deepgram and Cerebras.
• It doesn't train on your data, and says its providers don't either.
• Once a day, while the app is open, it reads your connected apps, read only, for morning suggestions. You can turn that off.
• It has no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 yet, and it will delete your data when you ask.

So is it safe? Nothing there is alarming. The trade is the usual one for a cloud assistant: what you show it leaves your Mac, and a written summary of it stays on their servers. Whether that's fine depends on what's on your screen.

During a call with Koi, your voice goes to the AI provider, and so does a picture of the screen with each question, unless you switch that to only when you ask, or never. Nothing said, shown or written is stored. Your dictation, pages and recordings stay on your Mac. Our trust page lists exactly what our server keeps.

Partly. Farza, HeyClicky's founder, published the first version in a public GitHub repository under the MIT license. The README says that code stays open, but newer features are kept private, so the app you download from heyclicky.com isn't the open-source one.

The open version is for tinkering. You build it in Xcode on macOS 14.2 or later, run a small Cloudflare Worker as a proxy, and bring your own Anthropic, AssemblyAI and ElevenLabs API keys.

An assistant that clicks for you is useful and a little scary. HeyClicky asks before an agent clicks or types. ChatGPT and Claude ask before they use each app, and Claude blocks trading and crypto apps by default. Anthropic's own help page says those safeguards aren't perfect.

Koi won't buy, pay, order, send, post, publish, delete, confirm, accept terms, sign in, or type a password or card number, whoever asks. That's enforced in the app, not just asked of the model, and text on a web page is never an instruction to it. It gets you to the button, circles it, and lets you press it. Whichever you pick, start with small tasks and watch what it does. Our page on AI that can see your screen explains how Koi handles the rest.

• Unlimited talk on Pro. Koi's paid plans meter time with Koi; HeyClicky doesn't meter talk.
• Connected apps and routines. HeyClicky's agents work with apps like Gmail and your calendar, run on a schedule and take custom MCP connections. Koi has none of that.
• A free plan that renews. HeyClicky's 25 talk messages come back every month. Koi's free time with Koi is 15 minutes, once.
• A personal dictionary. HeyClicky learns words you correct. Koi has no custom vocabulary.
• Windows is on the way. HeyClicky has a waitlist. Koi is Mac only.
• The original is open source, so you can read how it started.

Where Koi pulls ahead: dictation that never leaves your Mac and is unlimited even on Free, call recording kept on the Mac, a page editor, and hard limits on what it will do with your Mac.

• Want the closest thing to HeyClicky, plus private dictation and call notes? Koi.
• Already pay for ChatGPT and want voice plus Computer Use? ChatGPT for Mac.
• Live in Claude? Quick entry is free, and computer use comes with Pro or Max.
• On Apple silicon with Gmail and Drive at the center of your day? Gemini.
• In meetings all day and want follow-ups drafted? Highlight.

Most of these are free to try. Run two side by side for a day of real work and keep the one you reach for without thinking.