Cotypist can adapt to the way you write. This page explains what that means in practice, what you can control, and how to clear your data if you ever want to start fresh.
Cotypist has an optional feature called Collect Inputs for Personalization. When you enable it, Cotypist quietly records the text you type in fields where it's active. Over time, it uses this typing history to produce suggestions that better reflect your vocabulary, phrasing, and writing habits.
The effect is subtle — it nudges the AI toward words and phrases you actually use, rather than the statistically "average" choice. You'll notice it most with names, specialist terminology, and the specific turns of phrase you reach for regularly.
When input collection is enabled, Cotypist stores the text from fields it monitors. There's an additional sub-option that controls exactly which sessions are saved:
Short inputs are never stored — so things like search queries and quick form entries are skipped. This also catches revealed passwords: Cotypist already ignores password fields, but a "Show Password" button on a website usually turns them into plain text fields, where only the length check can skip them.
Everything stays on your Mac. Your typing history is stored in an encrypted local database — the encryption key lives in your macOS Keychain and never leaves your device. Nothing is uploaded to any server.
For the full privacy picture, including everything else Cotypist can and cannot see, see the Privacy overview.
Even with input collection turned on globally, you can exclude individual apps or websites. Click the Cotypist icon that appears next to any text field, or the Cotypist menu bar icon, to toggle input collection for the current app or domain without affecting the rest.
This is useful for apps where you regularly type sensitive content — passwords aside, which macOS already protects automatically.
In Personalization settings, under Existing Data, you can delete everything at once with the Delete All… button.
To see how much data has been collected for a specific app or domain, open App Settings and select an entry — each one shows the number of recorded inputs.
Deleting your data also clears the derived personalization profile used by the word-choice slider, so suggestions will return to the unmodified model behavior until new data accumulates.
Once you have collected some typing history, the Personalize Word Choice slider controls how strongly that history influences suggestions. It runs from Off to Strong:
Separate from typing history, you can write Custom AI Instructions — a short free-text note that tells Cotypist about you. For example, your occupation, the kinds of writing you do most, and any stylistic preferences.
Cotypist uses this when generating every suggestion, so it's a good place to establish tone or domain context. Keep it concise: a few sentences work better than a long description, because too much text can actually dilute the AI's focus.
A default example is pre-filled based on your Mac's language and region settings. You can edit it freely, or click Reset to Default to restore the generated starting point.
In addition to the global instructions, you can attach extra instructions to a specific app or website. Open App Settings, select (or add) an app or domain, and fill in its Custom Instructions field. Cotypist appends these after the global instructions whenever you're typing in that app or on that domain — useful for context-specific guidance like a preferred language, a particular writing style, or domain-specific terminology.
If the app or site isn't already listed, you can add it from the same pane (drag an app onto the list, or add a domain manually).
