The most private Grammarly alternative is one where your text never reaches a company cloud in the first place. WriteText is that kind of tool. It is a Mac app that rewrites your text in place using your own API key, or a model running on your own machine, so your writing goes to the provider you chose and nowhere else. For a quick note that hardly matters. For client work, legal, health, or anything internal, it is the whole point.
The privacy problem with cloud writing tools
Most writing assistants are cloud services. To check or rewrite a sentence, they send it to their servers, run it there, and send the result back. For a shopping list that is fine. For a contract clause, a medical note, or an unannounced product name, handing it to a third party you do not control is a real concern, and often a policy violation at work.
The trouble is that the fix is usually sold as a feature you cannot inspect. "We take privacy seriously" is a sentence, not an architecture. The honest version is to not be in the loop at all.
Your key, your provider, your call
WriteText does not run a WriteText cloud in the middle. You connect your own API key, and your text goes to the provider you picked, under your account and your data settings.
- Your own OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini key. The text goes to that provider, on your account, under the terms you already agreed to with them. Their API data policies, from OpenAI and Anthropic, state that API content is not used to train their models by default.
- A local Ollama model. The text is rewritten by a model running on your own Mac, so it never leaves the machine at all.
That is the honest meaning of private here. Not a promise about our servers, because there are none in the path. An architecture where we are simply not in the loop.
What "offline" actually means
It is worth being precise, because private and offline are not the same thing, and blurring them is exactly the kind of claim this post is against.
- A cloud key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini): your text goes to that provider. Private to you and them, on your account. Not offline.
- A local Ollama model: your text stays on your Mac. Offline, and nothing leaves the machine.
So if your bar is truly nothing leaves this laptop, run a local model with Ollama and you have it. If you are happy with only my provider sees it, on my account, a cloud key is simpler and still keeps WriteText out of the middle. We will tell you which is which, rather than sell one as the other.
Where your key lives
Your API key is stored in the macOS Keychain, the same encrypted store macOS uses for your other credentials, not in a plain config file and not on any server of ours. WriteText does not phone home. There is no analytics and no telemetry, and nothing of ours sits between your Mac and your provider.
Why this beats a generic free alternative
The cheapest tool is rarely the private one. Plenty of free writing tools are free precisely because your text flows through their cloud, where it has value to them. WriteText is free to use in early access, which means free for now, and it keeps you in control of where your text goes. Those two facts are not in tension here, but do not read free as private in general. Often it is the opposite.
When a cloud tool is the better call
The honest part, because this is not a tool for everyone.
- You want a free, always-on grammar checker and privacy is not your worry. LanguageTool or Apple Writing Tools will serve you better. We lined them up in the Grammarly alternatives for Mac roundup.
- You will not manage an API key and will not run Ollama. WriteText ships with no bundled model, so it needs one or the other. If that is a dealbreaker, a cloud tool is less setup.
- You write long form. WriteText is built for emails, messages, and short passages, not 5,000-word drafts.
If none of those is you, and you would rather your text went where you decide, that is exactly what WriteText is for. It runs on any Mac since macOS 13, on Apple silicon or Intel, with your own model behind it. You can download it here, or read the early access notes for what it does and where it is going.
Sources and further reading
Frequently asked
The most private option is one that does not route your text through its own cloud. WriteText with a local Ollama model keeps your text on your Mac. LanguageTool is another strong choice, since it is open source and can be self-hosted. Both avoid sending your writing to a company server you do not control.
Yes, if it runs the model locally. WriteText pointed at a local Ollama model rewrites text entirely on your Mac, with nothing sent out. With a cloud provider like OpenAI or Anthropic, the text goes to that provider, so it is private to your account but not offline.
Only to the AI provider you choose, using your own key, and never to a server of ours. WriteText has no middleman cloud, no analytics, and no telemetry. With a local Ollama model, your text does not leave your Mac at all.
In the macOS Keychain, the same encrypted store macOS uses for your other credentials, not in a plain-text config file and not on any server. You bring your own key, and it stays on your machine.
Not usually. Many free tools are free because your text passes through their cloud, where the data has value to them. Free and private are different questions. WriteText happens to be free in early access and private by architecture, but in general do not assume one means the other.
WriteText is built by a small team who wanted in-place AI editing that just works. We made it because our own inboxes needed it.
