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Getting started

Download and first open#

Download Memoe from memoe.app/download. Every Download button on the site opens a short sheet first, saying what is in the box and what opening it looks like; Download Memoe for Mac starts the download. It is a large download, a little over a gigabyte, because everything Moe needs is inside it: the speech and voice models that run on your Mac, and the part of Moe that does the thinking, with the tools it uses (its own Node and ffmpeg). Setting up fetches nothing, so the first run works offline, and that part of Moe never downloads pieces of itself while it runs.

If you use Homebrew, brew install --cask izzy-gottz/moe/memoe installs the same app. Each version is also on the open-source repository's Releases page.

The one exception is the browser Moe uses for web pages (about 330 MB), which Memoe downloads in the background the first time it opens, just as it always has. Until it arrives, asking Moe to use a web page gets the answer Memoe is still downloading its browser (about 330 MB). Try again in a minute; everything else works meanwhile. If you are offline, it tries again the next time Memoe opens.

Open the disk image and drag Memoe onto Applications. Memoe is signed and notarized by Apple, so the first time you open a copy you downloaded, macOS checks it and asks once: "Memoe" is an app downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it? Click Open. That is all of it: there is no trip to System Settings and no Privacy & Security step.

After that, Moe asks for what it needs as it first needs it: the microphone the first time you talk to it, permission to control your Mac the first time you ask it to do something there. Those are macOS asking on your behalf, not warnings about Memoe.

Moe keeps everything it makes in ~/Library/Application Support/Moe: memories, meeting notes, transcripts, settings and connections. That is where macOS puts an app's data, and where to look to back it up. (An older name for the same folder, ~/.moe in your home folder, still works; it points at the same place.)

Moe keeps that folder from filling your disk on its own. Its logs are capped at a few megabytes each and roll over. The record of past conversations it searches, and that the Usage page counts from, keeps one year. Moe's own browser keeps only its newest copy of Chrome, and Chrome's built-in AI model (about 4 GB, which Moe never uses) is removed while that browser is closed. When a meeting's transcript looked incomplete, Moe keeps its recording so the problem can be checked; that recording is removed after 30 days, and the meeting's notes say so. Your memories, meeting notes and the files you give Moe are never trimmed.

The welcome#

The first time Moe opens, a short welcome walks you through it: seven screens, one thing each, all of them skippable. Back and Skip are on every screen, nothing in it is permanent, and nothing breaks if you say no.

  1. Hi, I'm Moe. The four things it does: answer out loud, take meeting notes, remember you, reach your things. One line says Memoe is in beta.
  2. Can I hear you? The one permission asked up front. Turn on the microphone shows macOS's own prompt. Say no and Moe still works; you type to it instead. Your voice is turned into words on this Mac and is never sent anywhere.
  3. Give me something to think with. Moe has no account of its own, so pick the one you already use. The first two are marked Recommended, side by side, because they are a plan you may already pay for: Sign in with Claude or Sign in with ChatGPT; Moe works as well with either. Below them: Paste a key you already have (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, xAI and others), or Run a model on this Mac. Signing in happens in your browser, never in a Terminal: Moe opens the page, and for ChatGPT it shows you the code the page asks for, already copied. On a fresh copy of Memoe this screen says getting ready for the few seconds it takes to lay down the part that thinks.
  4. Say hello. Hold right ⌥, say "what can you do?", and let go. Double-tap the key to stop Moe, or press ⌃⌥Space to start it and again to stop. This screen also asks for the two macOS permissions a first task needs, one button and one line each, both skippable: Accessibility, so Moe can hear the talk key in any app and click for you when you ask, and Screen Recording, so Moe can see your screen when you ask about it. Screen Recording takes effect the next time Moe opens. If System Settings shows Moe switched on for Accessibility and Moe still says it is off, macOS is remembering an older copy: Reset and ask again clears that. The ⌃⌥Space shortcut works without any of it.
  5. I'll take the notes. What a meeting records and where it stays, and one switch, Start and stop a meeting with ⌃⌥M, off: a key that records other people is one you switch on yourself.
  6. What may I learn from and watch? One switch for each thing on this Mac Moe could learn from (Learn from Calendar and watch it, and its like), and under them the daily pass itself, Once a day, read back over what I've allowed and note what it learns. Everything connected starts switched on, marked Recommended; untick what you would rather Moe left alone and press Save and continue. Nothing is read until you save. Skip records nothing, so Moe can ask again later, the first time you connect something — any of them, the apps on this Mac or any service you sign into. With nothing connected yet, the screen says so. See Memory.
  7. Connect your world. What to connect first, in the order the Connections page lists it: the apps already on this Mac (Calendar, Reminders, Notes and Contacts), then Google (Gmail, Calendar and Drive, one sign-in for all three), then everything else. Then two switches you see before the welcome closes: Start Moe when my Mac starts, on, and Let Moe send problem reports, off, with What is sent? beside it and Report without saying who I am under it. Both are the same switches as Settings › Privacy. Take me to Connections ends the welcome.

Skip everything and Moe still takes meeting notes; the brain can be chosen any time in Settings › Brain.

Moe starts with your Mac#

When you finish the welcome, Moe adds itself to System Settings › General › Login Items, so it is there under the notch when you sign in. The last welcome screen shows it as the switch Start Moe when my Mac starts, already on; turning it off there and turning it off in Login Items are the same thing. Moe never switches it back on behind you: it asks macOS once, and after that the switch is yours. A copy that opens after Erase Moe from this Mac adds nothing.

The part of Moe that thinks looks after itself#

Moe's thinking part ships inside the app and is laid down on first launch. Moe starts it when Moe opens and restarts it if it stops. If it keeps stopping, Moe says so once, The part of Moe that thinks kept stopping, and then keeps trying quietly in the background about once a minute until it is back; you don't have to quit Moe or open it again. New Conversation tries right away. Each version of Memoe also keeps that part current on its own: a small update in the background, one brief restarting, and that is all you see.