Start

How Moe answers you

Moe is a voice assistant that you can also type to, and it tells the difference: a question asked out loud comes back out loud and short; a question typed comes back written, at the length it needs. Moe's answers in Settings › Voice, and the Answers and While Moe works groups under its More, are where that is decided.

Who Moe is#

Moe is on your side: part colleague, part friend, and the one who actually gets things done. Warm without gushing, direct without being curt. It says the answer first and does not narrate.

It is honest about what it knows, because you act on what it tells you. A judgement call comes as its best guess, and it says so. A fact it could not check, a price, a date, a count, it will not guess: it goes and finds it out, and if a real attempt still cannot confirm it, it tells you what it tried and what it will try next. It has opinions. If something looks like a mistake, it says so once, kindly, with its reason; then it is your call, and it helps with whatever you choose.

Moe knows where it is. On your Mac it may use all of it: files, apps, the browser, mail, calendar, messages and the screen. Moe in the cloud (see Away) knows it answers while the Mac is asleep, that it cannot see the Mac's files or screen, and that anything needing the Mac waits for the Mac to wake. To you it is one Moe, with one memory, on every channel you set up.

Moe does it, rather than telling you how#

Tell Moe something is not working, or ask how to do something, and if its tools can do it, your files, your mail, the web, your apps and browser, it does it and tells you what it did, instead of giving you a list of steps. If it is not sure you want it to, it offers in a line: "Want me to take care of it?" You only get steps for the part that needs your own hands, like typing a password, paying, or signing, or when you ask for steps.

Anything that sends, posts, buys or deletes still waits for your yes (see Before anything goes out): Moe does the work up to that point and asks.

Moe finishes what it starts#

When you ask for something, or Moe says it will do it, it keeps going until it is done. A page that will not load, a result that is not there, a tool that fails: each is a reason to try another way, another source, another search, not a reason to stop. It will not hand you an estimate in place of the answer you asked for, or part of an answer as if it were the whole. It stops only when the next step needs you, a yes, a password, a choice only you can make, and then asks for exactly that. If it is taking a while, it tells you what it has so far and keeps going.

How much Moe says#

How much Moe says sets how long Moe's answers are:

Short — one sentence out loud, a few lines in writing. The answer and nothing around it. This is the default: Moe is something you talk to, and a spoken answer is better short.
Balanced — a sentence or two out loud, and whatever a typed question needs.
Detailed — up to a short paragraph out loud, and an in-depth written answer with the reasoning, the options and what to watch out for.

Spoken answers stay tighter than written ones at every setting, because you cannot skim something you are listening to. Asking for more, "tell me everything", always gets more, whatever this is set to. The chat apps you message Moe from follow the same setting.

Out loud, or on screen#

Three choices, because talking and typing are separate questions:

Answers: Out loud / On screen only is the master. On screen only, Moe never says anything and every answer is on screen. Moe is also silent for the whole of a recorded meeting whatever this says; the room and the call would hear it.
Answer questions I ask out loud, out loud, under More — on. You asked out loud, so the answer comes back out loud.
Answer typed questions out loud too, under More — off. Typed in, text out. Turn it on if you want a typed question answered aloud as well as shown.

Written to be read#

Write typed answers to be read, under More, changes what the answer is, not just how it arrives. A spoken answer is one or two short sentences with no lists and no formatting, which is right when you are listening and wrong when you are not. On, and it is on, a question you typed comes back written as writing: short lists and headings where they help, links you can click, and the length the question needs. Off, a typed question gets the same spoken-shaped answer.

The panel under the notch#

Open the island panel by itself, under More, decides whether the island expands to show you an answer.

Only when Moe stays quiet — the default. An answer you were told is an answer that reached you; a panel over your screen would be an interruption rather than a delivery.
Always — to read along while Moe talks.
Never — for a shared screen. The answer is still in Chat.

A recorded meeting always opens it, whatever this says: the reply is not being spoken then, so the panel is the only place it exists.

How long the panel stays is 6 seconds, 12 seconds, 30 seconds or Until I dismiss it; it starts at until I dismiss it, because an answer Moe did not say out loud is one you have not seen yet, and it should not vanish on a timer. With a number, the clock restarts while the cursor is on the panel, while the field has the keyboard, or while there is a half-typed question in it; a click in another app folds it at once either way.

Clicking the island opens it, and does nothing else. A click on the notch opens the panel and keeps it open; a click on the panel's own space does nothing. The whole conversation is in the Memoe window: the window icon behind the ⋯, or the menu bar. Anything Moe brought up on its own waits in the inbox: the tray icon at the top of the panel, with a count. The panel always opens on your conversation, never on a card.

To close it yourself: the ⌃ button in the top right, or Esc. Folding is only folding; it leaves Moe alone and the conversation where it was. To stop Moe, use the stop icon behind the ⋯. On a Mac with a notch the ⌃ and the one-word status sit in the black strip beside the notch. The panel shows the conversation, yours on the right and Moe's on the left, a new conversation button beside the ⌃ (the one on screen is kept in Chat), and a box to type in whenever you can use it, with an arrow to send and a + that takes a photo or a file.

Anything Moe needs you to see before the conversation, a call it can record, a new version of Memoe ready to install, or the talk key waiting on Accessibility, sits at the top of the panel, and the panel grows to hold all of it.

Every Mac. The island fits whatever notch your Mac has, at any display scaling, and lines up with the notch itself rather than the middle of the screen. A Mac with no notch, an iMac, an older MacBook Air or an external display, gets a small black tab in the middle of the menu bar instead, and everything below happens around that tab the same way. With a laptop and an external display, Moe stays on the laptop's notch. Before you have said anything, the panel greets you by the hour, Good morning — I'm here.

What the notch shows. No colours and no glow: the notch grows small black "ears" either side, and everything is white or grey.

Idle: one dim dot just right of the notch, so you know Moe is there.
Listening: three white bars on the left, moving with your voice.
Thinking or working: a white light runs round the edge of the notch.
Speaking: the bars on the left move gently. Pause the reply and they become Paused.
Muted: Muted on the left, with a crossed-out microphone.
Something arrives: the right side widens into a short line for a few seconds, then shrinks back to the dot, which stays bright white while something is waiting for you.
Moe is using your Mac: the right side says Using Safari (or Browsing) with Stop; click Stop to end it there and then.
A meeting is being recorded: Recording on the left, with a small red dot, the one colour the notch keeps, because it is about your privacy. Off the record, the dot turns grey; when someone says your name it flashes white twice. Action items Moe spots appear on the right.

Each side stays narrow at rest, so it covers as little of the menu bar as it can. Open the panel and it simply drops down in black, with no light around it.

While Moe is working#

These four are under More in Settings › Voice.

Say "on it" as soon as I ask — off to start with. Said the moment you finish asking, before Moe has started on the answer, so you know it heard you. It is said from your Mac, before anything is asked of the model, and it only ever repeats what you asked and never guesses how it will go.
Tell me what it's doing while it works — on. "Checking your calendar", said when something takes a while; you are listening rather than watching, and a long silence sounds like Moe has stopped. Off, Moe says nothing between "on it" and the answer; the island still shows the step.
Ding when a written answer is ready — on. One soft note, only when Moe is not going to say the answer out loud, so a question you typed and went back to work does not sit unread in the panel. Hear it plays the note.
Typed questions open the Chat window — off. The answer stays in the panel under the notch, on whatever you were reading; a question asked while looking at your notes is often about the notes. On, every question you type opens Chat, where a long answer has room.

Handing a job off. Say "in the background", or ask for something that is plainly a long job you do not need to sit through, and Moe hands it to a helper of its own, tells you in one line that it is running, and gives you the conversation back. Ask it something else meanwhile; it answers. When the helper finishes, Moe tells you the outcome the way it would a reminder: spoken, in its own words, with what got done, what did not, and anything you need to decide. That is the whole of what you hear about it; the helper's own steps stay in its transcript. It works the same whichever brain Moe thinks with.

A finished helper does not wait behind anything on the island: a reminder or suggestion you have not answered yet stays where it is, and Moe tells you the helper's outcome as soon as it is not busy talking or listening, and not during a meeting. The outcome comes back in the conversation you handed the job off from. If you have moved to another conversation by then, Moe says in the one you are in which conversation it belongs to, and offers it on the island: play it and that conversation opens and Moe tells you there. Signing in to a different Claude or ChatGPT account, or choosing a different AI in Settings, keeps the conversation you are in, and the helpers you started in it. The chat stays on screen and Moe carries on from where it was. Changing only how hard Moe thinks still starts a fresh conversation.

While Moe itself works on something in front of you, what it says is its own account of the work; there is no stock "still on it" line, and if you would rather hear nothing at all, Work silently on the notch is the switch.

A question outlives a sleep. While Moe is working on something for you, your Mac does not doze off on its own — the idle timer is held until the answer is in. Close the lid and it sleeps as ever; if that cut the work off, Moe notices on wake and carries on where it was, once, telling you it is picking up rather than starting again. The same if you quit Moe, or it was closed for you, in the middle of an answer: within half an hour of opening it again it goes back to that conversation and picks the question up. It never picks up a question twice, and it never picks up on its own a question that had already sent, paid, booked or deleted something — that one stops, tells you why, and waits for you to say the word. If you moved on while it was about to pick up — asked something else, or started a new conversation — the old question is dropped, not slipped in behind the new one.

A promise to do something is kept. Once in a long while the part of Moe that thinks ends its turn on a promise, "one sec while I set up the search", and then does nothing more. Moe notices when an answer ends on work it said it was about to do, with nothing running and nothing asked of you, and tells it once to carry on, or to say plainly why it can't. What it says next follows on in the same answer, and you can interrupt it, pause it or talk over it as you would any answer. It never does this after a question or an offer that waits on you ("want me to…?", "tell me which and I'll check"), never when Moe itself stopped the work (for instance after your Mac slept in the middle of something that sends or pays), and never more than once for anything you asked.

You can always say the next thing. Moe does a few things around an answer that you never see, going back over the conversation for anything worth remembering, keeping its notes in order, and none of them hold the conversation: say something while one is running and Moe answers. If Moe is genuinely still finishing the answer before, your message waits for that one and is answered next.

Addresses are shown, never spoken#

Moe never reads a web address out loud. Any address in an answer is a real, clickable link in Chat and in the panel, whether Moe wrote it as a link or simply as an address, and the spoken version says the label and skips the address entirely.

Your inbox#

Everything Moe brings up by itself (a reminder you asked for, a question, a draft it has ready, a morning brief, a heads-up) goes to one inbox, and stays there until you finish it, or until the thing it was about is over.

One card per thing. When Moe has something new to say about something already in your inbox (the same conversation, the same follow-up, the same meeting), it updates that card rather than adding another one. The card shows the newest words and moves back to the top as unread. Once you have finished a card, a later message about the same thing arrives as a new card.

Cards close on their own when the thing is over. A meeting heads-up goes once the meeting has started. A follow-up closes when Moe's follow-up is closed. A draft reply closes when the conversation has been settled or the offer is more than a day old. These cards move to Done with a word saying why (Meeting started, Settled, No longer current), so you can still find them.

What Moe does not bring up. Anything you already have in front of you. A new email, WhatsApp, Telegram or text is never passed on as it arrives: you see it in its own app. Moe raises a message only when a person has been waiting on you for three hours or more, you have not answered in that chat since, and — for mail, where Moe can tell — you have not opened it. A business, a newsletter or a marketing text never counts as someone waiting. Your Reminders stay in the Reminders app, a meeting gets its ten-minute heads-up and at most one offer to prepare a day (a meeting that moves is news again), and Moe offers help with any one conversation at most once a day, and not while you are writing in it.

When something arrives, the notch shows one line for a few seconds, what it is and why, such as Marketing brief · One Reddit reply ready to post, sliding out to the right of the notch, and then settles into a bright white dot beside it. Nothing opens by itself, nothing is read out, and whatever you were doing on the island stays where it was.

Open the island and you see your conversation, as always. The tray icon at the top carries a count. Press it and the conversation turns into the inbox; ‹ Chat at the top of the inbox takes you back, and it is there even while Moe is working. Closing the panel leaves the inbox too, so the next time you open it you are back in your conversation. Needs you comes first, then For your information. Each item says what kind it is, and its buttons fit it:

Reminder: Done, Snooze (15 minutes, an hour, this evening, tomorrow morning) or Reply.
Question: its answers as buttons, or Answer in words.
Ready for you, a draft Moe has already written: Review, Done (you handled it yourself), Not now, or Not this kind, which tells Moe to stop offering this kind of thing.
Brief, a report from a job you set up: Open or Got it.
Heads-up, nothing to do: Got it.

Done, Skip and Got it finish it where it came from: a follow-up Moe was keeping is closed, and Moe stays quiet about that subject until the thing it came from changes — a Reminder that is edited, moved or ticked off, a meeting that moves. The same thing said again in different words is not said; something new about it — a cancellation, a changed time, a new message — still is. When it came from Apple Reminders, the inbox asks Also mark it done in Reminders?: Mark done ticks it off there, Leave it changes nothing. Moe never touches your Reminders without that tap. ✕ dismisses it: it leaves the count and moves to Done in the Inbox page, and a follow-up behind it goes quiet the same way Done does. Looking at the inbox puts the bright dot back to its dim one.

Done is not "no thanks". Pressing Done on a draft Moe prepared means you dealt with it another way, so Moe does not take it as a sign you do not want help like that. Not now and Not this kind are the ones that tell Moe to hold back.

Reading one. Open or Review puts the whole thing on your screen as a card, over whatever you are doing: the summary on top, then the rest laid out as headings and lists. Every draft in it has Copy. A draft Moe wrote for someone has Send to…, which still shows you the message and asks before anything goes, and Done for when you took care of it another way. Ask about it in the box at the bottom, Continue in island, or Open in app. ✕ or Esc closes the card and keeps the item.

Replying starts a new conversation, named after the item, with the item at the top, so a reminder never lands in the middle of something else. A strip above the box says Replying to this. Type below and press Return, with Cancel, which sends nothing and leaves the item in the inbox. The item is finished once your answer is sent. A Back to… button returns you to the conversation you were in. If the item is about what you were just talking about, Moe answers there instead.

The Inbox page in the Memoe window shows the same items, filtered by All, Needs you, Reminders, Ready or Briefs, with what is snoozed and what you finished this week below them. A dot marks what you have not looked at yet. Selecting one shows the same card, so it works the same wherever you open it.

Clearing many at once. Above the list, Mark all read clears every unread dot, and Archive all moves everything waiting (under the filter you are on) to Done, after asking once. To archive just some, press Select and tick them, or ⌘-click rows to pick them one by one and ⇧-click to pick a run, then Archive selected. Archived cards stay under Done for a week, like anything else you finish.

A fresh start. The first time you open this version, Moe archives the cards that piled up before it, keeping only drafts it prepared in the last two days. Nothing is deleted; the rest are under Done.

Long reports get a real summary. When a job's report is long, Moe writes a short title and a one-sentence summary for it with the least expensive model your own provider offers. If that is not possible, the inbox uses the report's own headings.

Moe comes back to things#

Moe keeps a list of open loops and brings them up later, without being asked: on the notch if you are at the Mac, otherwise on whichever chat app you set up. Five kinds of thing go on it: what you said you'd do; what Moe started (a booking, an order) and should check landed; people waiting on you; deadlines, with the preparation done early; and things you looked at that can change, a price, a slot, a delivery, which Moe watches without thinking and speaks about only when they move. How it works, and the switches for it, are under Running in the background.