The Complete Guide
to Sal.

Activation & Free Trial

When you subscribe to Sal from hellopartner.ai (or start your 14-day free trial), you'll receive an email from LemonSqueezy containing your personal license key and a secure download link.

Steps to Activate

1. Download the .dmg file from your confirmation email.
2. Open the disk image and drag Sal into your Applications folder.
3. Launch Sal from Applications (or Spotlight).
4. On the activation screen, paste your license key from the LemonSqueezy email.
5. Sal will validate your key online and activate instantly.

System Requirements

Model Download

On first launch after activation, Sal downloads the core AI models she needs to run locally. This is a one-time process — approximately ~5 GB.

What Happens

• Sal displays a progress screen showing each model as it downloads.
• Downloads resume automatically if interrupted.
• Models are stored locally in Sal's application support folder.
• Once complete, Sal warms the models into memory and becomes ready.

Permissions

After downloading her AI models, Sal will immediately launch the Privacy & Permissions screen. There are a number of permissions requested — and we understand that can feel like a lot. However, this access is precisely what makes Sal so remarkably useful.

To ensure a smooth, uninterrupted experience, we highly recommend opting in to all settings right away. Because Sal runs entirely locally, your privacy is guaranteed: none of your data is shared or ever leaves your device.

Streamlined Permission Management

We've eliminated the confusing cascade of macOS dialogs, replacing them with a fully transparent system:

• The Privacy Screen: Lets you easily review and approve all required permissions at once during initial setup.
• Settings Panel Control: You can review, grant, or revoke your permissions at any time. Just open the main Settings window, navigate to the Privacy & Access section, and click Manage Access.
• Contextual In-App Alerts: If you ask Sal to perform an action but haven't granted the necessary permission, she will explicitly tell you. A simple in-app alert will appear, allowing you to grant the required permission right there in context.

Additionally, macOS will occasionally prompt you natively for access to your Documents, Desktop, or Downloads folders as Sal indexes your files in the background. These localized alerts are completely safe and normal.

Navigating macOS System Settings

macOS has strict security protocols, and sometimes you may need to manually grant permissions in System Settings → Privacy & Security. If Sal isn't showing up in the list for a specific entitlement (like Full Disk Access or Accessibility), you will need to add her manually:

1. Open macOS System Settings and navigate to Privacy & Security.
2. Select the specific entitlement you need to grant (e.g., Full Disk Access).
3. Click the small plus (+) symbol at the bottom of the application list. (You may need to authenticate with your Mac password or Touch ID).
4. In the file browser that appears, navigate to your Applications folder, select the Hello Partner app, and click Open.
5. Ensure the toggle switch next to the app is turned on.

Why So Many?

For Sal to be truly helpful — not just a chatbot, but a real assistant — she needs to interact with your actual life: your files, your calendar, your reminders, your screen. Every permission you grant unlocks a real capability.

Why It's Safe

Here is the difference between giving these permissions to Sal versus giving them to any other app:

Sal lives on your computer. Not in the cloud. Not on someone else's server. When she accesses your calendar, your files, your screen — that information stays on your machine. Period.

HelloPartner.ai doesn't even have a server that could receive your information. There is no backend, no tracking system, and no analytics server. We couldn't collect your data even if we wanted to — and we don't want to. This is the core of our mission. It is what makes us different.

Share Sheet Activation

On a fresh install, Sal is hidden from the system Share Sheet by default. Apple does this for all third-party apps to keep the Share sheet uncluttered. You only need to activate it once:

1. Open the Share Sheet in any app (Safari, Mail, Preview, Notes, or Finder).
2. At the bottom of the Share panel, click Edit Extensions…
3. In the list that appears, find Sal and flip its toggle to On.

From that point forward, Sal appears in the Share sheet of every app on your Mac. You can share files, web pages, images, and text directly into an active Sal conversation.

Studio Workspace

Sal is a native macOS Studio application with a first-class Dock icon, standard menu bar, and resilient window lifecycle. Built as an Apple-grade 2-Panel Studio, Sal balances focused conversation with deep reference materials:

1. Center Dialogue Canvas: An uncluttered, full-height chat stream featuring smooth scrolling, adaptive Day/Night frosted-glass fadeouts, an Apple Messages-style header, and a floating bottom input bar.
2. Right Artifacts Inspector (⌘⌥I): A collapsible secondary workbench for reference documents, files, media, terminal logs, and memory receipts.

Window & Titlebar Controls

Sal is designed for comfortable side-by-side chat and inspection:

• Titlebar Controls:
  • Far Left: Standard macOS traffic lights alongside a quick New Conversation (+ / ⌘N) button.
  • Center: The interactive Status Capsule, showing what Sal is doing and letting you switch thinking levels with a click.
  • Far Right: Sidebar toggle button (◨ / ⌘⌥I) to show or hide the Inspector.
• Resizable Split Divider: Drag the divider between the conversation and the inspector to adjust the panel width. Sal remembers your preferred width and whether the inspector was open or closed.
• Window Bounds: Launch default size is 1280 × 820 pt (minimum 580 × 420 pt).
• Hide-on-Close: Closing the window (⌘W) tucks Sal to the background without losing your conversation, background tasks, or open tabs. Press ⌥ Space or click the Dock icon to bring Sal right back.

The Status Capsule

Centered in the window titlebar, the Status Capsule shows you what Sal is doing at a glance:

Background Notifications & Badges

If you close or minimize Sal while she is thinking through a complex prompt, you don't need to keep checking back:

• Dock Tile Dot Badge: A native badge dot appears on Sal's macOS Dock icon the moment she finishes responding in the background. It clears automatically when you bring Sal back to the front.
• Notification Center Banner: A system notification is delivered with the title “Sal has responded” and a preview of the response.

Chat & Response Actions

The core of Sal is a natural-language conversation running 100% on your Mac's Apple Silicon hardware—no cloud servers, no API keys, and no personal data leaving your machine.

Input Capsule & Controls

• Natural Language: Type your prompt and press Return.
• Ephemeral Sight (⇧⌘Return): Take a momentary glance at your screen context as you send your message.
• Off-the-Record Toggle: Click the circular Lock icon adjacent to the input capsule to enter zero-trace Incognito mode.
• Status Capsule: Centered in the titlebar, the capsule shows what Sal is doing and lets you switch thinking levels with a single click.

Conversation Safety

To prevent accidental context loss during deep research, Sal presents a safety confirmation modal whenever you choose New Conversation (⌘N) or Clear Session from the Session menu.

Response Action Bar

Below every response generated by Sal, a dedicated action bar provides instant tools:

• Fact-Checking Badge: Displays real-time source verification (see Fact-Checking below). Click to inspect verified sources and figures.
• Copy (⌘C): Copies clean, formatted Markdown to your clipboard.
• Speak: Triggers local Text-to-Speech with an animated sound wave indicator while audio is playing.
• Save As File: Exports the response directly to a local .txt or .md document on your Mac.
• Share: Opens the native macOS Share Sheet to send the response to Apple Mail, Notes, Messages, or third-party apps.

Fact-Checking & Receipts

Hallucination anxiety is the single greatest obstacle when working with AI on critical business, legal, or research tasks. Sal eliminates this anxiety with an instant on-device referee that verifies assertions before and as they render.

The Three Fact-Checking Badges

Every response generated by Sal is tagged with one of three transparent verification badges:

Interactive Popover Receipts

Click (Mac) or tap (iPhone) any badge to open the Verification Receipt popover:

Saved with Your History

Verification receipts are saved alongside your conversation history, so you can always review them later or see them when syncing between your Mac and companion iPhone.

Thinking Mode

Sal can reason through complex problems step-by-step before answering. Depending on your task, you can easily choose how deeply she thinks:

How to Switch Thinking Levels

You can change your thinking level at any time depending on what you're working on:

• Status Capsule Menu: Click the Status Capsule in the window header while Sal is idle to open the quick-switcher popover.
• Settings Window: Choose your default thinking level under Settings → Intelligence Engine → Thinking (⌘,).

Conversations & Memory

Unlike cloud AI services with enormous context windows, Sal runs locally on your hardware — which means she keeps her attention tightly focused on your current conversation rather than trying to hold everything in memory at once. This is what makes her fast and responsive.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Memory

What you see in Sal's chat window is her short-term memory — the messages she's actively thinking about right now. Sal manages this herself, adjusting how much she holds based on what your Mac can handle.

You can scroll back through your full message history directly in Sal's response panel — there's no separate window to open. As you scroll, your original message for each turn stays pinned at the top so you always know what you asked. Every conversation is safely stored in Sal's long-term memory, and nothing is ever lost.

Long-Term Recall

If you need to revisit something from a past conversation, just ask:

• "Do you remember what we talked about regarding the Q3 budget?"
• "What did I ask you about last Tuesday?"
• "Try to recall our conversation about the kitchen renovation."

Sal will search her long-term memory by topic or timeframe and bring back what she finds. She won't always get it perfectly — but she gets better the more specific you are.

Off the Record (Incognito Mode)

Need to ask a quick one-off question, brainstorm a sensitive idea, or explore a tangent without cluttering your ongoing conversation history? Off the Record gives you a private, temporary thinking space with Sal.

When Off the Record is active, you can converse back-and-forth naturally. However, once you clear the session or close Sal, all off-the-record messages are permanently erased from your device and never committed to Sal's long-term memory.

How to Turn It On

• On Mac: Click the circular Lock icon adjacent to the input bar. The input bar shifts to a distinctive blue accent with the placeholder: “Off the record — won't be saved to memory...”
• On iPhone & iPhone Duo: Press and hold the circular Send button for a fraction of a second until you feel a haptic pulse, then tap Send incognito in the floating menu.

Each off-the-record turn displays an explicit Off the Record status badge with a padlock symbol above your message.

Device-Local Containment

To guarantee complete confidentiality, off-the-record turns stay strictly local to your active device. They are never uploaded to iCloud, never synchronized across devices, and never committed to long-term memory.

Strict Privacy Guarantees

• Natural Follow-Up: Unlike modes that forget context with every turn, Sal remembers what you just said during that active session so you can ask natural follow-up questions.
• Zero Long-Term Memory: Off-the-record conversations are never committed to memory or added to your conversation history.
• Excluded from Search: Off-the-record messages are never indexed, so they will not appear in future searches.
• Automatic Cleanup: When you start a new conversation (⌘N) or quit the app, all off-the-record messages and temporary files are permanently erased.

Permanent Deletion

Off-the-record messages remain in view only while your current chat session is active. They are permanently purged when:

• You clear the session (⌘K) or start a new conversation (⌘N).
• You quit or restart Sal on your Mac or iPhone.

When a purge happens on one device, the deletion automatically propagates to all your paired devices in seconds.

Ephemeral Sight

Sometimes it's easier to show Sal what you're looking at than to describe it. Ephemeral Sight lets Sal take a quick glance at your screen.

How to Use

Instead of pressing Return to send your message, press ⇧ ⌘ Return (Shift + Cmd + Return). Sal will glance at your screen and use what she sees to help answer your message.

Make sure whatever you want Sal to see is visible on screen before you send. There's no visual or audio feedback — she just looks.

Examples

• "What's wrong with this layout?" — while viewing a design
• "Summarise this chart" — while looking at a spreadsheet
• "What does this error mean?" — while staring at a terminal

Artifacts & Inspector

The right half of Sal's 2-Panel Studio is the Artifacts Inspector (⌘⌥I). Rather than a static sidebar, the Inspector is an extensible workbench that keeps your reference documents, live files, audio players, checklists, and background tasks accessible without cluttering your dialogue canvas.

You can resize the inspector anytime by dragging the divider between the two panels. Toggle the inspector open or closed by pressing ⌘⌥I, clicking the sidebar button (◨) in the titlebar, or choosing View → Toggle Inspector. Sal remembers your preferred panel width and open tabs between sessions.

Dual Header Modes

The Inspector operates in two distinct modes via the top header:

• Documents Mode: Your primary workspace for pinned reference documents, data files, audio players, notes, and web pages.
• Terminal Mode: A dedicated console for monitoring live shell commands and background tasks, featuring a green indicator diode whenever a task is actively running.

Dynamic File Tabs & Navigation

The Inspector adapts dynamically to what you are working on:

• Dynamic File Tabs: Dragging files into the chat input, dropping them into the Inspector, or clicking file and web links in Sal's responses automatically opens them as dedicated Inspector tabs.
• Hover-to-Close: Hovering over any open tab reveals a close (×) button to keep your workspace tidy.
• Active Tab Indicator: The active tab is clearly highlighted so you always know which document you are viewing.

The 3-Button Document Action Bar

Every document open in the Inspector features a quick 3-button action strip in its top header:

1. Copy Content: Copies the full extracted document text, Markdown source, or image data with visual confirmation. Extraction runs smoothly off the main thread with a 10 MB safety cap to protect system responsiveness.
2. Reveal in Finder: Instantly reveals and highlights the physical file on your Mac.
3. Open with Default App: Launches the file in its default macOS application (such as Apple Pages, Preview, Xcode, VS Code, Numbers, or Safari). Gracefully disables if no compatible application is installed.

Supported Document Types & Viewers

Sal includes purpose-built native viewers tailored for each content type:

Inline Document Commenting

Markdown documents (.md) support inline commenting directly in the Inspector. Hover over any block — heading, paragraph, quote, code block, table, or math block — to reveal a + bubble at its top-right corner. Click it to open the Comment Margin on the right side of the Inspector, with comment cards vertically aligned to their target paragraphs.

Sending Comments

• Draft comments live locally until you press Send. A capsule banner appears above the input bar showing how many comments are ready, with an option to discard all.
• You don't need to type a message. If you press Send with only comments attached, Sal automatically supplies the prompt: "Please review and address the attached document comments."
• Sal applies your edits directly to the .md file on disk, and the open preview refreshes in place.
• Sent comments sync via iCloud to your iPhone. Tapping the "N Comments on <Document>" chip in the chat timeline shows all quoted passages and notes from either device.

Not supported on: PDFs, code files, images, emails, or spreadsheets. You can still discuss those in chat.

Lightning Recall

Lightning Recall is Sal's semantic file search — a way to find files by meaning, not just filename. Ask Sal to find something and she'll search your indexed folders using full-text semantic matching.

How to Use

Simply ask in natural language: "Find the presentation about Q3 revenue" or "Where's that contract from Acme Corp?"

How It Works

• Sal indexes your documents so she can search them by meaning, not just filename.
• Results are scored by relevance and recency.
• Sal can open, read, or act on any result she finds.

The Results Card

When Sal finds matching files, she displays them in a special results card. From there you can:

• Click a file to open it directly.
• Click the folder icon to open the enclosing folder in Finder.
• Click the ✕ to dismiss the card when you're done.

What Sal Indexes

Sal does her best to index the things that matter and skip the things that don't — system folders, coding directories, and other technical clutter are automatically ignored.

If you want to explicitly tell Sal to skip something, place it in any folder named Archive (or archive). Sal will never read or index anything inside an Archive folder. This is a simple way to keep files on your machine without them showing up in Sal's searches.

Web Search

Sal isn't a search engine — she's a researcher. When she needs information beyond what she already knows, Sal will search the web on her own, visit relevant websites, and read what she finds. She uses this to give you answers that are as complete, accurate, and up to date as possible.

You don't need to do anything special. Just ask your question. If Sal needs the web to answer well, she'll go look — and she'll tell you what she found.

Examples

• "What's the latest on the macOS Sequoia release?"
• "How do I fix this Swift compiler error?"
• "What's the weather in San Francisco?"

URL Context

Paste any URL into your message and Sal will fetch and read the page content. She extracts the main article text, filters out ads and navigation, and distills key facts — all locally.

Examples

• "Summarise this article: https://example.com/long-article"
• "What are the key points from this page?"

Data Intelligence Beta

Sal can read and understand massive spreadsheets using plain conversation — no matter how large the file. Pin a data file to the chat and just ask your question. Sal figures out the answer and gives it to you directly.

This is one of the quiet advantages of running locally. Most AI tools — even the most sophisticated cloud models — read your spreadsheet like a document and make their best guess. Because they process everything as text, they can miss rows, approximate totals, or confidently give you a number that's slightly wrong. Sal works differently: she computes the answer directly from your data, the same way a calculator would. The result is exact, every time, regardless of how large the file is.

Supported File Types

• CSV — Comma-separated values
• TSV — Tab-separated values
• XLSX — Excel spreadsheets (automatically converted to CSV)

How to Use It

1. Drag and drop your .csv, .tsv, or .xlsx file into Sal's chat window, or use the attachment button to pin it.
2. Sal evaluates the file structure to determine whether it qualifies for Data Intelligence (see File Requirements below).
3. You'll see a notification telling you what Sal is doing with the file.
4. Ask your question in plain language:
   • "What is the average sales volume for Q3?"
   • "Which product category had the highest revenue last month?"
   • "Show me everything where the status is 'pending'."

File Requirements

Not every file qualifies for Data Intelligence. When you pin a CSV, TSV, or XLSX file, Sal checks whether it meets the following criteria:

1. Row 1 must be the header row with distinct, non-empty column names.
2. All data rows must have the same number of fields as the header row.
3. No metadata, preamble, or title rows above the header.

If Your File Qualifies

Sal loads the file as a queryable dataset and displays a notification:

"Data Intelligence: Analyzing [filename] (N rows, M columns)"

From this point, you can ask questions in plain English and Sal queries the data using SQL behind the scenes — giving you precise, computed answers rather than guesses.

If Your File Does Not Qualify

The file is not rejected — Sal still reads it, just as a document rather than a structured dataset. She'll display a notification explaining why:

"[filename] will be read as a document — [reason]"

Reasons you may see:

• Header row not detected — Row 1 is empty, contains data rather than column names, or is missing.
• Duplicate column names in header row — Two or more columns share the same name.
• Inconsistent row structure — Some rows have more or fewer fields than the header.

If your file is being read as a document and you'd like the full Data Intelligence experience, check the formatting against the criteria above and re-pin the corrected file.

Scope & Limitations

• Single-file analysis only. Data Intelligence works on one file at a time. Combining data across multiple spreadsheets is not currently supported.
• XLSX conversion. Excel files are automatically converted to CSV before analysis. The same acceptance criteria apply to the converted output.
• Files with preambles. Some exports (common in financial reports, lab data, etc.) include metadata or title rows above the actual data. These files will be treated as documents unless the preamble rows are removed before pinning.

Key Benefits

• Unlimited Scale: Works instantly on files with hundreds of thousands of entries — large files won't slow Sal down or cause errors.
• Automatic Data Cleaning: Sal tidies up date formats and handles blank cells automatically. You don't need to clean or reformat your spreadsheet before asking questions.

Audio & Voice Memos

Sal transcribes, understands, and synchronizes audio recordings directly on your Mac—with zero cloud uploads.

Ingesting Audio into Sal

• Voice Memos Share Extension: Click the Share icon in the native Apple Voice Memos app, select Sal, and Sal ingests the audio and prepares it immediately.
• Drag and Drop: Drag any .m4a or audio recording directly into Sal's input bar or the Artifacts Inspector panel.
• Automatic iCloud Voice Memos: Voice Memos recorded on your iPhone, Apple Watch, or iPad sync via iCloud to your Mac and can be shared into Sal with a single click.

Interactive Voice Memos Studio in the Inspector

When you attach an audio file, open the Voice Memos tab in the Inspector (⌘⌥I) to access the built-in audio studio:

• Synchronized Waveform Player: Watch an interactive audio waveform scrub in real-time with play/pause and volume controls.
• Live Transcript Highlighting: The transcription highlights word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence in perfect synchronization with playback.
• Tap-to-Seek: Click any sentence or phrase in the transcript to immediately jump audio playback to that exact timestamp.
• Persistent Pin Retention: Active audio pins and cached transcriptions survive app restarts, so your active audio work remains immediately available.

Speech Synthesis (TTS) Active Indicator

When Sal reads responses aloud via on-device speech synthesis, the speaker button displays a real-time animated speech wave indicator while audio is actively playing.

Coding & Terminal

Sal can write, execute, and monitor shell commands directly inside your conversation, turning natural language requests into direct terminal actions.

How to Enable the Terminal

To protect your system, terminal execution is disabled by default. You must explicitly opt-in to turn it on:

1. Open Settings (⌘,).
2. Navigate to Tools → Terminal.
3. Toggle the setting to On.

Capabilities

Once enabled, you can ask Sal to automate a wide range of developer and command-line tasks, such as:

• Running scripts: python3 main.py, npm run dev
• Installing dependencies: npm install, pip install -r requirements.txt
• Reading and parsing logs: Tailing log outputs or reading script errors.
• Navigating and managing files: Creating, moving, or editing files and directories.

Command Intelligence Progress Cards

When Sal runs a terminal command, she displays a real-time progress card inline in the conversation. This card shows:

• The active working directory: [Working directory: /path/to/folder]
• The exact shell command being run.
• A status indicator showing if the command is running, completed successfully, or failed.

Dedicated Inspector Terminal View

In addition to inline progress cards inside your conversation, you can monitor and inspect long-running commands directly in the Inspector:

• Live Console Tailing: Switch the Inspector header to Terminal Mode to view live logs and command outputs in real time as builds, test suites, or local servers run.
• Background Status Diode: The Terminal mode tab features an emerald green indicator diode whenever background tasks are actively running.
• Process Switcher: Switch between multiple concurrent processes using a clean dropdown showing active PIDs and command names.
• Auto-Scroll & Termination: Toggle automatic tail scrolling or immediately terminate any background process with a single click.

Task Management & Cancellation

• Cancellation: You can stop any running command at any time by clicking the Cancel button directly on the inline progress card, or by typing cancel [Task ID] in the chat window.
• Background Execution: Sal can run long-running processes (like local web servers or file watch daemons) in the background. If the Sal app is closed, quit, or crashes, she safely terminates and cleans up all active background processes.
• Interactive Commands: Commands that prompt for user input or authentication (such as signing in to a developer service) are fully supported.
• Custom Environments: Sal runs commands using your standard shell setup, so your custom paths, environment variables, and developer tools (like Node, Python, and Git) are available automatically.

Calendar Integration

Sal integrates with your macOS Calendar. She proactively monitors your schedule so she's always aware of what's coming up — without you having to ask.

Capabilities

• View events: "What's on my calendar today?"
• Add events: "Schedule a meeting with Alex tomorrow at 2pm"
• Update events: "Move my 3pm to 4pm"
• Delete events: "Cancel the standup on Friday"
• Open Calendar: Sal can foreground the Calendar app for you

Proactive Awareness

Sal keeps an eye on your calendar in the background. When your schedule changes, she knows — so she's always up to date without you having to tell her.

Your next upcoming event is displayed in a special card in Sal's panel, so you can always see at a glance what's coming up next.

Reminders Integration

Sal can create, update, delete, and manage your macOS Reminders using natural language — just like she does with calendar events.

The Reminders Card

When you have active reminders, a Reminders card appears automatically in Sal's panel. You can:

• Check off reminders directly from the card — no need to open the Reminders app.
• Expand the card to see all your reminders, or collapse it to save space.
• When collapsed, the card shows a badge with the number of urgent or past-due reminders.

Examples

• "Remind me to call the dentist tomorrow morning"
• "What reminders do I have this week?"
• "Mark the grocery list reminder as done"
• "Delete the reminder about the dry cleaning"

Email Integration

Sal can compose and send emails through your default macOS mail client. She drafts the content and opens your mail app with everything pre-filled — you review and click Send.

How It Works

Ask Sal to write an email and she'll open the native macOS composer with the recipient, subject, and body already filled in. You can review, edit, and send from your mail app as usual.

Attachments

Sal can attach files to your emails. If you have documents pinned in the chat, she'll include them automatically. You can also specify files by path: "Email this report to Sarah and attach the budget spreadsheet"

Examples

• "Write an email to alex@company.com thanking them for the meeting"
• "Send an update to the team about the project timeline"
• "Email the contract to legal@company.com with the signed PDF attached"

Image Generation

Sal can generate images right on your Mac. No cloud, no usage limits, no content policies beyond your own judgement. Just describe what you want and she'll create it.

First Time Setup

The image generation model is large (~24 GB) and downloads separately from Sal's core models. On your very first launch, Sal automatically begins downloading it in the background once her core models are ready. This can take 15–45 minutes depending on your connection — but you can start using Sal for everything else immediately. You can also cancel this download if you'd prefer to save bandwidth.

How to Use

Simply describe what you want: "Generate an image of a cozy cabin in the mountains at sunset"

Quality Options

Sal automatically adjusts image generation quality based on your Mac's memory:

• Up to 28 GB RAM: Fast drafts at 4 steps — ideal for quick iterations and concept exploration.
• 32 GB RAM or more: Pro-level quality at 20 steps — unlocks high-fidelity, detailed rendering for production-ready images.

You don't need to configure anything — Sal detects your hardware and uses the appropriate quality setting automatically.

What to Expect

Image generation is resource-intensive — your Mac will be working hard while Sal creates the image. She'll display a progress card so you can see exactly where she is in the process. The results are worth the wait.

Generated images appear inline in the conversation once complete. Double-click any image to open it in the native Mac Preview app, where you can touch it up, share it, or save it to your hard drive.

Image-to-Image Editing

Sal can modify existing images using text prompts. Pin an image to the chat and describe how you want it changed — she'll generate a new version guided by your instructions while preserving the original composition.

How to Use Image Editing

Drop an image into the pinned documents area, then describe your desired changes: "Make this photo look like a watercolor painting" or "Add a sunset background to this image"

Updates

From time to time, we release improved versions of the image generation model. When an update is available, Sal will show a notification card at the top of her panel with the new version and size. You choose what to do:

• Update: Sal will remove the old version to free up disk space and download the new one. Image generation will be offline for 15–45 minutes while this completes.
• Later: Sal will dismiss the notification and won't ask again about that version. Your current image generation continues to work normally.

If you dismiss an update and change your mind later, you can always start it manually from Settings → Intelligence Engine → Draw Package.

Image Understanding

Sal can analyse images — screenshots, photos, diagrams, documents. There are two ways to share an image with her:

• Pin it: Drop the image into the input field or the pinned documents area. Sal will see it as long as it's pinned — great for detailed questions or ongoing reference.
• Ephemeral Sight: Use ⇧ ⌘ Return (Shift + Cmd + Return) to let her glance at your screen. Nothing is stored.

Image-to-Image Editing

This feature also works in reverse. You can use pinned images as a starting point for generating new variations. When you have an image pinned and ask Sal to generate something related, she can use it as a reference to guide the output.

Examples

• "What's in this photo?"
• "Read the text in this screenshot"
• "Describe this diagram"

Speech Synthesis

Sal can speak her responses aloud using your Mac's built-in voices — no network required.

What Makes It Different

When Sal speaks, she doesn't just read her response word for word. She actually summarises it conversationally, so it sounds natural — like someone telling you the answer rather than reciting five paragraphs of text. This makes listening to Sal feel like a real conversation.

Customisation

You can adjust Sal's voice in Settings:

• Voice selection: Choose from any of the voices available on your Mac.
• Speech rate: Speed it up or slow it down to your preference.
• Auto-speak: Turn this on and Sal will speak every response automatically — no need to ask each time.

Controls

• Press ⌘ . (Cmd + Period) to interrupt Sal while she's speaking.
• Click the ⋯ menu on any message and choose Speak to hear a specific message.
• Ask Sal to "read that aloud" or "say that again" anytime.

Things You Can Ask Sal To Do

There's a lot Sal can do for you — all you have to do is ask. Just say what you need in plain language and she'll take care of the rest. Remember, Sal can only help with the things you've given her permission to access.

Files & Folders

• "Open the project proposal on my Desktop"
• "Read the contents of notes.txt"
• "Create a new file called meeting-notes.md"
• "Make a folder called Vacation Photos in my Documents"
• "Move the budget spreadsheet to the Finance folder"
• "Rename that file to final-draft.pdf"

Calendar

• "What's on my calendar tomorrow?"
• "Schedule a meeting with Sarah at 2pm on Friday"
• "Move my dentist appointment to next week"
• "Open the Calendar app"

Reminders

• "Remind me to call the landlord tomorrow morning"
• "What reminders do I have this week?"
• "Mark the grocery reminder as done"
• "Delete the reminder about the dry cleaning"

Web & Research

• "What's the latest news on the Mars mission?"
• "Read this article for me: https://example.com"
• "Search for the best Italian restaurants nearby"
• "Research Apple's AI strategy" — starts a Deep Research job
• "Do a deep dive on the competitive landscape for project management software"

Images

• "Generate an image of a sunset over the ocean"
• "What's in this photo?" (with an image pinned)
• "Make this photo look like a watercolor painting" (image-to-image editing)
• "Add a sunset background to this image" (image modification)

Email

• "Write an email to alex@company.com thanking them for the meeting"
• "Send an update to the team about the project timeline"
• "Email the contract to legal@company.com with the signed PDF attached"
• "Summarize this email thread" (with .eml file pinned)
• "Draft a response to this email" (with .eml file pinned)

System

• "Open Safari"
• "Find files related to the Anderson project"
• "Remember this for later"

Work Modes (Personas)

Sal is built for serious work. Instead of generic chatbot banter or gimmicky personalities, Sal offers three focused professional modes designed to match how you work: Software Engineer (for coding), Creative Copywriter (for writing and marketing), and Critical Thinker (for research and strategic analysis).

Switching modes instantly adjusts how Sal thinks, communicates, and structures her responses—giving you concise, high-impact results without polite fluff or filler.

1. Software Engineer

When to use: Writing code, reviewing pull requests, debugging errors, or architecting systems.

• Code first: Gives you clean code and terminal commands immediately.
• Pinpoints issues: References exact filenames and line numbers when troubleshooting.
• Minimal explanation: Skips long-winded essays when a clear snippet or diff is all you need.

2. Creative Copywriter

When to use: Writing website copy, product announcements, emails, or polishing existing drafts.

• Understands audience: Focuses on what makes writing resonate with real people.
• Cuts the fluff: Strips out corporate jargon and passive phrasing for clear, rhythmic copy.
• Provides options: Suggests several alternative drafts so you can pick the one that fits best.

3. Critical Thinker

When to use: Evaluating business strategies, preparing for negotiations, reviewing proposals, or stress-testing plans.

• Honest feedback: Doesn't just tell you what you want to hear. Actively highlights assumptions and potential risks.
• Weighs trade-offs: Explores both sides of a decision to help you see around corners.
• Fact-checked: Pulls in current web information and your past notes to ground its thinking.

Sal (Default) & Custom Mode

• Sal (Default): The balanced everyday mode. Clear, concise, and helpful for general day-to-day tasks.
• Custom: Want Sal to follow specific guidelines for your firm or workflow? Select Custom in Settings to write your own instructions.

How to Switch Modes

Open Settings → Identity (press ⌘,), and choose your preferred mode from the Persona dropdown. Switching is instant—your past chat history and memory remain completely intact.

Appearance & Text Size

Under Settings → Identity, you can also personalize Sal’s look and feel:

• Name: Change what Sal calls herself.
• Voice & Speaking Rate: Pick any Mac system voice and adjust playback speed.
• Color Theme: Choose an accent theme that customizes the idle diode and highlights across the app to match your desktop setup.
• Text Size Slider: Adjust the chat text size from 80% to 140% for optimal reading comfort. Click the percentage label to reset to 100%.
• Cross-Device iCloud Sync: Your name, assistant name, color theme, and verification preferences automatically sync between your Mac and companion iPhone via your private iCloud account.

Verification & Badges

Sal gives you full control over how fact-checking badges appear in your conversations.

Settings → Verification

Open Settings (⌘,) and select the Verification tab:

• Fact-Checking Badges (Default: ON): Toggles the display of verification badges (✓ Grounded, ⚡ Training, ⚠️ Caution) on assistant responses.
• Cross-Device iCloud Sync: Your verification preferences automatically sync between your Mac and companion iPhone via your private iCloud account.

Window Sizing & Layout

Sal's 2-Panel Studio is built with standard macOS window management, allowing you to freely position, resize, or full-screen the workspace across multiple displays and Spaces.

Window Sizing

• Minimum Bounds: 580 × 420 pt (designed for compact laptop screens).
• Default Launch Bounds: 1280 × 820 pt (designed for comfortable side-by-side dialogue canvas and inspector workbench).
• Resizable Split Divider: Drag the divider between the conversation and the inspector to adjust panel width. Sal remembers your preferred layout.
• Hide-on-Close: Closing the window (⌘W) preserves all active session state, background tasks, and open tabs in memory. Press ⌥Space or click the Dock icon to restore it instantly.

Menu Bar & Shortcuts

Sal is fully compliant with the Apple Human Interface Guidelines and provides canonical macOS menu bar hierarchy: File, Edit, View, Session, Window, and Help.

Keyboard Shortcuts Reference

Models

Sal uses several AI models, each specialised for a different job. The core models download during initial setup so Sal is ready quickly. The image generation model downloads on demand the first time you need it.

Core Models (downloaded at setup)

On-Demand

All models run entirely on your machine. No cloud servers are ever used for your conversations.

Privacy Guards

Sal was built from day one around a single principle: your data never leaves your Mac.

What This Means

• No cloud servers: All AI processing happens directly on your Mac via Apple Silicon.
• Zero tracking: Sal sends no usage data, analytics, or background tracking to any server.
• No account required: No sign-up, no email, no profile. Your license key is all you need.
• Ephemeral screenshots: Screen captures are processed in memory and immediately discarded.
• Local conversation history: Your chat history is stored strictly on your Mac. It is never uploaded to any remote server.
• Network usage: The only times Sal accesses the internet are: license activation, model download (once), web search (when you ask), and update checks.

Updates

Sal checks for updates automatically. When an update is available, you will receive an in-app prompt and system notification with release notes.

How It Works

• Updates are cryptographically signed and verified before installation.
• You choose when to install — updates are never forced.

Licensing & Subscriptions

Sal for Mac is offered as a flat monthly subscription ($9.99/month, including an unconditional 14-day free trial). Sal for iPhone is completely free. We no longer offer a single purchase or one-time license.

Your subscription includes continuous updates, ongoing model enhancements, and truly unlimited on-device reasoning with zero token caps. You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time via the billing portal link in your LemonSqueezy email receipt.

Each active subscription license key is tied to a single Mac. If you need to use Sal on an additional Mac, a separate subscription is required for that machine.

Reporting Bugs

Found something that isn't working perfectly? We want to hear about it, and we've built a native reporting tool directly into the app.

How to Report

In the macOS menu bar, simply choose Help → Report a Bug (or use the Session menu). Fill out the quick form to describe what happened.

In the form, you will see checkboxes giving you the option to securely include your Chat History (which automatically strips out Personally Identifiable Information / PII), the App Crash Report, and the Server Crash Report.

We highly recommend voluntarily checking all three boxes when reporting a bug. It securely gives our engineers the exact blueprint we need to instantly isolate the issue, allowing us to patch it quickly so everyone benefits.

Getting Help

The best way to get help is to ask Sal — she knows this manual and can answer questions about her own features.

Support Policy: Direct customer and technical support is provided exclusively for active, paid Sal for Mac subscribers. The free Sal for iPhone app is self-service and unsupported; community discussions and peer tips are welcome in our Discord community.

Other Channels

• Community: Join the official HelloPartner.ai Discord Server to talk directly with the founders and community.
• Email (Mac Subscribers): hello@hellopartner.ai
• User Manual: You're reading it — also available as a downloadable PDF.
• Website: www.hellopartner.ai

Thank you for choosing Sal. We believe AI belongs to you — on your own computer, in your own home. Without asking permission. Without handing over your data. Without paying rent on your own knowledge. That's why we built her.