Elephas
A Mac writing assistant that works inside any app and can answer questions using your own saved notes and PDFs, with a specific focus on protecting confidential client work.
What you'd use it for
Getting AI writing and research help anywhere on a Mac, including answers drawn from your own notes and PDFs, without sending confidential client material to the cloud unredacted.
- Trigger an AI assistant with a keyboard shortcut inside any Mac app to rewrite, summarise or draft text on the spot
- Build a workspace from your own PDFs, Word files and notes and ask it questions, with the answer citing which document it came from
- Redact 28 types of sensitive data — names, SSNs, credit card numbers, legal case numbers — before anything reaches a cloud AI
- Run entirely offline on Apple Silicon so client material never has to leave the machine
- Pull context directly from Apple Notes, Notion and Obsidian without copying it into a separate app
The verdict
Elephas earns its place for one specific job — AI help that follows you into any Mac app while keeping client material demonstrably off the cloud. The redaction inspector and offline mode at Pro+ are the real reason to pay for it, a compliance answer rather than just more AI. Below that tier it is a competent but unremarkable writing assistant, and the $19-39/mo plans only pay for themselves if you are working across documents and notes daily rather than dabbling. None of it matters if your team is not on a Mac.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | Trying the platform. | 20 credits/mo with the built-in Elephas AI engine. |
| Standard | $19/mo | Knowledge workers, marketers, and researchers. | AI chat and writing across Mac, basic document and note workflows, PDF and file support, cloud AI with zero data retention, automatic sensitive-data protection. |
| Professional | $39/mo | Daily work across documents and notes. | Everything in Standard, plus 500 monthly credits, integrations with Apple Notes, Notion and Obsidian, cross-device access (Mac/iPhone/iPad), basic redaction visibility. |
| Pro+ | $49/mo | Client work under NDA where exposure is a real risk. | Everything in Professional, plus a full redaction inspector, detailed per-message redaction visibility, optional offline AI, 1,000 monthly credits, one-on-one onboarding. |
Read from Elephas's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- macOS 13 or later; Apple Silicon (M1 or later) if you want the offline AI mode
- The direct website download rather than the Mac App Store build, to get Super Command and the full text-editing features
About five minutes from download to a first cited answer, per Elephas's own quick-start guide — longer if you also grant the Accessibility and Automation permissions Super Command needs to work system-wide.
Your first run Download the full version from elephas.app (the Mac App Store build drops Super Command), create a workspace, drag in a few PDFs or notes, and ask a question — Elephas answers with a citation to the source document in about five minutes.
Where it breaks
Every tier is Mac-only, so this is not an option at all for a Windows-based team, regardless of how well the redaction and privacy features fit a confidentiality-sensitive workflow.
macOS only — no Windows, web, or mobile-first version. Works system-wide across any Mac app rather than being scoped to one editor, and reads from your own saved notes and PDFs to answer questions grounded in your own material.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
When not to use it
Not for a Windows or mixed-platform team — there is no web app and Windows is still a waitlist, so none of the redaction or system-wide advantages are reachable. Also not for someone who only wants a browser-tab grammar checker; the confidentiality tooling here is overkill for that job and the price reflects it.
Elephas works everywhere on a Mac rather than inside one app — the assistant is reachable from any text field system-wide, and it can pull context from your own saved notes and PDFs to answer questions grounded in material you’ve actually written, not just general knowledge. That system-wide reach is the real differentiator against a browser-extension tool like Linguix or Outwrite, which only work in a browser tab.
The redaction feature is built for a specific fear
Pro+ ($49/mo) exists for one clear reason: client work under NDA, where sending anything through a cloud AI service is a real compliance risk. The redaction inspector shows exactly what’s being sent per message, and the optional offline AI mode avoids the cloud entirely. That is a meaningfully different value proposition from the lower tiers — it’s not “more AI,” it’s “provable control over what leaves your machine.”
Where the tiers actually differ
Standard and Professional differ mostly in credit volume and integrations (Apple Notes, Notion, Obsidian) rather than core capability — most individual users will know within a month of real use whether 500 credits at Professional is enough, or whether the redaction visibility at Pro+ actually matters for their client agreements.
The hard limit
This only runs on macOS. If your team is mixed-platform, or you need a web or mobile-first assistant, none of Elephas’s privacy and integration advantages are reachable — you’re looking at a different tool entirely.
Alternatives
Writing & editingAppsLinguix
A grammar and rewriting checker that works across any browser text box, with a paid tier for teams that adds shared snippets and style rules.
Writing & editingAppsOutwrite
Rewrites sentences for clarity and length and shows a readability score as you edit, on top of standard grammar and spelling checks.
Documents & filesAppsHumata
Upload a stack of PDFs and ask questions across all of them at once, with answers that cite the page they came from.
Assistants & chatAppsNotebookLM
Upload your own documents and ask questions answered only from them, with citations back to the exact passage, plus generated audio summaries of the material.
Get Elephas
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
The ebook is about what to hand over, in what order, and how you find out when it goes wrong. One payment, no subscription.