Poinky

At a glance

Poinky is a free, MIT-licensed macOS app that sits in the Mac's notch, or in the menu bar on Macs without one. Hold Control and Option, ask a question out loud about what is on screen, and let go. It answers by voice, points at the relevant spot with a small cursor buddy and sketches an explanation with a yellow pen. It can also show you each click for a task, or type text for you. It asks before sending anything. Claude does the reasoning.

Good fit

Mac users who want spoken, visual help with whatever is in front of them: a dense article, an unfamiliar app menu ("How do I export this?"), or a form to fill in. It suits people who already pay for Claude Pro or Max, because Poinky can run through their signed-in Claude Code. Claude Code users can also hand larger project tasks to background agents.

Consider something else when

Skip it if you are on Windows, Linux or a Mac older than macOS 26. Also skip it if you will not give an app Screen Recording and microphone access. It does not suit anyone who wants a signed app to download and double-click: Poinky is not notarized, so it is built from source on your machine. You also need either a Claude subscription or an Anthropic API key.

Start here

Run curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tomyud1/poinky/main/install.sh | bash. To skip the roughly 350 MB natural voice and use Apple's voice instead, end the command with bash -s -- --no-voice. Next, run claude in Terminal and sign in, or add an API key under Settings, Claude. Hold Control and Option, ask something and let go. Allow Microphone and Speech Recognition when macOS asks. Then turn Poinky on under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Screen & System Audio Recording, and reopen the app.

Cost and requirements

As of 2026-11-02, Poinky itself is free and open source. To use the model you need either Claude Code signed in on a Claude Pro or Max plan, or an Anthropic API key billed per use. Background agents need Claude Code. You also need macOS 26 or later, an internet connection, Apple's Command Line Tools (the installer prompts for them) and about 1 GB of disk. It was built and tested on Apple Silicon. It should work on Intel Macs but has not been tested there.

Limits to know

Because Poinky is not notarized, every install or update means building it from source, which takes a few minutes. The natural voice (Kokoro) runs locally and is English only. Speech becomes text on your Mac, but screenshots go to Claude when you ask a question, so it does not work offline. Clicking or typing for you requires Accessibility permission. If you deny codesign access to the local signing certificate, macOS may ask for permissions again after updates. Uninstalling leaves Poinky in the macOS permissions list until you remove it there.

Still unclear

• How much a typical question costs in Anthropic API usage, or how much it counts against Pro or Max limits.
• Whether spoken questions work in languages other than English.