Power users on flights, offline AI on Mac
Dec 11, 2025
Power users on flights, offline AI on Mac
If you work from airports and planes, you know the pattern.
You save a pile of PDFs for the flight. Board decks, contracts, exports, meeting notes. Once you are in the air, the Wi Fi is slow or useless. Your usual AI tools live in browser tabs that cannot reach their servers. You are back to opening one document after another and skimming.
You bought a powerful MacBook for a reason. It should not stop being smart when the network drops.
With Fenn, your Mac can run private AI offline. Fenn indexes your files on device, then lets you search and chat with contracts, decks, Mail and more, even when you are in airplane mode. Models run on Apple silicon, your files stay on your SSD.
Why cloud AI breaks the moment you board
Cloud AI is perfect on a desk with stable internet. On a plane it falls apart.
Typical flight reality:
Wi Fi is expensive, unreliable, or locked down
VPNs and corporate tools do not always work
Browser chatbots cannot reach their APIs
Uploading large PDFs is painful or impossible
You end up with gigabytes of storage and zero assistance.
At the same time, your Mac is sitting there with:
A fast M series chip
Plenty of RAM
A big SSD full of the documents that matter
The only missing part is a private AI layer that lives on that hardware instead of in the cloud.
What offline AI on Mac looks like with Fenn
Fenn turns your Mac into a private search and chat engine that works without a connection.
When you have network, you:
Install Fenn on your Apple silicon Mac
Point it at your key folders and Apple Mail storage
Let it index on device, using your CPU and GPU
After that, even in airplane mode, you can:
Search across PDFs, docs, spreadsheets, and long reports
Search text inside images and screenshots
Search Apple Mail messages stored on your Mac
Use Semantic, Keyword, Hybrid, and Exact modes
Use Chat mode to ask questions in plain language about your files
All of that runs locally. Fenn does not need to call a cloud model to work.
Flight use cases where local AI shines
Board prep at 30,000 feet
You can land with a real plan instead of half read decks.
On the flight you:
Ask Fenn chat, “What did we tell the board about runway in the last three decks. Summarize the numbers and assumptions.”
Ask, “Collect the slides and emails that mention moving from Sequoia to Tahoe. Highlight risks we called out.”
Fenn uses your indexed board PDFs, internal docs, and Mail on your Mac. You stay offline and still get a clear summary tied to your real material.
Contract and legal review in quiet time
Flights are often the only solid block of uninterrupted time you get.
Instead of scrolling through one contract at a time, you can:
Ask, “Which NDAs in this folder auto renew and require more than 60 days notice. List counterparties and clauses.”
Ask, “Summarize liability caps across our active customer contracts and show any unusual terms.”
You check the answers by opening the PDFs in your usual viewer. The AI did the first pass, your legal judgment stays in charge.
Finance and ops without shared drives
You might not have access to every remote data source in the air. You still have your exports.
On the flight you can:
Ask, “Invoices from vendor X above 500 dollars in 2024, grouped by month and project. Use PDFs and spreadsheets in the Finance folder.”
Ask, “Where in our board decks and screenshots do we show margin dropping below 60 percent. Pull a short recap.”
Your Mac becomes the analyst that already has context from past decks and exports.
Product and research deep dives
Offline hours are perfect for reconnecting with long form material.
Point Fenn at your research PDFs, notes, design briefs, and screenshots, then ask:
“Summarize feedback about search on Mac gathered this year across research docs and support notes.”
“Show key arguments for and against moving to macOS Tahoe from internal docs and slides.”
Instead of skimming hundreds of pages, you get a structured summary you can refine with follow up questions.
How search modes still help when chat is not needed
Chat is not the only tool. Fenn’s search modes remain extremely useful offline.
Semantic
Ask, “contract pages that mention auto renew and 60 days notice” and jump to candidates.Keyword
Perfect for exact legal phrasing, product names, or compliance language.Hybrid
Mix intent and exact wording for messy archives.Exact
Find IDs, invoice numbers, and codes when every character matters.
On a long flight you can move between modes and Chat. Use search to jump to the right PDF page, then use chat to recap, compare, or connect what you found.
Why RAM and Apple silicon matter for offline AI
Local AI on a Mac has real physical limits.
Models live in memory while they work
The more RAM you have, the more powerful or efficient models you can run comfortably
The larger your indexed archive, the more your Mac benefits from headroom
In practice:
16 GB of RAM is enough to run Fenn and Chat mode, especially if you focus on realistic workloads
32 GB or more feels better on heavy archives with lots of PDFs, Mail, and screenshots
Newer M series chips make everything smoother and more efficient on battery
You do not have to upgrade your Mac for Fenn to be useful. You get value today. If you are already on a high end MacBook Pro, Fenn is how you turn that hardware into a private AI engine that follows you onto the plane.
Simple setup for people who travel
You can get ready for your next trip in one focused session.
Install Fenn on your Apple silicon Mac
Sonoma 14 or later is recommended.Select the right sources
Board and investor decks
Contracts and legal folders
Finance exports and invoices
Product specs, research, and design docs
Screenshots and internal reference images
Local Apple Mail storage for important accounts
Let Fenn index while you are online
The initial pass uses your Mac, not a server. Leave it plugged in if you have a large archive.Test in airplane mode
Turn Wi Fi off. Open Fenn. Run a few searches and Chat questions that match real work.Before each trip, sync new material
Save the latest decks, PDFs, and exports into your indexed folders so they are available on the flight.
After that, your travel routine changes. You do not panic when the Wi Fi drops. You keep moving through confidential work in a private, local environment.
Pricing
If you travel with a Mac full of sensitive files, Fenn is a small line item compared to the value of working offline without leaking anything to random networks.
Local, 9 USD per month, billed annually
On device indexing. Semantic and keyword search. Chat with your own files on 1 Mac. Updates. Founder support.Lifetime, 199 USD one time
On device indexing. Semantic and keyword search. Chat mode on 1 Mac. 1 year of updates. Founder support.
You already paid for storage, RAM, and a serious chip. Fenn lets you use all of that in the one place cloud AI cannot follow, offline.
Download Fenn for Mac. Private on device. Find the moment, not the file.