Lasso

Lasso is a menu-bar app for Apple Silicon Macs — think "Circle to Search," but

native and local by default.

The problem: getting text, context, or answers off your screen usually means

screenshotting, uploading to some cloud tool, and hoping your data isn't kept.

The solution: hit a hotkey (⌃⇧C), the screen freezes, you drag a box around

anything, and a toolbar pops up. From there you can:

• Copy text — OCR pulls the words straight out of the image

• Translate in place — the translation overlays the original text where it sits

• Summarize / Ask AI — including questions about images with no text

• Identify — point it at an object, product, or place for a sourced answer

• Google Lens, QR/barcode scan, and color picker

• A persistent multi-turn chat panel (⌃⇧A) for follow-up questions

What's unique: it's local by default. Text, summaries, and vision all run

on-device via Apple Intelligence, Ollama, or MLX — nothing leaves your Mac

unless you opt in. There's a Local-only mode that blocks every network call

except your chosen model, for managed/work Macs. API keys live in the macOS

Keychain. Cloud models (OpenAI-compatible, Anthropic) are supported but strictly

opt-in.