The notch
Outmake lives in the notch at the top of your screen (on a Mac with no notch, it sits at the top middle of the screen instead). Point at it any time to open a small chat box beside it, called the peek. Type a message there and press Return.
The window
For a longer conversation, open the full chat window. Click the sidebar, or use New Chat (⌘N) from the Chat menu. The window keeps your sidebar of past chats on the left and the conversation on the right, and you can hide the sidebar from View › Hide Sidebar (⌃⌘S).
Your first chat
Type in the box and press Return. Outmake answers with whichever agent and model you last used, shown above the composer; tap it to switch. The first time you use Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini, Outmake asks you to sign in with that company (the first message on Claude or ChatGPT also downloads Node.js, which they run on, if your Mac doesn’t have it); a model from Models runs on this Mac and needs no sign-in at all. See Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and OpenCode and Models on this Mac.
The first time Outmake opens, five short screens set it up: an agent to chat with, memories and chats to bring over, and features to turn on. Help › Welcome shows them again whenever you like.
Bringing your chats from ChatGPT or Claude
Ask ChatGPT or Claude for an export of your data in their settings; each sends a link to a .zip. Then choose Chat › Import Chats… and pick that .zip (or the conversations.json inside it). Your chats appear in the sidebar under their own dates, and you can carry on any of them with whichever agent you like. Only the words come over: pictures and files stay behind, and a note marks where they were. Importing the same export again adds nothing twice. Nothing is sent anywhere while importing.
Useful shortcuts
- ⌘N: New chat
- ⌘T: New chat in a new tab
- ⌘F: Find in this chat
- ⇧⌘F: Search all chats
- ⌘K: Open Quickly, to go to any chat, page or setting by typing part of its name
- ⌘.: Stop a reply
- ⌘,: Settings
The full list is in Settings › General.