Most writing software makes you pick a side: keep your files on your own computer and give up the AI, or use the AI and hand your files to somebody else's server. Strokes is a desktop writing app for macOS and Windows that does both.

The editor comes first. Your documents are files in folders on your machine, and you can write, edit and export with no internet connection. Page view or pageless, projects and folders, the blocks you need (headings, lists, tables, images, code blocks with syntax highlighting) and a version history kept on your device, with previews, restore and manual saves. A 300-page document works as fast as a one-page note. Strokes is a full editor even if you never open the assistant: it stays quiet until you call it, and only suggests.

Beside the document sits a personal assistant. Ask about any passage without leaving the page: explain it, suggest structure, check an argument, brainstorm the next section. Attach files so it reads them first, have it browse the web and answer beside your draft, create an image for the document, ask it to polish and finalize a draft or to review it. Select text and press Cmd+K to ask for a change in place. Every edit it proposes appears in your text as a suggestion you accept or reject; nothing changes silently. For bigger jobs, agent mode works across the files in a project step by step: it can read documents, make a copy, write and edit text, create documents and folders, and every step appears in the chat so you can open a document and accept the changes you want. Requests can be dictated with the microphone.

Import Word, Markdown, plain text and Notion exports, and Strokes keeps the formatting. Export to PDF, Word, EPUB, Markdown, plain text and HTML. Share a document as a public read-only page with a link you can unpublish at any time.

Privacy is a design rule, not a feature. Nothing in your documents leaves your device unless you send part of it to an AI feature, publish it, or turn on cloud backups. Strokes never trains AI on your writing, and the text you send to the assistant is processed under business terms that do not allow training on it. No ads, no advertising trackers.

Pricing: a free plan with all writing features, publishing and sharing, unlimited documents and files, and the assistant for chat, edits and web research with a limited allowance. Plus ($9/month) adds encrypted cloud backups, external connections, image creation and 5x the usage with no daily limits. Pro ($29/month) adds Deep mode, multi-agent mode and 15x the usage.

Strokes launched on 30 September 2026 and is built by Happy Vibes, Inc. for people who care about words: writers, editors, researchers, documentation people and anyone whose day is mostly text.