Getting Started with Intelligence

Fetchii 1.1 adds an on-device AI layer to your library: subtitle generation, search by meaning, instant summaries, private translation, and smart renaming. Everything runs locally on your Mac — no cloud, no account, no extra cost. This guide covers what you need, how to turn it on, and how the pieces fit together.

What You Need

• An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later). On Intel Macs the rest of Fetchii works normally, but the Intelligence features are unavailable and stay hidden.
• macOS 14 Sonoma or later — same as the app itself.
• Some disk space for models, depending on what you enable (roughly 0.2–4.3 GB per model). Models download on demand and can be deleted anytime.

Everything is optional. The only switch that starts out on is Search by meaning, and it has nothing to do until a video has subtitles Fetchii generated — so nothing downloads and nothing runs until you opt in.

Turning It On

Open Settings → Intelligence. The page starts with On-Device Models — the three models the features use. Turn on a feature, and Fetchii fetches the model it needs the first time it runs (or click Download Now under the feature, or Download on the model's row):

• Speech — creates subtitles for any video, even ones with none. Two sizes in the row's menu: Best quality (Large v3 Turbo, 632 MB, the default on 16 GB+ Macs) and Faster (Small, 216 MB, the default on 8 GB Macs).
• Language — powers summaries, tidy file name suggestions, and private translation. Three sizes: Compact (870 MB), Standard (2.3 GB, the default), and High quality (4.3 GB, shown on 16 GB+ Macs).
• Search — indexes your subtitles so you can find any moment just by describing it, even across languages (~470 MB).

Each model row shows its status — a Download button, download progress, or Ready — and the … menu next to Ready has Delete if you want the disk space back.

The feature switches sit below, grouped as Subtitles, Translation, Summaries & Names, and Search.

Tip: Not sure where to start? Turn on Generate subtitles automatically on this Mac and keep Search by meaning on. Together they make your whole library searchable — everything else builds on that.

Where the Features Live

Hover over a completed download and click the sparkles button (✦) to open its Intelligence popover. Once a video has subtitles or a summary, the row carries an AI chip instead — it reads Transcribing…, Subtitles, or Summary — and clicking it opens the same popover, which is home to:

• The video's summary (with a Copy summary button)
• Generate subtitles / Show Subtitle File
• Translate Subtitles to [your language]
• A name suggestion with a Rename button
• The video's subtitle, search-index, and translation status

Prefer a side panel? Turn on the inspector (View → Show Inspector, ⌘I): its Summary section shows the same content for the selected download, and the chip selects the row instead of opening the popover. Generate subtitles and Smart Rename are also in each download's right-click menu.

For the full detail on each feature, see Generating Subtitles, Searching by Meaning, Translating Subtitles, and Summaries & Smart Naming.

Privacy, in Plain Terms

All Intelligence features run entirely on your Mac:

• Your videos, audio, subtitles, and summaries never leave the machine.
• No account, no API key, no usage metering, no subscription.
• The models are open-weight and run locally — the same ones credited on our Acknowledgments page.

The single exception is the optional online translation engine, which you can choose to configure with your own API key — it sends subtitle text directly from your Mac to the provider you pick, never through Fetchii's servers, and it's off by default. See Translating Subtitles for details.

Memory and Performance

Fetchii shares one loaded language model across summaries, naming, and translation, so RAM use stays predictable:

• 8 GB Macs: everything works — Fetchii defaults to the lighter Speech size and the Standard Language size.
• 16 GB+ Macs: the larger, higher-quality sizes are available; Best quality is the default for Speech.

The first AI action after launch takes a few extra seconds while the model warms up; after that, it stays ready. The very first time a model is used, Fetchii prepares it on your Mac ("Preparing…"), which can take a few minutes.

Troubleshooting

• No Intelligence page in Settings? Your Mac has an Intel processor — the AI features require Apple Silicon.
• A feature's toggle is on but nothing happens? Check the model rows under On-Device Models at the top of the Intelligence page — the model may still be downloading, or may need a Retry.
• Want the disk space back? Delete any model from the … menu on its row. Fetchii downloads it again the next time a feature needs it.