REVIEW · AI KNOWLEDGE ASSISTANT
Verdict: Elephas is worth it for professionals who want AI help with sensitive documents: it indexes files on your Mac, redacts 28 types of personal data before any cloud call, and can run fully offline. It is an AI workspace for documents you add to it, not a tool for finding a file you have lost somewhere on your Mac.
23 October 2026 · By Ishtiaque Hossain · 5 minute read
Looking for a file you can describe but not name? Try Shlexball. The first 30 searches are free and need no account.
macOS 15 or later. Apple silicon. 16 GB memory. On a phone? Email yourself the link.
This review is based on Elephas's own pages, read on 14 October 2026. Every claim links to the page it came from. We are the makers of Shlexball, so we say plainly where Elephas does better.
| Price | Free with 20 credits a month; Standard 19 USD, Professional 39 USD, Pro+ 49 USD a month; yearly billing saves about 17% |
| Trial | 7 days of Pro with every new download, no credit card |
| Runs on | macOS 13 or later; iPhone and iPad apps; Windows on a waitlist |
| Where your data goes | Indexing on your Mac; redaction before cloud AI; optional fully offline mode |
| Works with | PDFs, Word, Excel, Apple Notes, Notion, Obsidian, Zoom transcripts, Markdown and more |
| Best for | Consultants, lawyers, accountants and researchers handling confidential files |
Elephas is an AI knowledge assistant for Mac, iPhone and iPad, built for working with your own documents, especially sensitive ones. Its makers say more than 3,000 professionals use it.
Its centre is the Super Brain: a workspace for a project or client where you add PDFs, notes, contracts and research. Elephas indexes them on your Mac, then lets you summarize, search and ask questions, with every answer pointing to the files it came from.
The second half is Super Command, an AI writing assistant that appears in any app with one keyboard shortcut to summarize, rewrite, translate, fix grammar or draft from your own documents.
Privacy is the whole pitch. Elephas says indexing always happens on your Mac, so custody of your files never changes hands.
Before any content reaches a cloud AI model, Elephas detects and redacts 28 types of sensitive data on your Mac, including names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, tax IDs, account numbers, passport numbers and case numbers. Redaction means the details are blanked out, so the AI model sees only the redacted version.
You choose where the AI runs: offline with a local model, through Elephas's built-in cloud AI, or with your own API key from more than 15 providers. Elephas says its cloud requests run with zero data retention, meaning providers do not log, store or train on them.
Its built-in AI is powered by OpenAI and Anthropic models. Local models are optional; Elephas works out of the box with cloud AI.
The free plan includes 20 credits a month for the built-in AI, and every new download gets 7 days of Pro automatically, with no credit card. Credits are spent on chat; automated indexing of new Super Brains does not use them.
Standard costs 19 USD a month with 100 credits. Professional costs 39 USD a month with 500 credits, and adds integrations with Apple Notes, Notion and Obsidian, the Super Brain, and access to your Super Brains on iPhone and iPad.
Pro+ costs 49 USD a month with 1,000 credits under a fair use policy, plus a full redaction inspector, optional offline AI workflows, onboarding and priority support. Paying yearly saves about 17%.
A Mac App Store version exists, but it includes only the Super Brain feature; the sandbox rules there mean Super Command and the writing features are missing.
Elephas searches the documents you have added to a Super Brain and answers from them with sources. That is powerful for a defined set of files, such as one client's contracts.
It is a different job from finding a file you have lost. You build the Super Brain first, and Elephas works within it rather than scanning your whole Mac for a document you forgot to add.
Elephas names its audience clearly: consultants under NDA, lawyers, accountants, researchers, financial advisors and anyone keeping private notes. If you would otherwise paste client material into a chatbot, its redaction and offline mode are the reason to pay.
Start with the free download and the 7-day Pro trial, then choose a plan by how much AI chat you use and whether you need the redaction inspector.
Shlexball finds a file on your Mac from a plain-English description of what you remember, searching file and folder names and the text inside files, including PDFs and Word documents. You do not add anything to it first.
Its 1.5B-parameter language model runs on your Mac and files are never uploaded. There are 30 free searches with no account, then 9 USD a month or 59 USD a year.
No importing: Shlexball searches files where they already are on your Mac. 30 free searches.
▶ DOWNLOAD SHLEXBALLThere is a free plan with 20 credits a month. Standard is 19 USD a month, Professional 39 USD and Pro+ 49 USD, and yearly billing saves about 17%.
Elephas indexes on your Mac, redacts 28 types of sensitive data before any cloud request, and offers a fully offline mode. Its built-in cloud AI runs with zero data retention, according to Elephas.
Yes. With a local model, Elephas can run fully offline with no data leaving your device. Local models are optional.
Yes. Every new download includes 7 days of Pro, activated automatically, with no credit card required.