Generating images using AI is fun and sometimes even useful, but the image generation usually happens on a server that someone else controls. If you’d rather have a native Mac application for the job, one that works completely offline and is therefore completely private, then DiffusionBee is what you’re looking for.

This Mac-only application can download AI models to generate images, then run those models entirely on your computer. Rendering takes just a few seconds on Apple Silicon devices; older Intel-based Macs are also supported, but rendering takes longer: about five minutes in my tests.

The application offers a number of different AI tools that you can use: from generating an image from text to modifying existing images. You have to download models before you can do anything, and those models take up a few GB on your computer.

The text-to-image generator is perhaps the most basic: just type in whatever you want and it will be given to you. You can also provide an image and ask it to redo it using a text prompt. The results are of course always spot on, just as you would expect from an AI tool (which is my sarcastic way of saying that you may have to try a few different prompts before you get the results you want.)