Blablador,
native on your devices
Chat with the open models of Helmholtz Blablador on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi. Talk to it, search the web, send photos and PDFs, create images and give it a voice, even your own. It remembers what you tell it and learns the way you like things done.
See it in action
- Ask about today. Blablador searches the web, reads the pages and answers with numbered sources. Ask about a person or place and it shows pictures too.
- Just chat. Blablador remembers what matters, about you and the things you discuss, in every later chat, and you can see and edit what it remembers in Settings.
- Teach it a task, like how you want meeting notes. It offers to save the steps as a skill and follows them next time.
- Tap + for web search, image creation, speech, photos, the camera or a PDF.
- Send a photo and ask what it shows.
- Turn on Speak and type what should be said. Add pauses, laughs or whispers from the Expressions menu.
- Build a knowledge base from your PDFs, switch it on with the books button or by typing # and its name, and ask questions across all of them.
- Attach a PDF and ask questions about it. Scanned pages are read with OCR right on your device.
Everything Blablador can do
All Blablador models
Streaming replies from every chat model on the server. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash by default, switch any time.
Long-term memory
Blablador learns from every chat: facts about you, your projects, decisions and conclusions, and uses them in later chats. Related memories are linked, so asking about one person or project brings back the facts connected to it. It also finds earlier conversations when you refer to them. See, edit or delete every memory in Settings.
Skills
Write instructions once for the tasks you repeat, such as meeting notes or press releases, and Blablador follows them whenever the task comes up. It can suggest new skills for you to save. Share and import skills as Markdown files.
Runs Python for you
Ask for a calculation, an analysis or a plot and Blablador writes and runs Python right on your device, with numpy, pandas and matplotlib. Attach a CSV, Excel or JSON file and ask about your own data; plots appear in the reply.
Connect your tools
Add MCP servers, such as GitLab, a calendar or your own services, and Blablador can use their tools in every chat, each call with your OK.
From anywhere
Share a web page, photo, PDF or spreadsheet to Blablador from any app, open files with it, or use the Shortcuts actions: ask and get the answer, run a skill, add a memory.
Maths, diagrams, previews
Formulas are typeset, Mermaid diagrams drawn and HTML or SVG shown live. Edit any message and switch between versions, or regenerate a reply with another model.
Videos with sound
Describe a scene and its sounds, and MiniMax-H3 makes a short clip in landscape, portrait or square. Continue a clip from its last frame, or bring a photo to life.
Choose how hard it thinks
Set the thinking effort, Off, Low, Medium, High or Max, for each model that thinks, right in the model menu. While it thinks you see its latest line; tap to read the whole trace. Slow, deep-thinking models get as long as you allow in Settings.
Write while it answers
Send the next message while a reply is still streaming: it waits in a queue above the composer. Steer sends it at once, or delete it. Scroll back through the chat while it writes; it follows again when you return to the end.
bla, an agent on the command line
bla is a coding agent for the terminal, written in Rust: it starts in milliseconds, reads and edits your files and runs commands, asking only before what can't be undone. It searches the web and reads pages, runs subagents in parallel and jobs in the background, connects to MCP servers, keeps a plan and works toward a /goal, and with /voice you talk to it and it answers out loud with Drama 3. Everything is a plugin: permissions and modes, hooks, skills it writes itself, the same long-term memory as the apps, /undo, and plugins in any language. bla "fix the failing test", git diff | bla "write a commit message", or bla for a full-screen chat you scroll back with the mouse. On Mac, Linux, Windows and Raspberry Pi; comes with the Mac app.
Voice in, voice out
Tap the microphone to dictate with on-device speech recognition. Tap the speaker button under any reply to hear it read aloud.
Web search
The model searches the web through Blablador's own search engine when it needs current information, and cites its sources.
Photos and camera
Attach pictures from your photos or files, take a photo, paste a copied image, or drag images and PDFs onto the chat on the Mac. Then ask about them with vision-capable models.
Expressive speech, cloned voices
Have text spoken with Drama 3, with feelings, pauses, laughs and whispers. Clone a voice from a short recording, an audio or video file, or a link to one. Copy or share a spoken reply as an audio file, for example into Messages.
Agent mode on the Mac
Point Blablador at a folder and let it work like a coding agent: it reads and edits files, runs builds and tests, and fixes what fails. Every shell command waits for your OK, every file change is shown as a diff you can undo, and it starts with an overview of the project.
Decisions with probabilities
Ask the Clef decision model typed questions: yes or no, which option, what score. Write and save your own, or start from 73 examples for routing, triage, business and science, and see the probability of every answer.
Proteins on the GPUs
Fold a sequence with ESMFold2, sample an ensemble of conformations with BioEmu2, design a new protein with RFdiffusion3, or design binders against a target with BindCraft and Proteina-Complexa. The job runs on the Jülich GPUs for minutes to hours, so you can close the app and come back: results are downloaded as soon as they are ready and kept on your device. Every structure is measured against the bonds chemistry actually allows, because a folding job can finish, call itself a success and hand back something impossible.
A place in 3D
Take photos all around a room and Blablador builds a 3D model of it with the visual geometry model: a top-down map after every batch, then a coloured point cloud you can turn with a finger and save. A banner shows when others are using the GPU and your photos wait their turn.
Knowledge bases
Keep collections of PDFs and notes on your device and chat with them. Blablador finds the right passages and cites them, so you can check every answer.
PDFs, even scanned
Attach PDFs and ask about them. Text is extracted on your device. Scanned pages and photos of documents are read with OCR, on your device or with Blablador's LightOnOCR, which keeps tables intact. Works with every model.
Create and edit images
Generate images with FLUX.2-dev or Qwen-Image 2.1, and edit any image with Qwen-Image: tap Edit on it and describe the change, or just ask.
Always up to date
The Mac app updates itself: when a new version is out, click Update and Blablador restarts with it. On Android, a banner links you to the new version.
Plans and follows through
For bigger tasks Blablador writes a plan, ticks off each step as it works and keeps going until it's done. After a task like that it offers to save what it did as a skill for next time.
Works while you're away
Replies keep going when you switch chats or leave the app, and a notification tells you when they're ready. Schedule prompts, like a morning news summary, to run by themselves.
Your calendar and contacts
Turn it on and ask “What's on tomorrow?”, “Add lunch with Maria on Friday” or “What's Tom's number?”. Nothing is added without your OK.
You decide what it may do
Set each kind of tool to Allow, Ask or Never. Every reply shows which tools it used, how long it took and how many tokens, and you can run a step again.
Everything one tap away
The + button shows attachments, tools, knowledge and connected services at a glance. Type @ to use a tool or skill for just one message, # to answer from a knowledge base.
Talk with it
Tap the waveform button and just talk. Blablador answers out loud as it writes, in a Drama 3 voice, your own cloned voice or the device's voice, and listens again when it's done. Choose the language you speak, including Brazilian Portuguese. With headphones, speak over it to interrupt, as in a real conversation; on speakers, tap.
Goals it works through
Type /goal and what you want, and Blablador keeps working, step by step and with any tools it needs, until it's done or needs your decision. Before showing the result of a task, it checks its own work and fixes what's wrong.
Google Docs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Paste a link to a Google Doc, Sheet or Slides shared by link and ask about it, no Google account needed. Copy any answer into Google Docs or Word with its formatting, or save and open it as a Word document, a spreadsheet or slides. On the Mac, Blablador also searches, reads and saves files in your Google Drive folder.
Your data, encrypted
Chats, memories, skills, images, recordings and knowledge bases stay on your device, encrypted with a key kept in the Keychain (Android Keystore on Android), like your API key. Text from web pages and documents can't rewrite Blablador's memory.
Install on your Mac
With Homebrew, one command installs the app and the bla command line, no Gatekeeper steps needed:
brew install --cask surak/tap/blabladorThen open Blablador and paste your API key in Settings (step 3 below). Or install it by hand:
- Download the .dmg from the latest release, open it and drag Blablador into Applications.
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This build is not notarized by Apple, so macOS blocks it at first. Open Terminal and run:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Blablador.app - Open Blablador and paste your Blablador API key in Settings. Don't have one? Create one on Helmholtz Codebase with the
read_userscope. - That's it for installing: from version 2.2 on, Blablador offers new versions itself and installs them with one click.
Install on Android
- On your phone, download the .apk from the latest release.
- Open it. If Android asks, allow your browser or file manager to install unknown apps, then tap Install. The app is signed by the developer, not distributed through Google Play.
- Open Blablador and paste your Blablador API key in Settings. Don't have one? Create one on Helmholtz Codebase with the
read_userscope. - When a new version is out, a banner above the chat links to it. Download and open the new APK the same way; your chats and settings stay.
Install on Windows, Linux or Raspberry Pi
- Download Blablador-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip or Blablador-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz from the latest release and unpack it. It is a single program, nothing to install.
- On Windows, start
Blablador.exe. SmartScreen may warn about an unknown publisher: click More info → Run anyway. On Linux and Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit,linux-arm64), run./blablador(it needs a desktop with X11 or Wayland and GTK 3 for file dialogs). - Paste your Blablador API key in Settings. It is kept in Windows Credential Manager or your Linux keyring, and your chats are saved encrypted.
Platforms
Mac
Available now as a download. Sidebar with your chats, native toolbar and model picker. Make the text bigger or smaller with ⌘+ and ⌘−.
iPhone and iPad
Same app, adapted to each screen. Not yet distributed; build it from the source with Xcode.
Android
Available now as an APK for Android 8.0 or later. Native Material design with every feature except agent mode.
Windows and Linux
Available now as a single program for 64-bit Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi (plus a lightweight Mac build): chat, web search, memory, documents and knowledge bases.