LockScreenBrief is a native macOS menu bar app that turns your lock screen into a personalised daily brief, powered by a local Ollama model, live weather, top news headlines, and your calendar.
Lock screen brief |
Menu bar popover |
Settings window |
-
Local AI summaries
Uses Ollama running locally on your Mac. Nothing is sent to the cloud. -
Live weather
Shows current conditions for any location using Open-Meteo. -
News headlines
Choose from UK, World, US, Canada, Australia, Europe, or Global headlines. -
Calendar events
Include upcoming events from any combination of your calendars. -
Automatic updates
Regenerate the brief on a schedule and optionally apply it automatically. -
Menu bar app
Use the quick menu bar popover for daily checks, or open the full settings window for configuration.
- macOS 14 or later
- Ollama running locally
- At least one Ollama model installed
The default model is gemma4:e4b.
To install it, run:
ollama pull gemma4:e4bYou can use any Ollama model. LockScreenBrief automatically detects the models installed on your Mac.
Download the latest .zip file from Releases, unzip it, and move LockScreenBrief.app to your /Applications folder.
Building from source requires the Xcode Command Line Tools.
Install them with:
xcode-select --installThen build and install the app:
git clone https://github.com/sam-cookr/LockScreenBrief
cd LockScreenBrief
bash Scripts/build-app.sh
cp -R build/LockScreenBrief.app /Applications/
open /Applications/LockScreenBrief.appOn first launch, LockScreenBrief opens a setup wizard. It checks whether Ollama is running, lets you choose an AI model, and asks you to select your news region.
The setup process should take about a minute.
LockScreenBrief works in two stages.
The app fetches your selected context, including weather, news headlines, and calendar events. It then sends that information to your local Ollama model, which writes a short, structured daily brief.
The brief is written to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow using the LoginwindowText value.
macOS then displays this message on your lock screen.
You will be prompted for your administrator password the first time you apply a brief.
- macOS does not publish a fixed character limit for
LoginwindowText. - LockScreenBrief uses the character limit setting, which defaults to 240 characters, as a readability target.
- The app runs only as a menu bar item and does not show a Dock icon.
- Auto-apply requires your password once per session. Subsequent applies during the same session should not prompt again.
MIT