The Finder is one of the most important elements of the macOS operating system, used by users as a file manager. With its clean and clear design, it allows you to easily locate any file on your computer, make changes to it, or change its location, offering a multitude of useful hidden tricks.
In this sense, the reality is that using an AI-based tool can be very useful for file management. You may need to do things like rename, delete, or modify items in bulk based on certain criteria, combine elements, convert from one format to another, and much more. From this idea, Substage was born, a tool that adds support for ChatGTP and other tools through a small query bar added at the bottom and takes into account the data in the active window when answering questions.
Add ChatGPT to your Mac’s Finder with Substage
As we mentioned, despite the existence of the ChatGPT app for Mac or interesting configurations like the option to use ChatGPT as the default search engine in Safari, the reality is that one of the areas where it can be most useful is directly within the Finder file explorer present in macOS. This way, you can use it on your own files without having to upload them anywhere.
Substage is an application that, taking advantage of macOS features, adds a small bar at the bottom of the Finder design that allows you to directly query ChatGPT and other Generative AI-based assistants. It also uses a lightweight design very similar to the operating system’s interface, making it very easy to use in any context.
In this case, Substage offers a multitude of useful features for users’ everyday needs. For one thing, it allows you to answer typical questions you might ask ChatGPT or any other similar language model without having to leave Finder or provide any context. You can easily ask things like measurement or currency conversions, simple calculations, cultural questions, or whatever else you need. Substage will quickly provide you with the concise answer you need.
However, the interesting thing about its presence in the Finder is that it’s able to use the context of your computer or the files you point to to run whatever you need. This way, you can ask questions about your system, such as the version of macOS installed, the computer’s processor, or its specifications, and receive almost immediate answers to your questions.
And, if you want to go a step further, you can request actions on the files or directories you’re viewing on screen. It can easily perform any type of conversion, resize files, rename them to your liking, compress them, obtain metadata… In general, it allows you to perform a multitude of actions that would normally require some kind of third-party application, simply by typing what you need in the Finder.
Basically, Substage sends ChatGPT information about your files (if necessary), and it returns a command to be executed in the computer’s terminal to answer the question. For security reasons, the user is asked for confirmation before executing potentially dangerous commands, primarily to prevent any significant or unwanted changes.
Once the command is approved for execution, it runs in the background transparently to the user. Given the wide variety of utilities available in the terminal, it’s possible to perform virtually any action you want without any complexity. For example, you can convert multimedia files to the desired format and with the required resolution by typing a single line, count the lines of code files, perform bulk name changes to your liking, use Git easily, edit documents according to your needs, and much more.
Ultimately, when connected to assistants like ChatGPT, the options turn out to be practically endless and, despite the fact that there are similar integrations thanks to the use of the new Apple Intelligence, Substage is more interesting considering that it is able to quickly execute commands, that it is completely transparent to the user by showing the content to execute and allowing you to choose which LLM to use, that it is possible to use it directly on any Mac computer, as well as that the information to be shared is considerably more limited, sending only information about the files but not the complete files, since the possible conversions or changes to be made are done directly on the computer.
Substage offers a variety of pricing plans, allowing you to choose between using the solutions offered at no additional cost to complete your queries, or customize your responses using Artificial Intelligence solutions from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, or Google with their dedicated APIs to obtain personalized responses without having to share additional data with third parties.
