Use 'DiffusionBee' to Generate AI Images Right on Your Mac

Generating images using AI is fun, and occasionally even useful, but the image generation typically happens on a server someone else controls. If you'd rather have a native Mac application for the job-one that works entirely offline, making it completely private-DiffusionBee is what you're looking for.

This Mac-only application can download AI models for generating images, then run those models entirely on your computer. Generating only takes a few seconds on Apple Silicon devices; older Intel-based Macs are also supported but image creation takes longer-around five minutes in my tests.

Credit: Justin Pot

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

The text-to-image generator is perhaps the most straightforward: Just type what you want and you'll end up with it. You can also provide an image and ask for it to be redone using a text prompt. The results are obviously always dead-on, in exactly the way you'd expect from an AI tool (which my sarcastic way of saying that you might need to try a few different prompts before you get the results you want.)

Sometimes you're going to have to re-try a few times with a slightly different prompt. Credit: Justin Pot

Other functionality includes the ability to remove objects from photos, the ability to create optical illusions, and the ability to upscale low-resolution images. It's essentially an AI image-making playground, and it's completely free, so give it a shot if you've got a Mac.