Benchy Desktop

Benchy Desktop is a chat with your files in front of it: sign in, open a folder, and ask for the work. Printers, slicers and Blender join in if you have them; the app works without them. Desktop runs on macOS and works in one workspace, the one you choose when you sign in.

Screenshot: Benchy Desktop with a folder open — the files on the left, the chat on the right.

Start a project

Choose New project… or Open folder…, or drop files onto the app. A folder you open stays where it is; new projects go in ~/Documents/Benchy Desktop/Projects/, and files you drag in are copied into the project's folder.

Each Desktop project is linked to a private project in the workspace Desktop is signed in to; only its name and that link leave your Mac. Open in Benchy in the project menu opens it in Studio, where you can share it or move it to another workspace.

Chat with Benchy, Claude or Codex

Pick who answers in a chat. All three work through Benchy's tools in the project.

Slicing and other heavy work run one job at a time, and you can stop any of them.

Approvals

Before an agent does something that needs your say, a card asks: Allow once, Deny, or allow that kind of work for the rest of the chat, such as Allow slicing for this chat. A card nobody answers is denied after 10 minutes. Settings → Plugins → Tools shows each tool as Allowed or Asks first.

Made by Benchy

What Benchy makes — print files, renders, exports — goes in a Made by Benchy folder, and your own files are never overwritten. The first time a folder you opened has something to keep, the chat asks whether to keep results there or in Benchy's folder, and warns if the folder syncs, as with iCloud Drive. Change the answer from the project menu.

What leaves your Mac

Nothing uploads on its own, and no agent can upload for you. Your project folder, print files, plates, slice runs and variants stay on your Mac. To put a file from Made by Benchy into the project on Benchy, choose Add to project on Benchy; it then shows On Benchy, and Versions on Benchy… once it has more than one version.

Benchy in your other agents

While you're signed in, Desktop connects Claude Code, Codex and Cursor on your Mac to Benchy. The first time, a notice names the agents it added, with Undo and Done. Each agent then asks you to sign in once:

• Claude Code: type /mcp, choose benchy, and sign in.
• Codex: choose Sign in in the notice.
• Cursor: in Cursor's settings, under MCP, sign in beside benchy.

Turn it off per agent in Settings → Connected agents. Desktop backs up each settings file before its first change and removes its own entry when you sign out. See Connect your agent.

Blender and other apps

Plugins let Benchy use apps on your Mac; manage them in Settings → Plugins → Installed, which shows each one's app, version and tools. Blender is built in.

With Blender, Benchy renders previews, turntables and animations, imports, decimates, remeshes, solidifies, bevels, combines, transforms and exports models, and can run a short Python script it wrote, showing you the script on the approval card first. The first time a chat uses Blender, a card asks Allow Blender for this chat, and Benchy asks again before running its own script.

Blender runs in the background, sandboxed, with no network, writing only into its own folders. Your .blend is never written: the first change works on a copy with its own versions and undo, and Open in Blender on a .blend in Made by Benchy opens it in your Blender. A script stops after 5 minutes unless it asked for longer, up to 30, and a stopped or failed one changes nothing. No plugin can start a print.

If Blender isn't installed, Settings offers Get Blender, which downloads and verifies the official build, or lets you point to your own copy.

Printers

Desktop shows your printers through Benchy Host: their state, time left, the camera and past prints. See Printers and Benchy Host.

Websites

Desktop can also build and preview websites. See Websites.