Help center

Everything you need to get set up.

Last updated June 2026

Getting started

1. Download Maali and open it. The app lives in your Applications folder like any other Mac app.
2. Follow the setup assistant. The first time you open Maali, it asks where to keep your data (a folder on your Mac; the suggestion is fine) and which accounts you have. A couple of minutes, no account creation, no sign-in.
3. Import your first statement. Download a statement file from your bank’s website (usually a button labeled “Download” or “Export”, choosing CSV if it asks) and drop it into Maali on the Settings → Import screen. Your dashboard fills in immediately.

Getting your data in

There are three ways to get transactions into Maali. You can mix and match per account, and switch any time.

1. Upload statement files yourself (most private)

Download statements from your bank’s website and drop them into Settings → Import. Maali recognizes the file, skips anything it has already seen, and sorts the new transactions. Your data goes bank → you with no third party involved at all.

2. Automatic sync with SimpleFIN (most convenient)

SimpleFIN Bridge is an independent service that fetches transactions from your banks and hands them to apps you approve. You pay them directly, and your data flows from the bridge straight to your Mac, never through us. To set it up:

1. Create an account at bridge.simplefin.org and connect your banks there. (Your bank sign-ins are entered only on SimpleFIN’s site there; Maali never sees them.)
2. Pay SimpleFIN their fee, about $15 per year, directly to them.
3. On their site, choose New App Connection to generate a setup token, one long block of text.
4. In Maali, open Settings → Import, paste the token into the SimpleFIN box, and connect. (Each token works exactly once, so paste it fresh.)
5. Match the accounts SimpleFIN found to your accounts in Maali. From then on, Maali fetches new transactions for you automatically.

3. Bring your own automation (advanced)

If you’re comfortable with scripts, anything that saves your banks’ statement files into a folder works: point your automation at a folder, drop the files into Maali whenever you like, and duplicates are skipped automatically.

Setting up the AI

Maali’s analyst, the part that writes your monthly briefing and flags odd charges in plain English, is an AI model that runs on your Mac, not in the cloud. Setting it up is one click:

• Open Settings → AI and click the download button. The app fetches the model (about 5.3 GB, a one-time download) and takes care of the rest. No extra software to install.
• What it needs: roughly 6 GB of free disk space and about 6 GB of free memory while the AI is writing. A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or later) is recommended; the AI runs comfortably there.
• The app works without it. Every dashboard, budget, forecast, and list works with the AI off or never installed. You just won’t get the written commentary. You can add or remove the AI at any time.

Verifying it’s local

“Runs on your Mac” is a claim you can test yourself:

• The unplug test. Turn off Wi‑Fi and keep using Maali. Dashboards, categories, briefings the AI already wrote: everything still works, because nothing is being fetched from anywhere.
• The firewall test. Run a tool that shows outgoing connections, such as Little Snitch or LuLu, and compare what you see against the complete connection list on our privacy page. There are only a few possible connections, all optional, and all explained there.

Troubleshooting

The AI model download stalls or fails

It’s a big file, and flaky connections happen. Click the download button again. The download resumes where it left off rather than starting over. If it keeps failing, check that you have at least 6 GB of free disk space.

macOS warns you about opening the app

The first time you open an app downloaded outside the App Store, macOS may ask you to confirm. If you see a warning, right-click (or Control-click) the Maali app and choose Open, or go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. You’ll only need to do this once.

Where your data lives, and how backups work

Everything Maali knows lives in the folder you chose during setup, as ordinary files on your Mac. Before every change, Maali automatically saves a backup copy of your data into a backups folder kept right alongside it, and holds on to roughly the last week of them, so an accidental edit or a bad import is never more than a restore away. For protection against a lost or broken Mac, we recommend including that folder in your normal backups (Time Machine covers it automatically).

An import looks wrong

Re-importing the same file is always safe: Maali skips transactions it has already seen, so you can’t create duplicates by trying again. If a transaction landed in the wrong category, just change it on the spot; Maali learns from your correction.

Starting fresh, or uninstalling

The download includes a helper called Uninstall Maali, right next to the app. Double-click it and pick what you want: wipe your data for a clean start (keeping the app and the AI model), wipe everything but keep the app, or remove Maali completely. It shows you exactly what it will delete and asks you to confirm before touching anything. Only Maali's local files are affected; your accounts at your bank are untouched.

Reporting a problem

Open Settings → Help & feedback and click Build a diagnostic report. Maali assembles a plain-text report about the problem (versions, which features are set up, and where recent errors happened, never your transactions or amounts) and shows you every word of it. If it looks fine to you, you email it to support@maali.app yourself. Nothing leaves your Mac without you reading it first.

Or simply email us and describe what happened: what you did, what you expected, and what you saw. A screenshot helps (feel free to blur any numbers; we don’t need them).

Contact

For anything at all (questions, bug reports, refunds, or just to tell us what you’d like Maali to do next): support@maali.app. A real person reads it.