FAQ

Solace is a menu bar app that keeps your Mac in step with the world outside. It switches light and dark mode automatically, warms your screen in the evening, swaps your wallpaper to match, and can even turn dark when the weather does. It replaces f.lux, a wallpaper switcher, and constant manual toggling with one small app.

Any Mac running macOS 13 Ventura or later. Solace runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel, and the whole app weighs in at around 3 MB, so it is light on disk and on memory. It lives quietly in your menu bar and stays out of your way.

Open the downloaded file and drag Solace into the Applications folder shown next to it, then launch it from Applications. A short welcome opens in the middle of your screen and walks you through location, the one permission Solace uses, and where to find it: a small sun or moon in your menu bar. Every feature is free for 14 days. If you have already bought Solace, right-click the menu bar icon, choose Settings, then Enter Key under Free Trial.

Solace is a menu bar app, so it deliberately stays out of your Dock and app switcher. Look at the top-right of your screen: a sun icon means light mode, a moon means dark mode. Click it to open the control panel, where everything lives: the mode switch, wallpapers, schedule, warmth, and weather. To quit, right-click the menu bar icon and choose Quit Solace, or press Cmd Q while the panel is open.

Two main ones. Location Services lets Solace work out your local sunrise and sunset, right on your Mac, so solar scheduling knows when to switch. Automation (controlling System Events) is how macOS lets any app flip dark mode, so you will see a system dialog the first time Solace switches: click OK. If you enable weather mode, Solace also asks to show notifications so it can tell you when a gloomy day activates dark mode. Location is optional and can be granted later from the Schedule section.

No. On a fresh install Solace respects whatever mode your Mac is already in. When the first natural transition arrives, a gentle prompt appears in the panel: "Switch to Dark Mode?" (or Light), with Switch and Keep Current buttons. Answer once and Solace switches automatically from then on. If automatic switching seems quiet on day one, open the panel; the prompt is probably waiting for you.

Open the Solace panel from the menu bar, click the small info button at the bottom-right (or right-click the menu bar icon and choose Settings), and turn on Launch at Login under General. Solace registers itself with macOS the proper way, so you will also see it under System Settings, General, Login Items, and changing it in either place keeps both in sync. With it on, your Mac follows the day from the moment you log in.

Solace keeps itself current: it quietly checks for updates shortly after launch and every hour after that, and updates are free forever. To check on demand, open Settings and choose Check for Updates under General. Your version number sits at the bottom of that same page. Every update is signed and verified before it installs, so what arrives is exactly what we shipped.

Solace follows the sun. It works out your local sunrise and sunset right on your Mac, recalculates them daily as the seasons change, and switches modes at each transition. Separate offsets let you shift sunrise and sunset independently by up to two hours, so dark mode can arrive a touch early or wait a while. Turn on weather mode and grey, overcast days go dark too. And you are always in charge: the mode card and the global keyboard shortcut toggle instantly from any app.

Of course. Click the big Light Mode / Dark Mode card at the top of the panel, or use the keyboard shortcut (Cmd Shift D by default), any time you like. Solace keeps your choice until the next sunrise or sunset, even through sleep or a restart, then carries on with your schedule. Changing your schedule or turning on weather mode starts fresh from that new setting.

Yes, and sunrise and sunset are adjusted independently. In the Schedule section, drag the sun or moon marker along the timeline to shift that transition by up to two hours either way. Or tap the time shown beneath it to open a small picker: choose Earlier, Exact or Later, pick an amount from 15 minutes up to 2 hours, see the new switch time previewed, then tap again to confirm. Handy if you like dark mode to arrive a touch before dusk, or light mode to wait until you have had coffee.

Each morning, shortly after sunrise, Solace looks at the forecast average cloud cover across the daylight hours ahead. If it meets your sensitivity threshold, the whole day runs in dark mode; otherwise it stays light. One decision per day means no flickering between modes as clouds pass. When a gloomy day activates dark mode you get a notification with the cloud percentage and a Keep Light button if you would rather stay bright. Nights are always dark, whatever the weather.

Yes. In the Schedule section there is an Enable button that turns the daily light and dark schedule on. When it is on, that same spot shows your location; to turn the schedule off again, click your location and choose Turn Schedule Off. While it is off, Solace stops changing your appearance on a schedule and leaves your current mode exactly as it is. Weather mode is separate and independent: if you have it on, it keeps working whether the schedule is on or off.

Yes. The Weather section has three sensitivity levels: Cloudy triggers dark mode from 50% cloud cover, Overcast (the default) from 70%, and Gloomy only from 90%, so Gloomy means dark mode is saved for properly grey days. Hover over each button to see its threshold. Changing sensitivity re-evaluates today's decision straight away using the latest cloud data, so you see the effect immediately.

Yes, nothing is a black box. Open Settings, then choose Weather Decisions under Support. You will see the last ten daily decisions: the cloud percentage, the threshold it was compared against, your sensitivity at the time, the outcome, and what triggered it. The Weather section itself also shows the day's averages for cloud, rain, and UV, and you can click the temperature to flip between Celsius and Fahrenheit.

Yes. Pick a light wallpaper and a dark one, and Solace swaps them the moment your Mac changes mode. Your light wallpaper greets you each morning, and your desktop follows the sky at sunset with no prompt and no interruption. It works across all your displays at once, so multi-monitor setups stay perfectly in sync. Prefer to keep your own wallpaper? The Wallpapers section has an on and off switch: turn it off and Solace leaves your desktop alone, and your wallpaper goes back to how it was before.

Yes. Evening Warmth gently eases your screen from cool daylight (6500K) down to warm candlelight (1900K), on its own schedule or all the time. The transition is gradual, so there are no jarring shifts, and it resets automatically at sunrise. You can leave Night Shift on: Solace pauses it while warmth is active and restores it afterwards, and a Compatibility Mode brings warmth to the newest MacBook Pros.

Yes. macOS only lets an app change the wallpaper on the desktop you are looking at, so Solace updates each of your other desktops as you arrive on it. To have every desktop change at once, open System Settings > Wallpaper and turn on Show on all Spaces.

You choose. The "Starts at" badge in the Warmth section offers three options: a fixed time (from 3:00 PM to midnight in half-hour steps; 8:00 PM is the default), Sunset (it follows your local sunset, including any offset you have set), or Always for round-the-clock warmth. Warmth eases in gradually over about 15 minutes rather than snapping. On a fixed time or Sunset it returns to neutral at sunrise; on Always it simply stays on. Drag the slider any time to preview a warmth level instantly.

No, leave Night Shift exactly as it is. While Evening Warmth is active, Solace pauses Night Shift so the two never fight over your screen, and keeps re-asserting your chosen warmth if macOS tries to interfere. When warmth ends, or you quit Solace, your original Night Shift setting is restored exactly as you had it. On the newest MacBook Pros, Compatibility Mode goes one step further and delivers warmth through Night Shift itself.

Yes. When your Mac wakes, Solace puts your warmth back immediately, and it does the same when just your display sleeps and wakes while the Mac stays on. macOS resets your screen's colour whenever it comes back, so Solace re-applies your warmth as the screen returns and keeps it in place afterwards. If you use Always, warmth stays on through a wake at any time of day. If you use a fixed time or Sunset, waking before your start time correctly leaves your screen neutral until that time arrives.

Yes. The default is Cmd Shift D, which toggles light and dark from any app. To change it, open the Solace panel and click the shortcut shown in the footer; it switches to "Press keys...", and whatever combination you press next becomes the new shortcut, saved instantly. Press Escape to cancel recording. If a combination will not register, another app has probably claimed it, so pick a different one.

Solace is free to try for 14 days, with every feature. After that it is a one-time $9.99. No subscription, no in-app purchases, and every future update is included free, with no upsells. Buy it once and it is yours forever, and it is backed by the same 14-day money-back guarantee as every THEODORE HQ app.

You can download the latest version any time from theodorehq.com/solace/download.html. Install it and launch it, then right-click the Solace icon in your menu bar, choose Settings, and click Enter Key under Free Trial to add the licence key from your purchase confirmation email. After that, Solace keeps itself up to date automatically in the background. Cannot find your key? Check the confirmation email from Polar, our checkout partner, or email support and we will help.

Your licence key activates Solace on up to 3 Macs, so your desktop and laptop are both covered. If you ever hit the limit or need to move to a new machine, email support@theodorehq.com and we will sort it out.

Each Solace licence activates up to 3 Macs, and you can manage those devices yourself at any time. Sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email and you will see your licence key and the Macs it is currently active on. Deactivating a Mac you no longer use frees that slot immediately.

This is worth knowing if you reinstall macOS or reset your Mac, because a fresh install claims a new slot even on the same machine. Deactivating the old entry afterwards puts it straight back. If you cannot access the portal or something does not look right, email support@theodorehq.com from your purchase email address and we will sort it for you.

No account needed, ever. Once activated, your key is kept in the macOS Keychain, the same encrypted store your Mac uses for passwords, so it stays put across restarts and updates. You can confirm your status any time via the info button in the panel footer: a green Licensed dot means all is well. Do keep your purchase confirmation email from Polar as a backup copy of the key, in case you ever set up a new Mac.

Yes. Everything core runs on your Mac: switching, scheduling, wallpapers, and warmth all work offline. Solace verifies its licence quietly in the background and is happy to go up to 7 days between checks, so a flight or a week off-grid is no problem. After 7 days fully offline it asks for a brief connection to reconfirm the key, then the clock resets. Weather mode and update checks naturally need the internet when they run.

Yes. Solace comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee: only keep it if you love it. Just email us within 14 days for a full refund. No forms, no hoops, no friction, and a real person, not a bot, replies within a day.

Yes. Download Solace and every feature is free for 14 days, with no card needed. When the trial ends, Solace pauses until you buy it and keeps all your settings. You can add your licence key any time: right-click the Solace menu bar icon, choose Settings, then Enter Key under Free Trial.

Nearly always a copying slip. Open your purchase confirmation email from Polar and copy-paste the whole key rather than typing it; it starts with SOLACE- followed by blocks of letters and numbers. Solace tidies up stray spaces and lowercase letters for you, but a missing character will read as invalid. If you get a network error instead, check your connection and try again. Still stuck, or can't find the email? Write to support@theodorehq.com and we will look up your purchase.

Three quick checks. First, open the Solace panel: on a new install, Solace politely asks before its very first switch, so answer the "Switch to Dark Mode?" prompt if it is waiting. Second, the Automation permission: go to System Settings, Privacy & Security, Automation, and make sure Solace is allowed to control System Events; Solace also shows an alert with an Open Settings button whenever this is the blocker. Third, for solar scheduling, check the Schedule section shows your sunrise and sunset times, which need Location Services.

Solar times are calculated from your location, right on your Mac. If they look off, the usual cause is location: Macs need Wi-Fi turned on to find where they are. Solace tells you exactly why location is not working, with steps to fix it, so open the menu bar panel and follow the message there. Once location resolves, times recalculate immediately.

First, check the switch: the Wallpapers section now has an on and off toggle, and if it shows "Enable" then switching is turned off. Tap it to turn it back on. If it is already on, the cause is usually the image file: Solace points at your chosen files where they live, so if a file is moved, renamed, or deleted, that pairing stops. Solace tells you with a "Wallpaper Not Found" note naming the file; open the Wallpapers section and pick the image again to fix it in seconds. Files in iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox get special care: if they have not downloaded yet after a restart, Solace fetches them and retries on its own. Tip: keep wallpapers somewhere permanent, like your Pictures folder.

That is weather mode doing its job: this morning's forecast crossed your cloud threshold, so the day runs dark. Easy to undo. Click Keep Light on the notification, or tap the mode card at the top of the panel; your choice then holds for the rest of the day. To make it happen less often, set sensitivity to Gloomy in the Weather section (dark only from 90% cloud cover), or switch weather mode off entirely. Curious what triggered it? The info button, then Weather Decisions, shows the exact numbers.

Weather needs your location, so start there: if the panel says "Location not available", make sure Wi-Fi is on (Macs locate themselves via Wi-Fi) and follow the guidance in the Schedule section; weather refreshes automatically the moment location resolves. If you see "Weather unavailable - please try again later", Apple's weather service is having a brief moment. Solace tries again a few times over the next few minutes and then every hour, or flip the Weather toggle off and on to refresh straight away. Today's decision stays in effect meanwhile, and if Solace hasn't been able to check today's weather yet, it follows the time of day until it can.

The usual cause is another app holding the same combination; macOS gives a global shortcut to whichever app claimed it first. Open the Solace panel, click the shortcut in the footer, and record a different combination; it registers immediately, so you can test it straight away. If Solace shows an Accessibility alert instead, click Open Settings and allow Solace under Privacy & Security, Accessibility, then record the shortcut again.

A macOS quirk on the newest MacBook Pros blocks the usual warming method, and Solace has a built-in answer: Compatibility Mode, which delivers the same warmth through a different route. On affected Macs, Solace shows a "Use Compatibility Mode" prompt right in the Warmth section the moment you use warmth; one click and you are done. You can also flip it manually any time via the small gear icon in the Warmth section header. Your slider level and schedule stay exactly as they were.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Whether it is a question, a bug report, or an idea for Solace, we would love to hear from you. You can also report a bug, request a feature, leave a testimonial, or follow the roadmap right here on the Support Centre, and Solace links straight to it from the Support section of its About panel.

Completely. Solace collects nothing about you: no account, no tracking, no analytics, and none of your data is ever sent to us. Solace works out sunrise and sunset on your Mac, and keeps your last approximate location there so it can switch the moment it starts. To show your city's name, your Mac asks Apple to look it up, and if you turn on weather mode, Solace asks Apple's WeatherKit for the forecast.

Three things only. A periodic licence check with Polar, our checkout partner, which needs a connection about once a week at most. Apple's WeatherKit, but only if you switch weather mode on. And a quiet check of our website for app updates. That is the complete list: no analytics, no tracking, no crash reporters, and nothing about you or your usage is ever sent to us. Turn weather mode off and Solace touches the internet even less.

Location is used for exactly one calculation: your local sunrise and sunset times, worked out on your Mac so solar scheduling and weather mode know your daylight hours. It is optional. If you would rather not grant it, or you use a VPN that blocks location, you can set your location by hand in the Schedule section: type any city and Solace uses that for sunrise, sunset and weather. Everything else works either way: manual switching, the keyboard shortcut, wallpaper pairs, and Evening Warmth. Your coordinates never touch our servers.

Charm is a private writing assistant that runs entirely on your Mac. Three features work together: Spells catches typos the moment you press space, Polish fixes grammar at the end of every sentence, like missing capitals and apostrophes, and Oracle predicts your next word, with Tab to accept. On top of that there is text replacement, emoji replacement, and a personal dictionary that learns your vocabulary. Each feature can be toggled independently.

Charm runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later). It does not run on Intel Macs, because its corrections use Apple's on-chip machine learning. The app itself is tiny, around 18 MB. The on-device AI model adds a one-time download of about 1.5 GB for Fast or 2.3 GB for Best Quality. Fast needs a Mac with 8 GB of memory; Best Quality needs 16 GB. Charm checks this before downloading, so it will only offer models your Mac can comfortably run. Spelling correction works even without a model installed.

Download Charm from theodorehq.com/charm/download, open the DMG, and drag Charm into Applications. On first launch a setup guide walks you through everything: entering the license key from your purchase email, granting the two macOS permissions (Accessibility and Input Monitoring), downloading the on-device AI model, and a quick tour of how Charm behaves in different apps. The whole thing takes a few minutes, and Charm then lives quietly in your menu bar. If you ever want a refresher, the interactive guide at theodorehq.com/charm/try covers every feature in about two minutes.

Charm corrects text inside other apps, which macOS only allows through two permissions. Input Monitoring lets Charm notice when you finish a word, so it knows the right moment to check spelling. Accessibility lets Charm read the word you just typed and replace it in place with the correction. Without both, Charm cannot see or fix anything. Both are granted in System Settings > Privacy & Security, and they sit in two separate lists there. Everything Charm reads stays on your Mac: nothing you type is ever stored or sent anywhere, and password fields are skipped entirely.

Yes. Charm corrects as you type and sets itself up for each app you use. If an app or website doesn't allow editing as you type, such as some online document editors, use Manual: select your text and press Option-Command-V. Code editors start in Manual, so Charm never touches your code. You can switch any app or website between Auto and Manual in Settings > Customise.

No. Charm is lightweight at idle. On first launch it downloads a local AI model, about 1.5 GB for Fast or 2.3 GB for Best Quality, one time only. After that everything runs locally with minimal CPU usage, and corrections land in under 200ms. The model also unloads itself after 2 minutes without use and reloads invisibly when next needed, so it is not holding memory while you are not using it. Version 1.0.63 made the menu bar panel lighter still. If you ever noticed your fan spinning up or your battery draining faster with Charm running, update to the latest version in Settings > General > Check for Updates and that is resolved.

Yes. All corrections and predictions run on your Mac using a local AI model, so Charm works fully offline: on a plane, on a train, anywhere. You only need a connection three times: downloading the app, downloading the AI model on first run, and activating your licence key. After that, Charm quietly reconfirms your licence in the background when you happen to be online, and it is happy to run fully offline for up to 7 days at a time. Away longer than that? Just connect once and it revalidates automatically, no key re-entry needed; your key is stored securely in the macOS Keychain. Updates also download automatically whenever you are connected.

Press Ctrl-Option-C to toggle all of Charm on or off instantly, from any app. The menu bar icon changes so you can see the current state at a glance. You can change this shortcut in Settings > Customise > Keyboard Shortcuts, and you can also record separate shortcuts there to toggle individual features: Spells, Polish, Oracle, or emoji replacement. Each one shows a small confirmation when pressed, so you always know what just changed. The menu bar popover has the same toggles if you prefer clicking.

Open Settings > Support. From there you can Report a Bug, Request a Feature, Leave a Testimonial, Review Roadmap, open the FAQ Section, or read our Privacy Policy. Each one takes you straight to the relevant page on the Support Centre in your browser, so you can see what has already been raised, add your own, and follow along. If you would rather include a diagnostic report with a bug, grab it first from Settings > Diagnostics (Copy or Send), then attach it. Everything is read and answered by a real person.

Charm runs entirely on your Mac, so it favours models fast and light enough to correct your text the moment you type, while staying accurate. We review the options regularly and pick the best balance of speed and quality for that job, not simply the largest or newest. Some of the most capable recent models are built to reason step by step before answering, which is too slow for corrections that need to feel instant. Charm 1.0.71 adds Qwen3 4B, released in 2025, as its Best Quality model.

Last reviewed: September 2026

Fix Selection is Charm's on-demand cleanup. Select some text and press Option-Command-V, and Charm fixes spelling, grammar, capitalisation, and punctuation in one pass. With nothing selected, it fixes the entire text field. It works everywhere, including code editors and the few websites that don't allow fixes as you type, and you can press Esc to cancel while it is working. It is also polite: in chat apps it never adds a full stop to the end of your message. You can change the shortcut in Settings > Customise > Keyboard Shortcuts.

Oracle predicts your word after you have typed three or more letters and pause for a moment. The suggested ending appears highlighted right in your text: press Tab to accept it, Esc to dismiss it, or just keep typing to replace it. Oracle is off by default, so switch it on in the menu bar popover when you want it. It gets smarter as you write: real words you use often become suggestions, and anything you write a few times, from a single word to a short sign-off, can be completed with a single Tab. It only ever suggests genuine words, so a stray typo never gets offered back to you. It deliberately skips very common short words, and stays out of search bars and address bars.

Press Command-Backspace (or Command-Z) immediately after a correction and your original word comes straight back. Charm then offers to add that word to your personal dictionary: press Y to add it so it is never corrected again, or N to dismiss. Press Backspace again quickly and Charm deletes the whole word for you, ready to retype. The undo window lasts a few seconds after each correction, and once you keep typing, normal Command-Z behaviour returns to the app. Charm also remembers what you undo, so a correction you reject twice stops being suggested.

Add it to your personal dictionary. The quickest way: when Charm corrects the word, press Command-Backspace to undo, then Y when Charm asks whether to remember it. You can also add and remove words directly in Settings > Personal. Dictionary words are never flagged again in any app, and Charm even protects them during grammar fixes. It also respects your capitalisation: add "Bauhaus" and typing "bauhaus" gets promoted to your preferred form. Names, brands, slang, project codenames, whatever you write, Charm learns your vocabulary.

Yes. In Settings > Personal you can create replacement pairs: type a short trigger and Charm expands it the moment you finish the word. Make "addr" your postal address, "@@" your email, or "sig" your signature. Replacements work across your apps, including web browsers and chat apps, and matching ignores capitalisation. If an expansion ever fires when you did not want it, press Command-Backspace straight away to undo it. You can add, edit, and remove shortcuts any time.

With emoji replacement on, typing certain words converts them to the matching emoji: "coffee" becomes the coffee cup, "magic" becomes sparkles. Only lowercase words trigger it, and some two-word phrases work too. If Charm converts a word you wanted as text, press Command-Backspace to undo, and Charm will ask whether it should stop converting that word for good. Your exclusions are listed in Settings > Personal, where you can remove one to bring the emoji back. You can also switch emoji replacement off entirely, globally or just for specific apps and websites.

Yes, completely. Open Settings > Customise. Under Apps you can set any app to Auto (corrects as you type) or Manual (corrects only when you press Option-Command-V), and switch spelling, grammar, prediction, and emoji on or off individually for that app. Under Websites you can do the same per domain, so you could keep prediction on in Gmail but off in Google Docs. Apps Charm set up for you carry a small sparkle, and you can change or remove any of them from its row.

Charm currently supports English (UK) and English (US), switchable in Settings. It picks the right variant automatically from your Mac's language settings, so British users get "colour" accepted and American users get "color" accepted, and every correction respects the variant you chose. One nice touch: whichever variant you use, Charm never converts your currency symbols, so quoting $ amounts in British English is always safe. Support for more languages is on our roadmap; if there is one you would love to see, tell us on the feedback board or at support@theodorehq.com.

Charm offers two on-device models. Fast (Gemma 2 2B, about 1.5 GB) keeps up with quick typing and runs on Macs with 8 GB of memory. Best Quality (Qwen3 4B, about 2.3 GB) gives smarter grammar fixes and wants 16 GB. Only one is loaded at a time, and you can switch or remove models whenever you like: open Settings > General, press Manage beside AI Engine, then choose Download or Use. If you used the earlier Qwen 2.5 3B model, Charm moves you to Qwen3 4B automatically and removes the old files. Charm checks your Mac's memory before offering a model, so you cannot pick one your machine cannot handle. Spelling correction works even with no model installed; the model powers the grammar pass and the trickiest spelling calls.

Yes, in a few ways, all stored locally. Corrections you accept a couple of times become instant. If Charm ever corrects a word to the wrong thing and you fix it to what you actually meant, it learns your word and gives you that next time. Corrections you undo are remembered too, so Charm stops making that change. For prediction, real words you type often become suggestions (it never offers a typo back to you), and anything you write a few times, from a single word to a short sign-off, can be offered in full with one Tab. You stay in charge of all of it: Settings > Personal lists the words you've taught Charm and your learned phrases, where you can search them, add or edit your own, and remove or reset any entry. Text Replacements, Taught Words and Phrase Suggestions each have their own switch there too; turning one off keeps your list for when you want it back.

Yes. Each correction appears with a soft glow, and Settings > Appearance lets you make it yours. Choose any glow colour from the full colour spectrum, and pick an animation style: Subtle (the default), Playful for a little more delight, or None if you would rather corrections happen without a glow. In apps that cannot tell Charm where the corrected word sits, a small Corrected note appears at the top of your screen instead, showing what changed. Charm follows your Mac's light and dark mode automatically. If you are curious what got corrected, Settings > History keeps a log of your recent corrections along with counters for today and all time.

Yes. If Charm corrects a word to the wrong thing and you replace it with the word you actually meant, Charm learns that pairing and gives you your word next time instead. This is handy for words you often mistype in the same way, where the built-in checker lands on a close but wrong word. One fix is enough, and it only ever learns a real word. You can see and remove everything it has picked up in Settings > Personal > Taught, or switch Taught Words off there entirely. It all stays on your Mac.

Yes. Charm shows short messages near the top of your screen to tell you what it has done, such as confirming your corrected text is on the clipboard, or the Corrected note that shows what changed in apps where the glow cannot appear. If your menu bar or an app's toolbar is busy up there, open Settings > Appearance and drag Message Position to the height that suits you, anywhere from just under the menu bar down to the middle of the screen. A live preview follows the slider as you drag, so you can place it against your own screen rather than guess, and your choice is remembered for every future session. This is separate from the correction glow: moving your messages does not change how corrections themselves look as you type.

Not once you tell Charm about it. In Settings > General > Other Languages, choose the languages you write in, and Charm leaves that text exactly as you wrote it, with no spelling fixes, grammar fixes or predictions. A word from one of those languages inside an English sentence is left alone too, while the English around it is still corrected. You can choose from Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian.

Turn on Emoji Shortcuts in Settings > General. Then type a semicolon followed by a word, like ;smile, and choose from the list with the arrow keys, Tab or Return. Escape closes the list and keeps what you typed. You can pick a different starting key beside the switch: a colon, two semicolons or two colons. If you turn off emoji for an app or website in Customise, shortcuts stay off there too.

Charm is a one-time purchase, normally $29.99 and currently $19.99 as a limited-time launch offer, with no subscription and every feature included. There is no separate free trial because every purchase carries a 14-day money-back guarantee: buy it, use it for two weeks, and if it is not for you, email support@theodorehq.com for a full refund. That is your risk-free trial.

Three quick checks fix almost every case. First, make sure it is a Charm key: it starts with CHARM followed by groups of letters and numbers. A key from one of our other apps (like Solace) will politely tell you it belongs to a different product. Second, copy and paste the entire key from your Polar purchase email rather than retyping it; Charm ignores spaces and capitalisation, but every character matters. Third, activation needs a brief internet connection, so check you are online. Still stuck? Email support@theodorehq.com and we will sort it quickly.

Up to 3, and your licence is tied to the key, not the machine, so replacing a Mac is painless. Updates are automatic too: Charm checks in the background and offers new versions with one click to install, free forever with your licence. You can download the latest version any time at theodorehq.com/charm/download.

Each Charm licence activates up to 3 Macs, and you can manage those devices yourself at any time. Sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email and you will see your licence key and the Macs it is currently active on. Deactivating a Mac you no longer use frees that slot immediately.

This is worth knowing if you reinstall macOS or reset your Mac, because a fresh install claims a new slot even on the same machine. The tidiest route is to free the slot first: on the Mac you are about to wipe or sell, open Charm, then Settings > General > Deactivate This Mac. If it is too late for that, deactivating the old entry in the portal afterwards puts it straight back. If you cannot access the portal or something does not look right, email support@theodorehq.com from your purchase email address and we will sort it for you.

Charm needs two macOS permissions: Accessibility and Input Monitoring, both switched on in System Settings > Privacy & Security. They sit in two separate lists, so it is easy to have one on and the other off. After enabling both, quit and reopen Charm so macOS registers them. If the Charm menu says Paused by Secure Input, another app is hiding your typing from Charm: quit it or restart your Mac. To confirm it is working, type teh followed by a space in any native Mac app; it should become the.

macOS reads permissions when an app launches, so a freshly granted toggle often is not noticed until Charm restarts. Charm offers a one-click Relaunch when this happens; otherwise quit from the menu bar and reopen. If the warning persists after that, the permission entry itself is usually stale, which can happen after a macOS update: open System Settings > Privacy & Security, go into Accessibility and Input Monitoring, remove Charm from the list with the minus button, add it back, switch it on, and relaunch. Charm's warning always names exactly which of the two permissions is still missing, and its Fix button opens the right pane.

From version 1.0.72 it does, in browsers and web apps like Slack, Discord and WhatsApp. When you update, any browser or web app Charm had set to Manual moves to Auto for you. If you set an app to Manual yourself, it stays that way: open Settings > Customise and switch it to Auto. A few websites, such as online document editors, don't allow fixes as you type; press Option-Command-V there and Charm fixes the whole field in one pass. Code editors stay in Manual, since fixing code as you type is rarely what you want.

When both Charm and the built-in macOS autocorrect are on, the two engines can react to the same keystroke, which occasionally shows up as doubled words or odd cursor jumps. The clean setup is one engine: open System Settings > Keyboard > Text and turn off the built-in correction, then let Charm handle everything. Charm makes this easy: when it notices system autocorrect is on, it shows a small banner in the popover with a Fix button that takes you straight to the right settings pane. Charm never changes your system settings itself; that choice is always yours.

First, check Oracle is switched on in the menu bar popover; prediction is off by default so it never surprises anyone. If it is on, remember Oracle is deliberately selective. It needs at least three typed letters, only suggests when the ending saves you three or more characters, and skips very common words. When you are typing quickly it only offers longer words, because interrupting fluent typing costs more than it saves. It also stays out of search bars, browser address bars, single-line web form fields, launchers like Raycast and Spotlight, terminals, and password fields. Oracle also suggests your next few words when you pause after a space; that needs the on-device AI model. Pause briefly mid-word in a normal document and suggestions will appear.

Charm watches whether its corrections actually land cleanly in each app. If an app repeatedly refuses them (some apps handle text in unusual ways), Charm switches that app to Manual mode so your typing is never disrupted, and shows a small notice with an Undo button. Tap Undo to put the app straight back, and Charm respects that choice for the rest of the session. You can also change any app's mode in Settings > Customise, where apps Charm set up carry a small sparkle. Prefer Charm never to manage modes for you? Turn off Smart Mode Selection in the same tab.

Terminals are the one place Charm deliberately never touches, and there is no setting to change that. In a terminal, every character is a live command rather than prose, so automatic corrections, predictions, or even an on-demand fix could alter or run commands you did not intend. Charm recognises all the popular terminals, including Terminal, iTerm2, Warp, kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, and Ghostty, and stands down completely in them. Everywhere else on your Mac works as normal.

For a failed download, just retry from Settings > General under AI Engine: Charm automatically clears any partial download first, so a retry always starts clean. The error message tells you whether the cause was your connection, disk space, or memory. If it says Charm could not reach huggingface.co, that is the site the models download from: on a VPN, work network or firewall, allowing huggingface.co is the fix. If Charm disappeared while loading a model, that means your Mac ran out of memory for it; on next launch Charm detects this, explains which model struggled, and steps back so it cannot happen in a loop. In that case choose the lighter Gemma 2 2B model, or run without a model; spelling correction works fine either way.

No. The AI model unloads itself after 2 minutes without use, freeing that memory completely, and reloads invisibly the next time it is needed. Memory during inference is tightly capped too. In browsers, Charm keeps its footprint deliberately small: it only inspects page details when you have actually created per-website rules, and recent updates significantly reduced how much work happens while you type in a browser. If anything ever feels heavy, make sure you are on the latest version (Settings > General > Check for Updates), then email support@theodorehq.com and we will take a look.

Open Settings > Diagnostics. You will see Charm's recent activity log: permission status, model events, and anything unusual, capped at the last 200 entries. Press Copy to put the whole report on your clipboard, then paste it into your email to support@theodorehq.com, or use Send, which drafts the email for you (and copies the full log to your clipboard as a backup, since some mail apps truncate long messages). The log records events only, never the text you type, so it is always safe to share. A Clear button wipes it whenever you like.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Whether it is a question, a bug report, or an idea for Charm, we would love to hear from you. You can also report bugs, request features, and vote on ideas right here on the feedback board.

No. Everything Charm does happens entirely on your Mac using a local AI model, and it works fully offline. Nothing you type is ever stored or sent anywhere: no servers, no cloud, no account, no tracking. Charm only acts on the text you are actively writing, stays out of your browser's address and search bars, and skips password fields entirely.

No. Charm detects password fields several ways and never reads, corrects, or predicts in them. It recognises secure fields in native Mac apps and in every major browser, honours the system-wide secure input mode that password prompts switch on, and as an extra safety net it treats any masked field showing dots as off-limits too. The same protection covers everything: live correction, word prediction, phrase learning, and Fix Selection all stand down the moment a password field has focus. And since Charm runs entirely on your Mac with no cloud and no logging of typed text, there is nowhere for anything sensitive to go anyway.

Charm keeps a small amount of data locally so it can serve you better: your settings and per-app rules, your personal dictionary and text replacements, the corrections it has learned from you, short phrases and word frequencies for prediction, a log of your last 100 corrections, and a diagnostic event log. Your licence key lives in the secure macOS Keychain. None of it ever leaves your Mac. Everything is inspectable and clearable: Settings > Personal manages the dictionary, replacements, and learned data, Settings > History clears the correction log, and Settings > Diagnostics clears the event log.

Exactly four things use a connection, and none of them include your text. First, downloading the on-device AI model when you set up or switch models. Second, activating and occasionally revalidating your licence key with our payment provider Polar; that request carries the key and your Mac's name so you can recognise the device, nothing more. Third, checking for app updates from our website. Fourth, if Charm ever quits unexpectedly and you choose to send a crash report, a short technical report goes to our Support Centre. Everything else, every correction, prediction, and piece of learning, happens entirely on your Mac. There are no analytics and no account.

Shiny needs macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer and runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) and Intel Macs as a Universal app. Same app, same licence, no separate downloads. Not sure which macOS you have? Click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac to check.

Open the downloaded file and drag Shiny into your Applications folder - it needs to live there, that part matters. Open it, and Shiny walks you through two quick steps: approving its small background helper in System Settings (this is what lets it actually free memory) and pasting the license key from your purchase email. That's it. Shiny then lives quietly in your menu bar as a little twelve-tick dial, ready whenever your Mac needs a polish.

During setup, Shiny opens System Settings for you. Go to General, then Login Items & Extensions, scroll to "Allow in the Background", and turn Shiny on. macOS may ask for your admin password. This approves the small helper that does the actual memory cleanup - freeing memory needs a level of access that macOS rightly keeps behind your say-so. Once you flip the toggle, just come back to Shiny; the setup window notices on its own and moves you along.

That's macOS asking, not Shiny - and it's a good sign. The deep memory cleanup uses a built-in macOS tool that only runs with your explicit approval, so the system asks for your admin password once when you switch Shiny on under "Allow in the Background". Shiny never sees or stores your password; macOS handles the whole exchange. After that one approval, every Polish works silently with no further prompts. The helper is removed automatically if you ever move Shiny to the Trash.

Polish does its work in a few seconds: it settles anything waiting to be written to disk, asks macOS to release the memory apps are no longer using (via the system's own built-in cleanup tool), and refreshes stale network lookups that can make browsing feel sluggish. Then it shows you how much lighter your Mac is - the real measured number, never an inflated one. If you've turned on "Quit hidden apps on Polish", it also politely closes apps you have hidden away. And if music or a call is playing, Shiny holds off the deep clean so your audio stays smooth.

The dial is a live gauge of how your Mac feels. Twelve ticks fill as things get busier: green means comfortable, amber (from about half full) means starting to fill up, red (from about 80%) means it's time to polish. It measures the slowdowns you actually feel - not just how much RAM is in use, because a busy-looking Mac can still feel perfectly fine. After a Polish it dips to a calm mint and eases back to the honest reading over a few minutes. A greyed-out dial just means setup isn't finished; click it to continue.

Yes. Press Option-Shift-C from any app and Shiny runs a Polish right away - no need to reach for the menu bar. To pick your own combination, open Shiny's Settings (the gear in the popover), choose General, click the Global Hotkey row, and press the keys you want. Any combination with at least one modifier key works, including the arrow and page keys, and Escape cancels recording if you change your mind. If the combination you pick is already claimed by macOS or another app, Shiny keeps the shortcut you had and tells you, so you are never left without one.

Updates take care of themselves. Shiny quietly checks for new versions about once an hour and offers them when they're ready - every update is cryptographically verified before it installs, so you always get the genuine article. Want to check right now? Open Settings, choose About, and press "Check Now", or right-click the menu bar dial and pick "Check for Updates". All updates are included with your license, forever, at no extra cost.

No - this is something Shiny is genuinely careful about. Before the deep clean, it checks whether your Mac is actually playing sound (music, a video, a call). If it is, Shiny does a lighter tidy instead and tells you so: "Held off the deep polish so your audio stays smooth." The same courtesy applies to Auto-polish, so background polishes never stutter your playlist or your meeting. Once the audio stops, the very next Polish does the full job. On macOS 14.2 or later the listening check is at its most precise.

When your Mac is filling up, the popover adds a line like "Safari and Slack are using the most right now." Shiny adds up everything each app is really using, including its hidden helper processes, so Chrome's many helpers count as Chrome. It only ever names apps you'd actually recognise - never cryptic system processes. Each name is clickable: click it, confirm, and Shiny asks that app to quit as politely as Cmd-Q would, so it can save your work first. The app isn't gone; you can reopen it any time.

With Auto-polish on (Settings, then General), Shiny watches for the moment macOS itself reports memory pressure and quietly runs a polish for you - no click needed. It waits at least five minutes between automatic polishes, so it never churns away in the background. It's also thoughtful about timing: if you're listening to music or on a call, it holds off the deep clean so your audio stays perfectly smooth. While Auto-polish is on, the "your Mac is full" nudge notifications stay quiet, since Shiny is already handling it.

With this setting on (Settings, then General), each Polish also asks apps you have hidden to quit - the ones you have tucked away with Cmd-H that are still holding onto memory. The ask is always polite, exactly like pressing Cmd-Q yourself: apps get the chance to save their work and can show a save prompt if they need to. Nothing is ever force-quit. Minimised windows and anything sitting on your other desktops are left alone, along with anything you are actually looking at. It's off by default, so Polish only does this if you choose it.

Open Settings and choose Sneaky Apps to see everything that runs on your Mac without you opening it - login items, background helpers, and auto-updaters, each named in plain English with a short note on what it does and how heavy it is right now. The heaviest sit at the top. You can pause items you don't need, quit ones that are running, and remove leftovers from apps you deleted long ago. Apple's own system processes are tucked away, since those are safe and shouldn't be touched.

When you delete an app, it sometimes leaves behind a startup entry that still asks macOS to launch something that no longer exists. Shiny checks each entry against what's actually on your disk, and flags the orphans as "Leftover, safe to remove". Click Remove (or "Remove all" in the banner) to clear them. Every removal comes with a six-second Undo button, and Shiny sets the entry aside first rather than deleting it outright, so an accidental click is never final within that window.

Some background items are held in place by macOS itself rather than by a file Shiny can clear. Those show "Open Settings" instead of Remove, which takes you straight to Login Items where you can switch them off. Shiny only offers Remove where it can genuinely finish the job.

Yes. In Settings, open Sneaky Apps. When Shiny spots auto-updaters running in the background, a banner offers "Pause all", or you can Disable them one at a time. Pausing is completely reversible - Shiny sets the startup entry aside rather than deleting anything, so an Enable click brings it straight back. The apps themselves keep working normally; you'd simply update them by opening them, instead of having their updaters idling in the background all day.

Gentle nudges (Settings, then Notifications) send a single quiet notification when your Mac crosses into genuinely-full territory: "Your Mac is feeling full. A quick polish should help." with a Polish Now button right on it. It fires once per episode, waits at least 30 minutes before repeating, and respects Focus modes when "Stay quiet during Focus" is on. If you'd previously declined notifications for Shiny in macOS, allow them under System Settings, Notifications, Shiny, then flip the toggle back on. Nudges also stay silent while Auto-polish is handling things for you.

An ambient cue that lives on the screen itself. Turn on "Soft edge glow" (Settings, then Screen) and the edges of every display take on a soft, warm tint when your Mac is very close to full - the kindest possible way to be told it's time to polish. It fades away on its own as soon as pressure drops. The glow is purely visual, sits behind your work, and is off by default, so nothing appears unless you invite it.

Not from Shiny. Restart Dock and Restart Finder were early additions that sat outside what Shiny is for, and macOS already relaunches either one by itself if it stops responding, so from Shiny 1.0.49 the menu is focused on memory instead.

If you ever want to relaunch Finder yourself, hold Option and right-click the Finder icon in your Dock, then choose Relaunch. Nothing is lost, and your windows and desktop come straight back.

Right-clicking the Shiny dial in your menu bar now gives you Open Shiny, Polish Now and Settings, a Support menu that takes you straight to report a bug, request a feature, leave a testimonial, review the roadmap or browse the FAQ, plus Check for Updates and Quit Shiny.

One-time. $4.99 once covers Shiny on up to three Macs, forever, with all future updates included. No recurring charges, no auto-renewals, no Pro tier upsells. Every purchase also carries a 14-day money-back guarantee: email us within 14 days and a real person will sort your refund, no questions asked.

No account, ever - your license key is the whole story. Internet is only needed for two things: activating the key, and a quick occasional check that it's still valid. Between checks, Shiny happily runs offline for up to 7 days. If you're away from a connection longer, Shiny shows a small "Running offline" note in Settings under About, with a countdown of the days remaining, and everything keeps working. The moment you're back online, the check completes silently and the countdown disappears.

No. Once activated, your license is stored in the macOS Keychain - the same protected vault that holds your Wi-Fi passwords - so it survives app updates and even deleting and reinstalling Shiny on the same Mac. Updates delivered through Shiny's built-in updater never touch it. You'd only enter the key again on a brand-new Mac or after erasing this one, and it's always waiting in your purchase email from Polar.sh with the subject "Your Shiny license" if you need it.

One thing worth doing before you erase a Mac: open Settings, then About, and choose Deactivate This Mac. Erasing takes the activation with it, so releasing the slot first keeps it available for your next machine.

Your license covers up to three Macs at once, so often you can simply enter your key on the new Mac and carry on.

If you still have the old Mac, the tidiest way is to free the slot from inside Shiny before you move: open Settings, then About, and choose Deactivate This Mac. That releases the slot straight away.

If all three slots are in use and you no longer have the old Mac, sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email. Polar sends you a one-time code, then you can remove the Mac you are retiring. Either route frees a slot instantly, and you can then paste your key into Shiny on the new machine and tap Activate.

Each Shiny license activates up to 3 Macs, and you can manage those devices yourself at any time. Sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email and you will see your license key and the Macs it is currently active on. Deactivating a Mac you no longer use frees that slot immediately.

This is worth knowing if you reinstall macOS or reset your Mac, because a fresh install claims a new slot even on the same machine. Deactivating the old entry afterwards puts it straight back.

Better still, if you know a wipe is coming, open Settings, then About, and choose Deactivate This Mac first. That releases the slot cleanly before the reinstall, so nothing is left stranded. If you cannot access the portal or something does not look right, email support@theodorehq.com from your purchase email address and we will sort it for you.

Shiny still gave your Mac a gentle tidy, and it's telling you the deep clean is waiting on one approval. Click the Open Settings button under that message (or open System Settings yourself), go to General, then Login Items & Extensions, scroll to "Allow in the Background", and turn Shiny on - macOS may ask for your admin password. That's the whole fix. Come back and press Polish again; from then on every polish is the full one.

First, click over to Shiny (or click its menu bar dial) - it re-checks the moment it comes forward, and usually that's all it takes. If it still says waiting, macOS occasionally holds the approval in a stuck state on its side. Shiny has a purpose-built fix: open Settings, choose About, and press Reinstall next to Background Helper. That re-registers the helper and verifies it's genuinely answering. If System Settings opens afterwards, flip the Shiny toggle once more and you're done.

That's Shiny being honest, and it's usually good news. The "% lighter" figure is measured for real: memory in use the instant before the polish versus the instant after. If your Mac wasn't under memory pressure, there was little to reclaim - macOS was already managing well. Shiny even hides the number below 2% rather than dress up a nothing-result as a win. You'll see the big numbers exactly when they matter: when the dial is amber or red and your Mac genuinely feels slow.

That is Gatekeeper, macOS being cautious about any app downloaded outside the App Store. It is not a problem with Shiny, which is notarized by Apple, meaning Apple scans it for malware before you download it. Right-click the app, choose Open, and you are set. It runs as a normal app from then on, same as Notes or Calendar.

macOS only allows an app to run a background helper when the app lives in the Applications folder - it's a security guarantee from Apple, not a Shiny preference. This usually appears when Shiny is being run straight from the downloaded disk image or from the Downloads folder. The fix takes ten seconds: quit Shiny, drag Shiny.app into Applications (the setup screen's "Open Applications" button takes you right there), open it from its new home, and press Install Helper again. Setup continues exactly where you left off.

There are only two reasons, and hovering over the button tells you which. If your Mac is feeling great, the button rests and the hover message reads "Nothing to polish. Enjoy the calm." - that's Shiny declining to do pointless work, and it wakes up the moment the dial leaves green. If instead the hover mentions the background helper, it needs its one-time approval: open System Settings, General, Login Items & Extensions, and turn Shiny on under "Allow in the Background". Polish springs to life right after.

Perfectly normal, and Shiny handles most of it for you. After an app update, macOS sometimes resets its record of background helpers, so Shiny automatically refreshes its helper on the first launch of every new version. Usually that's invisible. Occasionally macOS wants your approval confirmed again - if so, Shiny opens the right System Settings page; just flip the Shiny toggle on under "Allow in the Background". You'll be asked at most once per update, and everything you've set up stays exactly as it was.

From Shiny 1.0.49 this message appears only when the background helper genuinely did not answer. Every other outcome now explains itself in its own words. If an item cannot be changed safely, because another app has since reinstalled it or macOS manages it directly, Shiny says so and leaves it exactly as it was, and it only offers Reinstall when a reinstall is the thing that would actually help.

If you do see it, open Settings, choose About, press Reinstall next to Background Helper, wait for "Installed and ready", then repeat what you were doing. If a message says the helper needs approval instead, tap its Open Settings button and turn Shiny on under "Allow in the Background". Your list refreshes to show exactly what is true on disk, so nothing is left half-done.

From Shiny 1.0.46 this notification is much rarer. Shiny now gives the helper plenty of time to come online when your Mac starts up, which is when it is busiest, rather than expecting an instant answer. If the helper still needs a hand, Shiny repairs it on its own and then keeps quietly re-checking in the background every half hour, so it usually settles without you doing anything at all.

If you do see the notification, tap Reinstall right on it. That is the correct fix in the most common case and takes a couple of seconds. If macOS then asks for approval, tap Open Settings instead and turn Shiny on under "Allow in the Background" in Login Items & Extensions. Shiny won't nag either way: this notification appears at most once a day.

Shiny keeps a note of what happened, and the next time it opens you'll see a small report window with the details laid out for you to read. If you'd like us to look into it, one click opens a pre-addressed email to support@theodorehq.com in your own mail app - you can read exactly what's in it before sending, and a real person replies. Nothing is ever transmitted automatically or behind the scenes; if you dismiss the window, the report simply stays on your Mac.

Open Shiny's Settings, choose About, and click Diagnostics Log - Finder opens with the file selected, ready to attach to an email to support@theodorehq.com. The log is a small text file of timestamped events that lives only on your Mac (in your Library's Logs folder) and is kept trimmed to about 1 MB, so it never grows large. Nothing in it is ever sent anywhere unless you choose to send it yourself, and including it helps us give you a precise answer first time.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Lost your licence key? Email from the address you bought with and we will resend it. You can also report bugs, request features, leave a testimonial, and follow the roadmap from the Support tab in Shiny's settings, or right here in the Support Centre.

No analytics, no telemetry, no ads, no account, no tracking of any kind. Exactly two things ever leave your Mac, and you can verify both with a tool like Little Snitch. One: a check with theodorehq.com about once an hour to see if a new version exists. Two: a brief exchange with Polar, the payment provider, to activate your license and occasionally confirm it's still valid - Shiny runs happily offline for up to a week between checks. That's the complete list. Even crash reports only leave your Mac if you press send yourself.

Never. Shiny looks at exactly three kinds of information, all on your Mac: the list of running apps (the same one Activity Monitor shows), your Mac's own memory, processor, and temperature readings, and the list of startup items for the Sneaky Apps tab. Your files, photos, messages, and browsing are never opened, read, or changed - the polish itself only asks macOS to let go of memory the system has already marked as reclaimable. Everything Shiny observes stays on the machine and is forgotten as it refreshes.

The helper is a tiny, single-purpose tool that ships inside Shiny and does nothing until Shiny asks. Its whole job list: run the built-in macOS memory-release command, refresh stale network name lookups, politely ask an app to quit when you choose to, set aside the startup entries you pause or remove in Sneaky Apps (reversibly, never deleted outright), and read the startup-items list for that tab. It checks that requests genuinely come from Shiny before acting, never touches the network, never reads your files, and is removed automatically when you move Shiny to the Trash.

Atlas puts your whole group on one living world map, with everyone's local time, daylight and working hours. It scores every 15-minute slot across the next five working days and floats the best overlap to the top, or you can scrub the map to pick your own moment. One tap then writes the meeting to your calendar with everyone's local time included.

No, only you need it. Atlas creates the event in your calendar, and you invite the others from there exactly as you normally would - their calendars show the time correctly in their own zone automatically. Atlas also writes each person's local time into the event notes, and drafts a ready-made message ("Let's meet Friday. 8:00 AM for Ben, 5:00 PM for Maya.") you can send by Messages, Mail or anywhere else. Nobody has to install anything.

Yes. One tap adds the meeting to Apple Calendar, or hands off to Google, Outlook or Yahoo, or saves a universal .ics file, whichever you use. Atlas can also read your calendar if you allow it, quietly hiding times that clash with what you have already booked. That access is optional and off by default, and Atlas only ever writes the single event you asked for - never anything in the background.

Download Atlas from theodorehq.com/atlas, open the file and drag Atlas into your Applications folder. On first launch, paste the license key from your purchase email (it starts with ATLAS-) and press Enter. Atlas then walks you through a short setup: set your location, optionally connect your calendar, and add your first person. You are scheduling within a minute or two.

On first launch Atlas asks to use your location, purely to place your pin and set your time zone. Your coordinates go only to Apple Maps to look up your city name; they never touch any Atlas server. Prefer not to share? Skip the prompt and type your city manually instead, during setup or later in Settings under You. Moved or travelling? Tap the Auto-detect Location toggle in Settings and Atlas finds your city again.

Type a city into the search field (or press Cmd+F) and pick from the live suggestions - Atlas looks the place up with Apple Maps, so the time zone is always right. The person appears as a flag pin on the map with their local time. They are named after their city at first; use the inline rename to give them their real name. No email address or account is needed for anyone.

Yes. Groups keep different circles separate: your team, a client project, family. Press Cmd+N for a new group, Cmd+S to name it, and Cmd+1 to Cmd+9 to jump straight to one; Ctrl+Tab cycles through them. Drag groups in the drawer to reorder. You appear in every group automatically, each group can wear its own emoji icon, and each can point at its own calendar and choose whether its people show in the menu bar.

Atlas checks for updates automatically about once an hour and offers new versions with the standard macOS update prompt - your groups and settings carry straight over. To check by hand, open Settings, go to About and click Check for Updates. Every update is free, included in the one-time purchase.

The warm amber band shows where the sun is currently above the horizon. The blue band inside it shows where the local time is within working hours right now. Both are drawn around the point where the sun is directly overhead and sweep across the map as time moves. Pin colours follow the same idea: green means that person is inside working hours, amber means within an hour either side, and red means it is out of hours for them.

Atlas checks every 15-minute slot across the next five weekdays and scores each one against every person's working hours - the closer everyone sits to the middle of their day, the better. The time that suits the whole group best floats to the top, with two alternatives beside it. If your calendar is connected, anything that clashes with your existing events is hidden. Suggestions always land on tidy quarter-hour marks, never at 2:07pm.

Absolutely. Hold Cmd and drag anywhere on the map to scrub time forwards or backwards - every pin's clock, the daylight band and the working-hours band all move with you. Release when the moment looks right and that becomes your meeting time. Press Cmd+T to glide back to right now, or Cmd+B to return to Atlas's suggested best time. You can also tap any of the three suggestion cards to switch between them.

Yes. Open the date and duration drawer on the planning card and pick 15, 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes; 30 is the default. Changing the length re-runs the suggestions straight away, since a 90-minute call needs a bigger overlap between time zones than a quick 15-minute catch-up does.

By default Atlas scans the next five weekdays, skipping Saturday and Sunday. To schedule a weekend call or any particular day, open the date drawer on the planning card and tap the day you want - Atlas then scores every time on that exact date, whatever day of the week it is. Past days stay dimmed and can't be picked.

Yes, once you allow calendar access - it is optional and off by default. Atlas reads the next two weeks of events from the calendars you tick and quietly hides any suggestion that clashes, telling you how many were hidden so you can peek if you want. All-day items like birthdays and holidays are ignored on purpose; only timed events count as busy. Everything is read locally on your Mac and nothing is uploaded.

Once a time is chosen, Atlas writes the message for you: "Let's meet Friday. 8:00 AM for Ben, 5:00 PM for Maya. See you then." - everyone in their own local time. Hit Share to send it by Messages, Mail, Notes or AirDrop, or press Shift+Cmd+C to copy it anywhere. Adding the meeting to your calendar also writes each person's local time into the event notes, so the invite explains itself.

All the big ones. The default hands the event to your Mac's calendar app - Apple Calendar, or Fantastical or BusyCal if one of those is your default. You can instead choose Google Calendar, Outlook (personal or work) or Yahoo, which open in your browser with everything pre-filled, ready to save. Use something else, like Proton or Fastmail? Pick the calendar-file option and Atlas saves a universal file to Downloads that imports into anything. Choose your preference in Settings under Calendar.

Yes. In Settings, under Calendar, the Per Group section lets each group pin its own calendar - family meetings onto your personal iCloud calendar, client calls onto the work Google one. For Google or Outlook, add the account email there too, so the right account opens every time even when you are signed in to several. Groups without a pinned calendar simply follow your global choice.

Yes. Open Settings and adjust the two Working Hours sliders in the You section; the default is 9:00 to 17:00, adjustable in half-hour steps. These hours drive everything: which times Atlas suggests, the blue band on the map, and the green, amber and red pin colours. One thing to know: the same window currently applies to everyone in the group - there are no separate hours per person.

Press Cmd+K for Quick Check. It opens a scratch space seeded with just you - type any city, compare clocks, plan a one-off call, all without touching your saved groups. Press Esc when you are done and it vanishes completely. If the comparison turns out to be worth keeping, press Cmd+S and Atlas saves it as a new group, ready to rename.

That is your team as a tiny constellation: one dot per person, placed by where they are in the world, brighter when they are in working hours. Click it for a quick roster grouped by time of day, from late night through dawn, daytime, dusk and evening, often with a helpful line such as "Maya wraps up her day in 20 minutes." Choose which groups appear there in Settings, and hide the icon entirely under Behaviour if you prefer.

Yes. Atlas opens on the current time every time, and refreshes the moment you bring it to the front, so the clocks are right whenever you glance at it. If you want to leave Atlas open on its own display, turn on Follow the current time in Settings, Behaviour. The times then keep moving on their own even while Atlas sits unfocused. It is off by default because it refreshes the map every minute. Picking a meeting slot or dragging the map holds that moment instead, and Cmd+T returns you to live.

Yes. Open Settings, go to the Behaviour tab and turn on Hide Dock icon. Atlas then runs from the menu bar alone, staying out of your Dock and your app switcher while it carries on tracking everyone's local times. It applies straight away, with no need to restart. Click the menu bar icon whenever you want to see your people, and choose Open Atlas to bring the main window back. The setting appears only while Show menu bar icon is on, so Atlas always leaves you a way to reach it.

Scroll or pinch on the map to zoom in, and drag to move around once you are in. There are also plus and minus buttons in the bottom right corner, next to a Fit button that frames everyone in the current collection in one click. If all the people you track are in one country, Fit will fill the window with it. Every collection remembers its own position and zoom, so switching between them returns each one to the view you left it on, and it is still there next time you open Atlas.

Yes. In the Who row above your people there is a small control showing the current order. Click it and choose Order Added, Local Time or Name. Local Time reads down the day, so whoever is earliest in the morning sits at the top. It only changes how the list is displayed, so Order Added always brings back the arrangement you built. Share, Copy and the description on calendar invites all follow whichever order you choose, so the message you send reads in the same sequence you are looking at.

Yes. Click the sidebar button in the sidebar's header, next to the Settings gear, or choose View, Hide Sidebar, or press Control-Command-S. The sidebar slides away and the map takes the whole window, keeping the same people in the middle of your view. A button in the top left corner brings it back, and the same shortcut works both ways. Atlas remembers your choice between launches. Anything that lives in the sidebar, such as search, Settings or Quick Check, brings it back automatically when you ask for it. Hiding it helps most with groups spread right across the world, where the extra width lets more of your people fit on screen at once.

Yes. Click a person's row to open their details and start typing their name. Matching people from your Contacts appear with their email, and clicking one fills in both the name and the email. The first time, press Find in Contacts and allow access when your Mac asks. Atlas only looks up names you type and never changes your Contacts. Once people have emails, Share to Mail addresses the message to everyone in the group, and Add to Google Calendar adds them as guests.

Yes. Atlas is a one-time $4.99 purchase with no subscription and no upgrade fees. One licence covers up to three Macs, and you can deactivate a Mac in Settings to free a slot for a new one. Every future update is included. It needs macOS 13 Ventura or later and runs natively on Apple Silicon, with Intel supported.

Your key arrives by email from Polar, our checkout partner, right after purchase - it starts with ATLAS-. Open Atlas, paste the key into the activation screen and press Enter. Capitalisation doesn't matter, and pressing activate twice won't use up an extra device slot. If the email hasn't arrived within a few minutes, check the spam folder, then write to support@theodorehq.com and we will sort it out.

No problem. Your key was emailed from Polar, our checkout partner, when you bought Atlas - search your inbox for "Polar" or "Atlas". If Atlas is already activated on a Mac, Settings under About shows the email address the license is registered to, which helps track the right inbox down. Can't find it anywhere? Email support@theodorehq.com from the address you purchased with and we will send your key again.

Each Atlas license activates up to 3 Macs, and you can manage those devices yourself at any time. Sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email and you will see your license key and the Macs it is currently active on. Deactivating a Mac you no longer use frees that slot immediately.

This is worth knowing if you reinstall macOS or reset your Mac, because a fresh install claims a new slot even on the same machine. Deactivating the old entry afterwards puts it straight back. If you cannot access the portal or something does not look right, email support@theodorehq.com from your purchase email address and we will sort it for you.

Day to day, yes. The map, clocks, groups and time suggestions all run entirely on your Mac. Atlas verifies your license quietly in the background and is happy offline for a week at a time; normal internet use keeps that ticking over without you ever noticing. You will only need a connection to look up new cities, activate a license, or download updates.

Every purchase comes with a 30-day no-questions refund. Email support@theodorehq.com from the address you bought with and the refund is processed within five working days. UK buyers keep all their statutory consumer rights on top of that, including the remedies for faulty digital content. Not sure Atlas fits before buying? Ask first - we would genuinely rather help you decide than process a refund.

The quickest fix is to remove that person and add them again by searching their city - Atlas re-checks the time zone with Apple Maps as you add them, and the latest versions refuse to guess when a place is ambiguous. If a pin shows a dash instead of a time, Atlas is saying it cannot work out that place's zone on your Mac, and re-adding is the cure there too. Daylight saving is handled automatically, so clock changes need no action. Still looks off? Email support@theodorehq.com with the city name.

macOS is blocking calendar access, usually because the permission was declined at some point. Click the Open Settings button on the message (or go to System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Calendars) and switch Atlas on. When you come back, Atlas notices the change and retries the save on its own. Prefer not to grant calendar access at all? Choose Google, Outlook, Yahoo or the calendar-file option in Settings instead - those routes need no permission.

Two common causes. First, when the event opens as a pre-filled page in your browser, it still needs its Save button clicked - Atlas fills everything in, but Google makes the final save. Second, with several Google accounts signed in, the page may have opened in the wrong one: in Settings, under Calendar, pin the group's Google calendar and add the account email, and Atlas will open the right account every time after that. Freshly saved events can also take a few seconds to sync across devices.

Atlas keys always start with ATLAS-. Seeing this message usually means a key for one of our other apps, such as Solace or Charm, was pasted by mistake - each app has its own key, even though they share a checkout. Check your purchase email for the key beginning ATLAS- and paste that one instead. If you only ever bought Atlas and still see this, email support@theodorehq.com and we will check the order for you.

First check the system side: open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Location Services - make sure Location Services is on and Atlas is allowed. Back in Atlas, flick the Auto-detect Location toggle in Settings to try again. No luck, or you would rather not share location at all? Type your city into the Set Your City field in the You section of Settings - a manual pin works identically, and either way the lookup only ever talks to Apple Maps.

City search runs on Apple's place lookup, so the usual culprit is the internet connection - Atlas shows "Couldn't reach search" when it can't get through. Once you are back online, try again. If a small town won't come up, search the nearest larger city (the time zone will be the same) or add the country name to the search. Atlas deliberately declines to add a place when it can't confirm the real time zone, so it never shows you a wrong clock.

Atlas keeps running when its window closes - that is by design, so your people stay one click away. Bring it back by clicking the constellation icon in the menu bar and choosing Open Atlas, or click the Atlas icon in the Dock. You can also record a global shortcut in Settings, under Behaviour, to summon Atlas from inside any app. To quit completely, right-click the menu bar icon and choose Quit Atlas.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Not sure whether Atlas suits your team? Email us before buying and we will gladly help. You can also report bugs, request features, and vote on ideas right here on the feedback board.

Open Settings, go to the About tab, and look for the Support section. From there you can Report a Bug, Request a Feature, Leave a Testimonial, Review the Roadmap or browse the FAQ, each opening the matching page in your browser. Reporting a bug or requesting a feature lets you track its progress and follow the roadmap, so you can see what is coming next. You can also reach these directly at support.theodorehq.com/atlas. For anything private, email support@theodorehq.com.

Suggestions appear once you type at least two letters in the Name field of someone's details. If a Find in Contacts button shows instead, press it and allow access. If nothing appears at all, you may have declined access earlier: open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Contacts, turn on Atlas, then open the person's details again. Your own row has no email field, since you are the one sending. You can always type an email by hand.

No accounts, no servers, no telemetry. Your team list, settings and calendar stay on your Mac. Only three small things ever leave it: a one-time location lookup with Apple Maps to find your time zone, a licence check when you activate, and update checks. Nothing about your schedule or your people is ever sent to us, and the emails you add go only where you send them, such as a Mail message or a Google Calendar invite.

At most four, all optional. Location places your own pin and sets your time zone; the coordinates go only to Apple Maps for the city lookup. Calendars lets Atlas hide times you are busy and add the meetings you approve; events are read locally and never uploaded. Contacts, asked only when you press Find in Contacts, suggests each person's email as you type their name; Atlas never changes your Contacts. Automation lets Atlas open Apple Calendar on the right day after saving, so your new event is the one in front of you. Decline any of them and the rest of Atlas keeps working normally.

Everything lives on your Mac: your groups and people in a small file inside Atlas's app-data folder, your preferences alongside it, and your license safely in the macOS Keychain. Because it is ordinary local data, Time Machine and other Mac backups include it automatically - restore your Mac and Atlas comes back with your groups intact. There is no cloud copy, because nothing ever leaves the machine.

Echo is a menu-bar app that remembers every song, podcast and video you play, across your apps and your browser, in one tidy history. Press the global shortcut from anywhere and a fast, keyboard-first overlay appears. Choose anything and it resumes at the exact spot you left off, and videos can come back in a floating picture-in-picture player that hovers over your work.

Native apps that publish to macOS Now Playing, including Spotify, Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, work out of the box. Add the free companion browser extension and Echo also remembers anything you play in your browser: YouTube, Spotify Web, SoundCloud, podcasts, and any tab with audio or video.

You only need the extension for media you play in your browser; native apps like Spotify, Apple Music and Apple Podcasts work without it. It's free, and Echo's Settings, under General, has a button for each browser in the Browsers row. The Chrome listing works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Dia, Vivaldi and Opera, and Firefox has its own listing. Safari's comes with Echo: click Safari, switch Echo on in Safari's Extensions settings, and allow it on every website (Safari 18.4 or later). There's nothing to pair or configure. While the Echo app is running, the extension connects on its own and the Extension row in Settings switches to "Connected".

Your history is Echo's main window. Press ⌘⇧E from anywhere, or click the Echo icon in the menu bar and choose Open Echo. The All tab lists everything Echo has noted, newest first, and you can start typing to search it. Shelf, Moments and Saved, when you have them switched on, are narrower views of the same history. The History section under Settings, General only sets how long Echo keeps its notes; it is not where they live. If you have changed the shortcut, the menu bar item shows your own.

Echo works out of the box. The one permission that matters for Spotify and Apple Music is Automation: Echo asks macOS for it the first time it sees either app running, and it powers both remembering what's playing and resuming it at the exact second. If you ever declined it, or the prompt never appeared, open Settings, Privacy & Permissions, and press Grant next to Automation. It works whether or not a player is open: Echo opens one in the background for a moment, asks macOS, and closes it again. Echo's overlay will also offer the same button whenever it can't see the players. Two permissions are optional and only for specific features: Accessibility lets Echo control Apple Podcasts and resume things in the background more reliably, and Screen Recording is used solely by "Hide Spotify & Music On Resume" to cover a tiny corner of the screen behind the hidden player window. Echo never records your screen. After granting either one, quit and reopen Echo.

Press Cmd-Shift-E from anywhere on your Mac (or click the three-bar icon in the menu bar) and Echo's overlay appears: what's playing now pinned at the top, then everything else, newest first. Just start typing to filter, use the arrow keys to move, and press Return to resume quietly in the background. Cmd-Return resumes and brings the app or tab to the front, and Esc closes the overlay. You can change any of these keys in Settings, under Shortcuts.

Only if you choose it. Echo can only remember what you play while it's running, so the welcome offers to open it at login, and the choice is yours: nothing is switched on without asking. You can change your mind any time with Launch At Login in Settings, under Startup, and Echo respects that choice permanently. It lives in the menu bar only, so it never adds a window or a Dock icon to your day.

Echo checks for updates automatically in the background about once an hour, and shortly after it launches, so you'll be offered new versions as they ship. To check right now, click the Echo icon in the menu bar and choose "Check for Updates...". Every update is included with your licence at no extra cost, and updates are signed and verified before they install.

Safari's extension comes with Echo 1.0.22 and later, so there's nothing to download. Open Echo once, then in Echo's Settings, under General, click Safari in the Browsers row. Safari opens its Extensions settings with Echo selected: switch it on, and when Safari asks, choose Always Allow on Every Website. It needs Safari 18.4 or later, and it updates along with Echo.

Yes. While something plays, Echo quietly notes your position every few seconds, and it always keeps the furthest point you reached, so scrubbing back or an accidental restart never loses your place. Resume then returns you to that exact spot: YouTube videos reopen at the right second, Spotify and Apple Music jump to the exact track and position, and podcasts pick up mid-episode. If you finish something and later start it again from the top, Echo notices and lets it begin fresh.

Yes, Spotify is one of Echo's best-supported apps. With the desktop app, Echo remembers every track and resumes the exact song at the exact position, quietly in the background, without the Spotify window jumping in front of you. Spotify in a browser tab is remembered too, as one tidy entry that always shows your latest track. And if you pick a Spotify web item while the desktop app is installed, Echo is smart enough to hand playback to the app instead of opening a tab.

That's intentional. Re-picking a three-minute song almost always means "play this song", not "continue it from 1:47", so ordinary music starts from the top. Long-form listening is different: podcasts, videos, and any music longer than 20 minutes (DJ sets, mixes, ambient tracks, audiobooks) resume exactly where you left off, because that's the thing you most want to continue. So the short stuff behaves like a jukebox and the long stuff behaves like a bookmark, automatically.

With the browser extension installed, every YouTube video you watch for more than a few seconds joins your history, keyed to the video itself, so the same video opened from different links or tabs stays one entry. Press Return on it later and it comes back at the exact second, playing in Echo's own floating player, no tab required. Cmd-Return reopens the real YouTube tab instead. Videos that block embedding still work: Echo hands them to your browser's built-in floating player automatically.

Resume a video and it can float in a small window that stays on top while you work. Hover over the picture and it fades to a ghost so you can see and click whatever is behind it, without moving the window. A slim control bar gives you a scrubber, 10-second skips, play and pause, playback speed (1x, 1.5x and 2x), open-in-browser, and close. Choose which screen corner it lives in, and how far from the edge, in Settings under Playback. Ctrl-Option-P toggles it from anywhere.

Yes. Any browser video can play sound-only in the background, with no window at all, which is perfect for talks, podcasts on YouTube and music videos. Echo remembers how you last enjoyed each video, watching or just listening, and a plain Return repeats that choice. Option-Return flips it for a single play, and the watch toggle on the now-playing card (or Ctrl-Option-P) switches between watching and listening live, without interrupting playback. The default for first-time videos is in Settings, under Playback.

That's Echo's single-playback rule: when you start something new, whatever was already playing pauses, so two things never talk over each other. It works across everything, desktop apps and browser tabs alike, and it deliberately never pauses a live call: meeting sites like Google Meet, Zoom, Teams and Slack are always left alone. Spotify on desktop and Spotify in a tab count as one player, so they won't fight each other. You can choose in Settings, under Playback, Auto-Pause: Except Music keeps your music playing while you watch a video or listen to a podcast, and Never leaves everything playing.

Moments are bookmarked spots inside whatever you're listening to or watching. Hear something worth coming back to? Press Ctrl-Option-M from anywhere and Echo saves the spot, wound back ten seconds so you get the run-up rather than the instant you pressed the key. A small confirmation appears on screen. Your Moments live in their own tab in the overlay (Cmd-6), each one jumps straight to its second, and you can add a note to remember why you saved it.

The Shelf is your "continue watching" list for the whole Mac: podcasts and videos you've genuinely started but haven't finished. Echo works this out from how far through you are, so nothing needs marking by hand. Things you're at least 80% through appear in their own "almost done" group, ideal for a quick finish, and anything untouched for three weeks quietly drops off so the Shelf never becomes a guilt pile. Find it in the overlay's scope bar, or press Cmd-5.

Two ways. Pin an item (Cmd-P) to float it to the top of your history, or Save it (Cmd-S) to add it to your Saved queue of things to start later (Cmd-7 to view). Both are permanently kept: even if you set Keep History to the last 7 days or the last 50 items in Settings, pinned and saved items are never pruned. Everything else ages out according to your Keep History choice, which defaults to keeping everything.

Yes. Select an item in the overlay, press Cmd-K to open its actions, and choose Send to Phone. Echo shows a QR code, generated entirely on your Mac, that links to the item anchored at your exact playback position. Point your phone's camera at it and the video or track opens right where you left off on the Mac. Nothing is uploaded anywhere; it's simply a link with your spot built in.

Yes, every shortcut in Echo is rebindable, from the global summon key (Cmd-Shift-E by default) down to the individual overlay keys for tabs, actions and navigation. Open Settings, choose Shortcuts, click a shortcut and press your new combination. Echo checks for clashes as you record and tells you if a key is already taken. Global shortcuts and letter keys need a modifier (Cmd, Option, Ctrl or Shift) so they can't collide with typing in the search box, and Reset All puts everything back to the defaults.

Yes. Install it in each browser you use, for example Safari and Chrome, and Echo keeps one history across all of them. Each video resumes in the browser it came from, and starting something new pauses whatever else is playing.

Echo is $9.99, a one-time purchase, with no subscription and no account. One licence covers up to three Macs and every future update is included. There is no time-limited trial; instead there is a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it, try it properly, and email support@theodorehq.com for a full refund if it is not for you. It needs macOS 13 or later.

Your key was shown right after checkout and emailed to you with your purchase receipt, so a quick search of your inbox for "Polar" or "Echo" usually finds it. If it's nowhere to be found, email support@theodorehq.com from the address you bought with and we'll look it up and get you back in, usually within a day. There's also a shortcut inside the app: Settings, Licence, "Lost Your Key?" opens that email for you.

Each Echo licence activates up to 3 Macs, and you can manage those devices yourself at any time. Sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email and you will see your licence key and the Macs it is currently active on. Deactivating a Mac you no longer use frees that slot immediately.

This is worth knowing if you reinstall macOS or reset your Mac, because a fresh install claims a new slot even on the same machine. Deactivating the old entry afterwards puts it straight back. If you cannot access the portal or something does not look right, email support@theodorehq.com from your purchase email address and we will sort it for you.

Yes. Echo itself is fully local, so capturing and resuming work with no connection at all. The only thing that needs the internet occasionally is your licence: Echo confirms it quietly in the background, and a Mac can stay offline for up to 7 days between checks. If you've been away longer than that, Echo asks you to connect once so it can verify the licence, then carries on as normal. Nothing about your listening history is involved in that check.

Three quick checks usually solve this. First, make sure the extension is installed and the Echo app is open: in Echo's Settings under General, the Browser row should say "Connected", and in Chrome and Firefox, the extension's toolbar icon also shows a green dot. Second, check the site: the extension watches the major media sites, including YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Twitch, Deezer and Amazon Music. Third, remember Echo only notes things after about 10 seconds of actual, audible playback, so muted clips and quick previews are skipped on purpose.

That message means the extension can't reach the Echo app right now. Open Echo (check for the three-bar icon in the menu bar) and the extension reconnects automatically within a few seconds, no pairing needed. If Echo is open but still not detected, make sure your licence is activated, since Echo only starts its browser connection once it's unlocked, and try quitting and reopening your browser once so it picks up the fresh connection. Keeping your browser up to date also helps: the most reliable connection method needs Chrome 144 or newer.

Echo is choosy on purpose, so your history stays meaningful. Things are only noted after about 10 seconds of continuous, audible play (adjustable in Settings, General, "Only Note After"), so skipped tracks and muted autoplay clips never appear. Messaging, mail, meetings and document sites (WhatsApp, Slack, Google Meet, Google Docs and friends) are always ignored, as are screen recorders. Also check that Pause Echo isn't switched on, and that the app or site isn't in your Never Record lists under Settings, Privacy & Permissions.

Echo saves your position every few seconds while something plays. If you deliberately move back to an earlier moment, Echo takes that as your new place and returns you there next time. Otherwise it keeps the furthest point you genuinely reached, so an accidental restart can't erase your progress. If a resume seems off, play the item for a few seconds so a fresh position is written, then it will be exact from there. Two behaviours are deliberate: finishing something and starting it again from the top resets it so you can rewatch, and ordinary songs restart from the beginning by design, while podcasts, videos and long music continue mid-way.

Browsers only let a brand-new or long-idle tab start making sound while it's front and centre, a rule designed to stop pages autoplaying behind your back. So when a resume needs a fresh tab, Echo opens it in front just long enough to get it playing, then returns you to the tab and app you were in while the audio continues in the background. Granting Echo the Accessibility permission (Settings, Privacy & Permissions) makes these quiet resumes succeed more often. Videos resumed with plain Return normally use Echo's own player instead, which avoids tabs entirely.

Yes. Echo already tucks the player away moments after a quiet resume, but for complete invisibility turn on "Hide Spotify & Music On Resume" in Settings, under Playback. It needs two macOS permissions: Accessibility, to move the player's window out of sight, and Screen Recording, which is used only to copy the small strip of screen behind the parked window so it's perfectly covered. Nothing is ever recorded or sent anywhere. macOS asks about Accessibility by itself. Screen Recording usually has to be switched on by hand, so Echo opens that pane in System Settings for you. After granting both, quit and reopen Echo and resumes become fully seamless.

Apple Podcasts is the one app that offers no direct way for other apps to control it, so Echo presses its Play control for you through the Accessibility permission. Grant it in Echo's Settings, under Privacy & Permissions (or when macOS asks), then quit and reopen Echo. From then on, picking an episode resumes Podcasts quietly in the background, and Echo will even launch the app for you if it's closed. Without the permission, Echo still tries its best, but resume is much more reliable with it granted.

When a keyboard combination is already claimed by another app or by macOS itself, the system gives it to whoever registered first, so Echo's press never arrives. The fix is quick: open Settings, go to Shortcuts, click the shortcut and record a new combination. Echo validates it as you type and warns about clashes with its own keys. Combinations with two modifiers (like Cmd-Shift or Ctrl-Option) are rarely taken. If the overlay opens but a key inside it does nothing, check the same panel, since every overlay key is rebindable too.

Email support@theodorehq.com. A real person, not a bot, reads every message and usually replies within a day. Whether it is a question, a bug report, or an idea for Echo, we would love to hear from you. You can also report bugs, request features, and vote on ideas right here on the feedback board.

Next to none. Echo is designed to sit in the background using a fraction of a percent of your Mac's processing power, whether music is playing or not, so it has no meaningful effect on battery or performance. The menu-bar icon animates gently while something is playing and holds still when paused; if you would rather it never moved, turn off Animate Menu-Bar Icon in Settings. If Activity Monitor ever shows Echo working harder than that, make sure you are on the latest version (Echo menu > Check for Updates), as 1.0.16 made Echo dramatically lighter.

Safari lets you allow an extension on one website at a time, so Echo only sees the sites you've allowed. Click Echo's icon in Safari's toolbar: when access is missing it shows "Echo needs to see what you play" with an Allow on Every Website button, and one click sorts it.

Make sure you have Echo 1.0.22 or later and Safari 18.4 or later, then open Echo once, since that's when Safari finds its extension. If it still doesn't appear, quit and reopen Safari.

Completely. Everything Echo records stays on your Mac: there is no account, no cloud and no analytics. The browser extension only reads the title, artwork and playback position of tabs that are playing media, and passes them straight to the Echo app over a private channel on your Mac that never touches the internet. It never reads your browsing history or page content, and nothing is ever sent to us. Echo itself goes online only for update and licence checks, to fetch the cover art a player or page already published, and to play YouTube videos in its floating player through YouTube's own embedded player. None of these carries your history, and the privacy policy lists each one.

Everything you play stays on your Mac: history, artwork, Moments and listening sessions live in local files under your user library, and your licence key sits in the macOS Keychain. Echo has no analytics, no telemetry and no account. The only network traffic is: an occasional licence check with our payment provider (your key and your Mac's name, never your history), the hourly check for app updates, fetching the cover images a player or page already published, and YouTube's own embedded player when you watch a video in Echo's floating player. So the floating player opens instantly, Echo loads YouTube's player shortly after launch and prepares a YouTube video you are already watching, without showing or playing it. Playing something naturally streams from that service, exactly as if you'd pressed play yourself. The privacy policy lists each of these.

Absolutely, you're in full control. In Settings, under Privacy & Permissions, add any app or website to the Never Record lists and Echo will ignore it completely. Sensitive places are already excluded for you: messaging, mail, meetings and document sites never enter your history. You can also pause all tracking with one switch (Settings, General, Pause Echo), remove any single item or a whole app's items from the overlay, clear everything, or cap how long history is kept. Deleting an item also removes its cached artwork from disk.

Not unless you ask it to. Diagnostic Logging is off by default. If you're troubleshooting something with us, you can turn it on in Settings, under Privacy & Permissions, and Echo keeps a local log you can export and attach to a support email yourself. Nothing is ever sent automatically, the file lives only on your Mac, and switching the toggle off deletes it immediately so nothing lingers.

That is Safari's standard wording for any extension allowed on every website, and it describes what Safari lets extensions do, not what Echo does. Echo's extension only reads the title, artwork and playback position of tabs that are playing media, and hands them to the Echo app on your Mac. It never reads your browsing history or page content, and nothing leaves your Mac.

When Echo can see nothing at all, it is nearly always because macOS has not let it ask Spotify or Apple Music what's playing. That is the Automation permission. Echo requests it the moment it first sees one of those apps running, and if it was declined, or the prompt never appeared, the empty overlay says so and offers a Grant Permission button right there. You can also open Settings, Privacy & Permissions, where Automation sits at the top with Grant and Open buttons. macOS will only answer while a player is actually open, so Echo opens one in the background for a moment, asks, and closes it again. Once it's allowed, play something for about ten seconds and it appears.

Muse is a native Mac app for collecting and organising the things you find online: images and screenshots, links and bookmarks, video, and notes. Everything lives in one private library made of real files on your own Mac, with no account and no cloud. Save something with a drag, a shortcut, or the browser clipper, and Muse tidies it away and tags it for you on-device, so you can find it again later by a word, a colour, or even the text inside a screenshot.

Muse needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later and an Apple Silicon Mac (the M1, M2, M3 and M4 family). It is a notarised app that installs like any other: download it from theodorehq.com/muse, drag it to your Applications folder, and open it. Updates arrive automatically. Muse is not sandboxed and is not on the Mac App Store, which is what lets it capture from anywhere on your screen and keep its files where you can see them. Muse does not run on older Intel Macs.

Yes. The guide at theodorehq.com/muse/howto walks through every way into Muse and back out again, step by step and with pictures: the Drop Ring, the Web Clipper, the screenshot key, the Launcher and the Shelf for collecting, then search, boards and previews for finding things later. You can open it from inside the app too: on the welcome screens, with the Muse Guide button at the top right of Settings > Collect + Find, with the round ? button at the foot of every Settings section, and in Settings > Support.

Download Muse from theodorehq.com/muse, open the disk image, and drag Muse into your Applications folder. The first time you open it, right-click the app and choose Open so macOS lets a freshly downloaded app run. Muse starts your 14-day free trial straight away, with no card needed. It opens to a near-empty library and one gentle prompt: drag anything in, or press the capture shortcut, and you are collecting.

The Muse Guide is the step-by-step guide on our website, and Muse opens it in your browser. In Settings, click the Muse Guide button at the top right of Collect + Find, click the round ? button at the foot of any Settings section, or open Settings > Support and choose Muse Guide. The same Support section also links to the Support Centre's bug reports, feature requests, roadmap, changelog and FAQ.

Yes. Muse comes with a full 14-day free trial, and you do not need to enter any card or payment details to start it. Every feature is available during the trial, so you can build a real library and see how it fits your work. When the trial ends, buying a licence unlocks the same library you already built. Nothing you saved is lost or held back. If you started your trial before Muse 1.0.42, you keep the full 30 days.

No. Muse has no account and no sign-in. You download the app and start using it, and your library lives entirely on your Mac as real files. When you buy, you activate a licence key (which arrives by email from our checkout), but that is a one-time step, not an account you log into. There is no password to remember and nothing syncing to a server.

The quickest way is to drag an image, a file, or a link straight onto the Muse window. It saves immediately, with a short "Saved to Inbox" confirmation, and a folder brings everything inside it. You can also press the capture shortcut from anywhere: the Launcher opens with Cmd-Shift-K, or grab a screenshot into Muse with Cmd-Shift-S. Anything you save while you are somewhere else, like a page clipped with the browser extension, arrives on a small Capture Card with a title, a collection, and tags already filled in, so you can confirm it with Cmd-Return.

Muse gives you several ways to collect. Drag anything anywhere on your Mac and the Drop Ring appears to catch it. Use the browser extension to right-click and save an image, link or whole page, or point the in-page clipper at what you want. On X, the Muse button beside each post's bookmark icon saves it in one click (version 1.0.46 or later). Press Cmd-Shift-S for a screenshot straight into the library. Open the Launcher with Cmd-Shift-K to search, save or paste from any app. From any other app, choose Muse in its Share menu, or right-click selected text, a link or files in Finder and choose Services > Save to Muse (version 1.0.44 or later). All of the shortcuts can be changed in Settings.

Open Settings > Library. Start Over opens a fresh, empty library next to your current one and takes you through the welcome again, so you can import only what you want this time. Your current library stays on disk untouched, and Change in the same panel reopens it at any point. If you would rather keep the library and just clear it, choose Empty This Library: every item moves to the Trash and your collections stay, empty. Nothing is gone until you empty the Trash. Both need version 1.0.33 or later.

Press Cmd-Shift-K from any app and the Launcher floats up over whatever you are doing. Type to search your whole library, press Space to preview an item without leaving the Launcher, and drag results straight out into another app. Results are listed in one steady order: your bookmarks, then your collections, then your pictures and video, and a collection whose name you type exactly comes straight to the top. On a collection, Return steps inside it so you can keep browsing without leaving the Launcher, and Command-Return brings Muse to the front with that collection open. You can also reach your Downloads folder from here, and Shift-Return pastes a saved link into the app you were just in. Press Escape and you are back exactly where you started. The shortcut can be changed or turned off in Settings > Shortcuts.

When something arrives in Muse while you are working somewhere else, like a page clipped with the browser extension or something sent from another app's Share menu or Services menu (version 1.0.44 or later), a small frosted card appears with the title, collection and tags already filled in. Tab moves between the fields, and Cmd-Return saves. In the tags field, start typing and the tags you already use appear underneath: pick one with the arrow keys and Return, or click it (version 1.0.42 or later). Type a new name in the collection field and you can create that collection on the spot: the same field then asks "Nested?", so you can type to choose the collection it goes inside, or press Return to keep it at the top level (version 1.0.37 or later). If you do nothing, it waits patiently rather than dismissing, so reading a page never loses your save. It can even appear before a download finishes and attach itself to the real file once it lands. Anything you save in Muse yourself, by dragging it in or pasting it, goes straight into your library with a short confirmation instead. You can turn the Capture Card off in Settings > Collect + Find > New Items if you would rather every save dropped straight into your Inbox.

The Muse extension works in Chrome and the Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave, Arc and others), in Firefox 121 or later, and in Safari 18.4 or later, where it comes with the Muse app. There are two ways to clip: right-click and choose Save Image, Video, Link, Selection or Page to Muse, or summon the in-page clipper (press Control M), then click whatever lights up. The extension only talks to the Muse app on your own Mac, and the app downloads the media itself. Install it from the links on theodorehq.com/muse, or in Safari turn it on in Safari > Settings > Extensions. Muse's Settings > Browser has a button for each.

Press Cmd-Shift-S and Muse starts an interactive screen grab: drag to select a region, or press Space to switch to capturing a whole window. The shot lands directly in your library, and Muse remembers the page or app it came from so the screenshot carries its source. There is no separate save step. You can change the screenshot shortcut, like every other shortcut, in Settings > Shortcuts.

The Drop Ring is Muse's catch-anywhere target. Start dragging any image, file or link anywhere on your Mac, then hold Control, and a small radial dial blooms around your cursor: Inbox at the top, your Downloads folder at the bottom, and your top collections around the ring. Keep holding as you move onto the one you want, and let go to drop. Release Control before you finish and the ring tucks away again, which is what keeps it clear of everyday dragging.

Waiting for a key is how Muse ships, so that moving files around your Mac never summons something you did not ask for. All of it is adjustable in Settings → Collect + Find → Drop Ring:

• Hold a Key First. Control by default. Choose Command, Option or Shift instead, or No Key and the ring appears on every drag.
• Show For. Set to Every App by default. Switch it to Browsers and the ring only appears for drags that start in a web browser.
• Never Show For. A list of apps whose drags Muse leaves alone entirely. CleanShot X is on it out of the box, so dragging from its screenshot tray behaves as it always did.

The ring only considers drags carrying an image, a file, a link or text, and it ignores anything dragged from inside Muse's own window.

The shelf is an optional tray that lives at the edge of your screen for staging things in and out without opening the main window. It is off by default. Turn it on in Settings > Collect + Find > Shelf (Use the Shelf), and then summon it with Option-B or by nudging your pointer to the right edge of the screen. With more than one screen, the shelf always opens on your rightmost one, however you summon it, and Settings > Collect + Find > Shelf > Show On gives it a different screen. It is handy if you like to gather a few things before filing them properly. If you would rather keep it simple, leaving it off changes nothing else about how Muse works.

Collections are your folders, and they nest: a collection can hold sub-collections, shown as neat piles inside it, and they appear in every view rather than only in the grid. You can nest one by dragging it onto another in the sidebar, or create it already nested from the Capture Card as you save. Every item lives in exactly one collection, so filing something moves it there rather than leaving a copy where it was. If the same thing genuinely belongs in two places, save it twice and give each one its own name, and Muse keeps them as separate entries with their own tags and notes. Anything you have not filed yet waits in the Inbox until you sort it, and an item you take out of a collection simply goes back to being unfiled. Right-click a collection and choose Edit Collection to rename it, give it a colour and pick its icon in one place.

Yes. A collection is drawn as a small stack of pictures, and by default Muse uses the newest few. To pick the one on top yourself, open the collection, right-click the picture you want and choose Set as Board Cover. It moves to the front of the stack straight away. The cards behind it carry on updating on their own, so the stack still shows what has arrived recently. To hand the choice back to Muse, right-click the same picture and choose Remove Board Cover. If that picture is later moved elsewhere or deleted, the collection quietly goes back to choosing for itself.

Right-click a collection in the sidebar and choose Edit Collection, or double-click the collection's icon. The menu opens into an editor with the collection's own row at the top: type a new name there, pick one of the colours beneath it, and choose an icon from the symbols and emoji below, or search for one by name. Every change applies as you make it, so you can watch the sidebar update while you choose, and Done closes the editor. The colour shows on the collection's icon wherever it appears. To go back to the icon Muse picks for you, choose Automatic Icon from the same right-click menu. Typing or pasting any emoji into the search field sets it as the icon straight away.

Muse tags your items for you, on your Mac, using Apple's built-in intelligence. Images and video are read by Vision and tagged with what they show, with a colour name as a fallback so nothing is left bare. Links have no picture to read, so they are tagged from their words: the site name and the key nouns in the title. You can always add or remove tags by hand, and when you add one, in the Info panel or on the Capture Card, Muse shows the tags you already use so you can pick one rather than type it again (version 1.0.42 or later). If you add your own Anthropic API key, Muse can write richer tags with Claude instead.

Drag across an empty part of the grid and a box appears, selecting everything it touches. Hold Shift or Command while you drag to add to what you have already picked rather than starting again. Cmd-click adds or removes one thing at a time, Shift-click takes everything between two items, and Cmd A selects everything in view. Cmd Shift A clears the selection.

Once you have a selection, the pill at the bottom of the window acts on all of it at once, and so does the Item menu: file it into a collection, favourite it, copy it, save it to Downloads, or delete it. Dragging any one of the selected pictures carries the whole selection with it, into another app or onto a collection in the sidebar.

Press the question mark key at any time for the full list of shortcuts.

Select the items, then press Return, or click Open in Browser on the selection bar. Every page they came from opens in its own tab in your browser, whether the item is a saved link or a picture saved from a website. If you have picked more than ten, Muse asks first (version 1.0.46 or later).

Press Cmd-K, or click the search button at the top right of the window beside View Options, and one search box looks across your whole library at once: titles and notes, your tags, the text found inside images, and more, ranked so the best matches come first. You can also reach it from the Launcher outside the app. Because Muse understands your items in a few different ways, the same box lets you search by a word, by a colour, or by describing what you remember, all covered in the questions below. Results include every kind of item, whatever the view you searched from is set to show. While a search is open, View Options sets a layout just for search results, and Muse keeps it for every search. When a search finds both pictures and links, the pictures fill the grid and the links sit in a panel on the left with their full titles.

Yes, both ways. Select a picture and press Cmd C, then paste it straight into Messages, Figma, a document, anywhere that takes an image. It works on a whole selection too, so you can copy twenty pictures at once.

Going the other way, copy something anywhere on your Mac and press Cmd V in Muse. It lands in the collection you are looking at, or your Inbox if you are not in one. Links, pictures, files and plain text all work.

When it is the address you want rather than the picture, press L to copy the link the item came from, or P for its file path (version 1.0.46 or later). Both are in the Edit menu too. Dragging works as well: drag a picture out of Muse into another app, or drag files in from Finder.

Yes. Muse reads the text inside your images and screenshots using Apple's on-device text recognition, and folds that text into search. So if you saved a screenshot of an article, a slide, or a receipt, you can find it later by typing a phrase that appears in the picture, even though you never wrote that phrase down. Muse reads the words on the first page of a saved PDF or document the same way, so an invoice or a contract is findable by what is printed on it. It all happens on your Mac, with nothing sent anywhere, and it works quietly in the background as you save.

Yes. Muse works out the main colours of every image you save, on-device, so you can type a colour name into search, like teal, mustard or navy, and Muse surfaces the items that match. It is a lovely way to pull a palette together or find that one warm-toned reference you know you kept. From Muse 1.0.36 you can also hold Command and click any colour dot on a card, or a swatch in the Info panel, to see everything in that colour; a plain click copies the colour code. Like the rest of Muse's everyday intelligence, colour search runs entirely on your Mac.

Yes. Drag a message straight out of Mail and drop it into Muse, and it is saved like anything else, with no need to turn it into a PDF first.

It arrives named by its subject and its sender, rather than by whatever Mail happened to call the file, and Muse shows it as a readable card of the message, so you can tell your saved emails apart at a glance. Every word inside the message goes into search too, so an email comes back from the thing you actually remember about it: a name in the second paragraph, a date, a price. It is tagged from its own words, the same way a saved link is.

Anything attached to the message is saved as its own item alongside it, named, tagged and filed in the same place, so a photograph somebody sent you sits in your library like any other picture. The email's card names what came with it. Signatures and the other bits of mail plumbing are left behind, so you get the files somebody actually sent you and nothing else.

Yes. Muse can find images by what they show, not just by their tags, so you can search for something like quiet minimalist kitchen and get matching pictures even if none of those words were ever typed on them. This meaning-based search is powered by a small image model that Muse downloads once (about 300 MB) and then runs fully on your Mac. Give a large new library a little time to finish reading through your images the first time.

Yes. When you save a PDF or a document, Muse reads the first page and folds those words into search, so you can find an invoice by the amount printed on it, or a contract by a name in it, without ever having written those things down yourself.

It tags them from the page as well, so a saved invoice arrives already carrying words like "invoice" alongside whatever else is on it. Documents are tagged on what they say rather than on how the page looks, so you do not end up with a library full of things tagged "black and white".

This works on PDFs, Word and Pages documents, spreadsheets, presentations and plain text. A file Muse cannot read a page of, such as an archive or a disk image, is tagged from its filename instead. It all happens on your Mac using Apple's own text recognition, with nothing sent anywhere.

Yes, in two ways. Open an item's Info panel and choose Find Similar, and Muse surfaces other items in your own library that look like it, matched on your Mac. Or press V for Muse Vision, which searches the web visually and shows related images in a pane beside your library. Open any of them in your browser to follow the idea further. Find Similar stays entirely on-device; Muse Vision reaches out to the web, so it needs a connection.

Yes. From an image's Info panel, Muse can produce a text prompt describing it, useful for feeding into an image generator. The instant version is composed on your Mac from what Muse already knows about the picture: its colours, its tags, and any text it contains, with nothing sent anywhere. If you add your own Anthropic API key, Muse can send the image to Claude for a richer, reference-grade description. Without a key, you get the instant local version.

Links are first-class in Muse, not an afterthought. Save a page and it becomes a visual card with the site's icon, a clean title, and the page's own preview image when it publishes one. That means your bookmarks look like the things they point to and sit happily beside your images. Muse fetches each link's icon and preview picture once and then keeps them locally, so your saved pages stay recognisable even as the web changes. Turn on Link Summary in View Options, the ••• button at the top right, to see a short description under each link, with or without Link Previews.

Yes. Muse imports from a Pocket export (the ril_export.html file), an Eagle library folder, a Raindrop.io CSV export (it also reads generic CSVs), a Pinterest account export, and browser bookmarks in the universal HTML format that Chrome, Safari, Firefox and others all export. Everything is read from the files you already have, so your existing collections come across with their structure intact.

From version 1.0.21 a Pocket export brings across your links and their titles, your tags, the date you saved each one, and your Unread and Read Archive sections as two collections. Pocket closed in 2025 and its export window has shut, so whatever is in your Downloads folder is the only copy that will ever exist.

Also from 1.0.21, anything you import keeps its original save date rather than arriving stamped with the day you imported it, so a library built up over years arrives spread across those years. If you imported before that version, Muse restores those dates the first time you open it.

You will find the import options in Settings > Library > Import & Export (choose Import From), and on the welcome screens when you first set Muse up. Import from the menu or from Settings rather than dragging the file onto the window: a dragged Pocket file is filed as a document rather than read as a list.

Yes, both. Each has its own switch, in Muse under Settings > Browser > Sources and again in the extension's popup, which asks for permission the first time.

They work the same way. Open your own X bookmarks page or your Instagram saved posts page while signed in, and scroll. Muse reads what the site has already loaded onto the page and sends nothing back, so nothing arrives until you go there yourself. The popup has a button that takes you straight to each one.

One difference worth knowing: X bookmarks come in as a link back to the post, while Instagram posts come in as the picture or video itself, since an instagram.com address opened without your session shows a login wall and no preview.

Ask Pinterest for your data, from Settings > Privacy and data on their site. They email you a zip within a day or so. Unzip it, then in Muse open Settings > Library > Import & Export, choose Import From, then Pinterest Export. Pick the export and Muse does the rest: your pins arrive as pictures and each of your boards becomes a collection with its pins inside it.

The export is a folder of around 27 subfolders and you do not need to know which one matters. Muse recognises a Pinterest export whichever part of it you point at and reads the whole thing.

Two things are worth expecting. Pinterest's export contains no pictures at all, only text, so Muse fetches every image afterwards: a 2,000-pin account takes a while, needs to stay online, and comes to roughly 600 MB. And the number of pictures will be lower than your number of pins, on purpose. A pin you saved to three boards becomes one picture that lives on all three rather than three copies of the same thing.

Yes. With the Muse browser extension installed, every post on X has a Muse button beside its bookmark icon. Click it and the post goes to Muse with its pictures or video, named after the account and the post, and the button fills in to show it is saved. Muse needs to be open. You can switch the button off in Settings > Browser > Sources. It needs Muse 1.0.46 and the extension's latest update.

Yes. Save Page to Muse closes the tab once Muse has the page, to keep your browser tidy. To keep the tab open instead, switch off Close Tab After Saving in Settings > Browser > Extensions (version 1.0.46 or later, with the extension's latest update).

The Canvas is an infinite, freeform board for laying your collected items out in space: drag to move around, pinch or use the zoom buttons to zoom in and out, and click any card to preview it. Press Fit, or double-click an empty part of the board, to see the whole board at once, however big it is. Muse lays out the cards you haven't moved to the shape of your window, and any card you move with the Hand tool stays where you put it. It is made for arranging and comparing your references, moodboard style, rather than for drawing, so it keeps things calm and uncluttered. When a board is how you want it, you can export the whole thing as a PDF to share or print, and Muse tiles very large boards neatly across pages.

Yes, through the Muse browser extension. Turn on Instagram Saves in two places: Settings > Browser > Sources in Muse, and the Instagram Saves switch in the extension's popup, which asks for access to instagram.com the first time. Then press "Open your Saved page" in the popup and scroll. Posts arrive in your Inbox as you go, as real pictures and videos rather than links, with the caption and the account as the title and a way back to the original post.

Nothing happens until you open that page. The extension reads what Instagram has already loaded onto it and sends nothing to Instagram, so saving a post somewhere else does not sync it on its own. Posts you have already saved into Muse are never added twice, and one you delete is not brought back.

One thing to know before you turn it on: Instagram's terms do not allow collecting data from their service automatically, including from your own account, and accounts are occasionally restricted for it. That is why the feature is off until you switch it on, and why the caution sits under the switch.

Click a picture, or select any item and press Space, to open it large over a softly blurred backdrop tinted to its own colours. It flies out from its own card, and pressing the next picture while the last is still closing opens it straight away. Press Space again to fill the whole screen, and Escape to step back to your grid. On a trackpad, pinch in to step back, the same as Escape, and swipe left or right to move between items when Swipe between pages is on in System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures (version 1.0.43 or later). The picture follows your fingers as you swipe and the next one slides in beside it, and the left and right arrow keys slide the same way (version 1.0.44 or later). Press I to open Info beside the preview, and it moves with you as you step from picture to picture (version 1.0.45 or later). Video keeps playing the whole way through. It is the quickest way to study a reference without leaving what you were doing, and it works the same in the main window and in the Launcher.

Video is a first-class part of your library, sitting alongside your images. Muse saves it, shows it as a card with a poster frame, and a card comes quietly to life as you hover over it, playing on silently from that same frame. Move the pointer sideways across the card to skim through the clip. It plays inside the app too: press Space to open it and it plays right there, full screen with a second press. Play, pause and scrubbing live on the controls that appear over the video as you move the pointer, and clicking anywhere else closes the preview, the same as it does for an image. To keep a moment as a picture, click the camera button on those controls or press Cmd S, and the frame on screen is saved beside the video (version 1.0.46 or later). Clips you save from the web are downloaded where that is possible, so they keep working even if the original page changes. You can search and tag video just like everything else.

Give any item a star to favourite it: right-click and choose Favourite, or press F with it selected. Your favourites gather in their own Favourites section in the sidebar, so the pieces you keep coming back to are always one click away, whichever collection they live in. Press F again to remove the star. It is a light way to lift your best finds above everything else.

Your whole library lives in a folder called Muse Library, kept by default inside your Pictures folder, as ordinary files you can see. From Settings > Library > Library Folder you can show it in Finder any time, and there are your originals in plain folders rather than locked inside a database. You can also move it: Settings > Library > Library Folder > Change puts your library on an external drive or anywhere else with more room, which is worth knowing if your startup disk is tight. See "How do I move my library to a new Mac?" for what that does. Because they are real files, your collection is yours to browse, copy and keep, with or without Muse open.

Open Settings > Library and, under Backup, choose a backup folder, ideally one that syncs to the cloud like iCloud Drive or Dropbox. Muse then saves regular snapshots of your library there, keeps as many recent ones as you choose, and can run on a set schedule even when Muse is closed. You can also press Back Up Now at any time. One tip: keep your live library out of a cloud-synced folder, and let the backups live there instead.

A snapshot holds everything a library needs: the database, your originals, the site icons and the preview images for your links. The only thing left out is the grid's thumbnail cache, which Muse rebuilds from your originals, so a restored library is complete without it and the backup stays a good deal smaller.

Yes. Open Settings > Library > Import & Export and choose Export a Copy, and Muse writes a plain, self-explanatory copy of your library to a folder you pick, organised by collection, that makes sense on its own without the app. Together with the fact that your library is already real files on your Mac, it means you are never locked in: your collection is yours to take with you whenever you like.

Muse keeps your library on the Mac it runs on, with no cloud account syncing it between machines, which is part of what keeps it private and fast. Your one licence covers up to three Macs, and each keeps its own local collection, so there is no automatic sync between them today. If you need the same library in two places, your files are plain files you can copy across, and the Backup and Export tools in Settings give you clean copies to work from.

You do not need to worry about saving something twice. When you save a file that is identical to one already in your library, Muse recognises it and quietly merges the two rather than making a second copy. The save still succeeds, and the item simply gains the new source or collection you filed it into. It keeps your library tidy without ever interrupting a capture to ask.

Web pages work slightly differently, because saving the same page twice is sometimes what you meant. Muse saves it and tells you: the capture card marks the collection in rose and reads "Already Saved", naming the collection the earlier one is in, so you can keep it or press Escape. Escape only ever takes back the new copy: the one you saved before stays exactly where it was (version 1.0.44 or later).

To remove an item, right-click it and choose Delete, or press the Delete key with it selected. It does not vanish: it moves to the Trash, which has its own section in the sidebar, so you can change your mind. Open Trash, right-click an item and choose Restore, and it goes back where it was. Items rest there rather than disappearing. To clear the Trash out for good, right-click Trash in the sidebar and choose Empty Trash, or type "empty trash" into the Cmd K search. Muse asks first, and the files themselves move to your Mac's Trash rather than being destroyed, so they can still be put back from the Finder afterwards. Emptying needs version 1.0.19 or later. To clear a whole library in one go, open Settings > Library and choose Empty This Library: everything moves to the Trash and your collections stay, empty, until you decide.

Yes. Open View Options, the ••• button at the top right of the window, to switch between a moodboard-style grid of cards and a tidy list, and to adjust things like how many columns you see and what each card shows. The sidebar also has a Types section, so you can jump to just your images, links, video and more with a click. Each view remembers its own settings, so a single collection and your whole library can each look the way that suits it. Search results have their own settings too, so a search can look different from the view you searched from.

Muse is a one-time purchase of $29. There is no subscription and no yearly fee, and every future update is included at no extra cost. You can try the whole app free for 14 days first, with no card needed, and buy only if it earns a place in your work. It is a deliberately fair, pay-once price in a category full of subscriptions.

When your trial is running or has ended, choose Buy in the app and you are taken to our secure checkout. After paying, you receive a licence key by email that looks like MUSE- followed by a set of characters. To enter it, open Settings, go to About, and choose Enter Key in the Licence section. You can do that at any point, including partway through your trial, so buying early never means waiting. Paste the key, choose Activate, and Muse confirms that it is yours. Your files never change during this; activation simply lifts the trial lock.

Each Muse licence activates up to 3 Macs, and you can manage those devices yourself at any time. Sign in to your Polar account with your purchase email and you will see your licence key and the Macs it is currently active on. Deactivating a Mac you no longer use frees that slot immediately, which is worth knowing if you reinstall macOS or reset your Mac, because a fresh install claims a new slot even on the same machine.

One licence covers up to three Macs, so your desktop and laptop can both run Muse from the same key. If you try to activate a fourth, Muse tells you the key is already on three Macs and points you to deactivate one. Since your library is local to each Mac rather than synced, each machine keeps its own collection.

On the Mac you are moving away from, open Settings > About, find This Mac in the Licence section and choose Deactivate. That frees a slot on your licence. Then install Muse on the new Mac and paste in the same key to activate it. If the old Mac is gone or unavailable and you are stuck at the three-Mac limit, email support@theodorehq.com and we will free a slot for you.

Yes. Because there is a full 14-day free trial, you can be sure Muse suits you before you pay. On top of that, our terms give you a 14-day cooling-off right after purchase, and your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 always apply. If something is not right, email support@theodorehq.com and we will sort it out. Refund details are on the terms page at theodorehq.com/muse/terms.

Your licence key was sent to the email address you used at checkout, in the order confirmation, so a quick search of your inbox for Muse usually turns it up. If you cannot find it, email support@theodorehq.com from the address you bought with and we will resend it. There is no account to log into, so your purchase email is the record of your licence.

Yes. Everything works during your free trial. If the trial ends before you buy, AI apps and scripts can still see how big your library is, but searching, saving and organising resume once you add your licence.

Three quick checks fix almost every case. First, make sure the Muse app is actually open, since the extension saves into the running app. Second, confirm the extension is installed for the browser you are using, from the links on theodorehq.com/muse. In Safari it comes with Muse, so check it is ticked in Safari > Settings > Extensions. Third, if your trial has ended, activate a licence, because saving is paused while the app is locked. The extension popup shows whether it is connected to the app, which tells you at a glance where the gap is.

Three things have to be true, and the first two are easy to miss because nothing complains when they are not.

Both switches must be on: the one in Muse under Settings > Browser > Sources, and the one in the extension's popup. They are separate on purpose, so neither the app nor the browser can start reading on its own.

Then you have to open the page itself. Muse reads what the site has already loaded onto your bookmarks page or your saved posts page, so nothing syncs until you go there and scroll. The popup has a button for each that takes you straight to the right page.

Muse also needs to be running, and your trial or licence needs to be current, since this fills your library like any other capture. If everything above is right and posts still are not appearing, tell us in the Support Centre and we will take a look.

These two features use an optional image model that Muse downloads once, about 300 MB, the first time you use them. If results are empty, it may still be downloading, or your images may still be indexing after a big import. Give it a few minutes on a good connection, then try again. If you switched Search by Meaning off, turn it back on in Settings > Intelligence > On Your Mac. Everyday search by word, tag, colour and image text does not need this pack and works straight away.

From version 1.0.18 the pack also steps out of memory when you have not searched by meaning for a few minutes, which is what keeps Muse light while it sits open. The next search of that kind brings it back, so it can take a moment longer than usual before results appear. Find Similar is not affected and stays instant either way.

The richer, cloud-powered options, a reference-grade image prompt, Claude-written tags, and understanding full-sentence searches, are optional and run on your own Anthropic API key. If they seem to do nothing, add your key in Settings > Intelligence > Claude. Without a key, Muse quietly uses its built-in, on-device intelligence instead, which covers tagging, image-text and colour search, and the instant local prompt, so the app is fully useful with no key at all.

Roughly two in five web pages do not publish a preview image, so Muse shows a tidy card with the site icon and a clean title instead. That is expected, not a fault. If no links are showing previews at all, check that Link Previews is switched on in the ••• menu at the top of the library, and that you are online, since Muse fetches each preview once. After the first fetch, the image is stored locally and stays put. YouTube videos are a special case: from Muse 1.0.36 their thumbnail comes straight from YouTube's image server, so a saved video always shows its cover picture while Link Previews is on.

Muse's shortcuts, like Cmd-Shift-K for the Launcher or Cmd-Shift-S for a screenshot, are global, so if another app or a system feature already uses the same combination, Muse's version can be blocked. Open Settings > Shortcuts and, on the Changeable side, give the one that is not firing a free combination, or click the cross beside it to turn it off and leave that key to the other app (version 1.0.42 or later). To turn it back on, click it and press the combination you want. The Changeable side holds every key you can set: the Launcher, the Shelf (while it is switched on), screenshots, saving a web page, the sidebar and the Vision engine. The Fixed side lists Muse's other keys, like Cmd K for search or the single letters that act on a selected item. They only work while Muse is in front, so they cannot clash with another app.

When you use the grab hotkey or the clipper, Muse asks the browser for the address of the page you are on, so a saved image or clip carries a link back to where it came from. macOS shows a one-time Automation prompt for this the first time. Approving it is what lets your saves remember their source. Muse uses it only to read the current page's URL, nothing more.

The first time you open any freshly downloaded app, macOS checks it with Gatekeeper. Muse is a notarised Developer ID app, so it is trusted, but if macOS is cautious, right-click (or Control-click) the Muse app in your Applications folder and choose Open, then confirm. You only need to do this once. After that, Muse opens normally, and future updates arrive quietly through the app.

No. Your library is stored as real files on your own Mac, and Muse has no cloud sync and no server that holds your collection. The everyday intelligence, tagging, image-text search, colour search and meaning search, all runs on your machine. The only things that leave your Mac are a few narrow, expected requests, covered in the questions below, and none of them include what you actually save. If you connect an AI app such as Claude, that app can read whatever it asks Muse for, and its own privacy terms cover what it does with it. Muse itself still sends nothing. If Muse ever crashes, it asks before sending us a crash report, which holds only technical details about the crash.

Muse has no account, no login and no profile of you. It does record a small number of anonymous, non-identifying usage events, like the app being opened or a trial starting, so we can see roughly how the app is doing. These carry no personal information, no stable identifier, and never anything about what you save. The next question explains exactly what is and is not recorded.

Muse records four coarse events: the app being opened, a trial starting, a trial ending, and a licence being activated. During a trial started on Muse 1.0.42 or later, it also notes which day of the trial it is, whether Muse was used that day, and the first time something is saved, imported, saved from your browser or put in a collection. They go to a small server we host ourselves, not a third-party analytics company, and they carry no name, no email, no device fingerprint and nothing about your library. We use them only as simple counts to understand how many people are trying and buying Muse. What you save, search for, or organise is never part of this and never leaves your Mac. Crash reports are separate: if Muse quits unexpectedly it asks whether to send one, and it holds only technical details about the crash. To send them without being asked, switch on Automatic Crash Reports in Settings > About. From Muse 1.0.36 you can turn these counts off with the Share Anonymous Usage switch in Settings > About; your licence and trial are not affected. If something on your Mac blocks the connection, Muse tries a couple more times over a few minutes and then leaves it.

By default, no. Tagging, reading text inside images, colour search and meaning search all run on your Mac, and your pictures are not sent anywhere. There is an optional cloud tier for a richer image description and better tags, but it only works if you add your own Anthropic API key, and it stays completely off until you do. With no key, every AI feature that Muse uses is on-device.

The extension reads the page you are actively clipping so it can send that image, link or page to Muse, and, if you switch them on, the bookmarks on your own X page and the saved posts on your own Instagram page. Each of those is a separate permission you grant yourself. On X it also adds a Muse button to each post, which sends nothing until you click it, and then only that post's address. It does not read your browsing history or other tabs. It talks only to the Muse app on the same Mac over a local connection that never touches the wider internet, and the app downloads any media itself. Nothing goes to an outside server.

Your files are always yours. When a trial ends, the app locks so you cannot save or edit until you buy, but nothing is deleted, and buying reopens the exact library you built. Because your collection is real files in a visible folder on your Mac, you can open, copy and back it up in Finder at any time, with or without Muse running. Your originals never leave your machine and never expire.

No. Your library travels between your Mac and your iPhone through your own iCloud, in your private iCloud database. It never passes through a server of ours, so we cannot see it. Syncing stays off until you switch on Sync With iCloud in Settings > Sync on your Mac, and until then nothing of your library leaves your Mac. To remove the iCloud copy, open the Sync Now menu on the same page and choose Delete the iCloud Copy. Your Mac's library stays exactly as it is.

Yes. Muse is built to be private: Muse never sends your library anywhere, there is no account, and the only data we collect is a handful of anonymous usage counts, plus a crash report if Muse ever crashes and you choose to send it. The maker, THEODORE HQ, is a company registered in England and Wales, and the app is covered by a plain privacy policy and terms at theodorehq.com/muse that set out your rights under the UK GDPR and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

No. Muse for iPhone has no analytics, no tracking, no account and no crash reporting of its own. Your library lives on your phone and in your own iCloud. Besides iCloud, your iPhone contacts only the websites behind the things you save: it asks each site for its own icon and preview picture, and when you save a Pinterest pin or an X post it asks Pinterest or X for the picture or video, so Muse can keep the file. It never hands what you save to an icon service or to us.

Select one item or a hundred, then press M. Muse asks where to file them, you type a few letters of the collection name and press Return. The list names the collection each one sits inside, so two collections sharing a name are easy to tell apart, and you can create a new collection from the same box by typing a name that does not exist yet. Press Escape to back out without filing anything. Every keyboard shortcut Muse listens for is listed in the app if you press the question mark key.

No. When an AI app or script removes an item or a collection, it goes to Muse's Trash, where you can restore it, and only you can empty the Trash. Before the first change an AI app or script makes each day, Muse also saves a copy of your library and keeps the last seven. You can go back to one from Settings > Library > Backup > Undo AI Changes.

A freshly opened Muse sits at roughly 450 MB with a library loaded, most of which is the pictures you are looking at and the window drawing them. That figure rises while you work, which is normal: Muse keeps recently viewed images ready so scrolling back through a collection stays instant, and it hands those back when it no longer needs them.

Searching by meaning adds more for a while, because that uses an on-device model. From version 1.0.18 the model loads only when you first search and steps out again a few minutes after you stop, rather than sitting in memory for the whole time Muse is open. If you ever noticed Muse sitting high in Activity Monitor, updating to 1.0.18 or later resolves that.

One thing worth knowing when you check: macOS reports memory being handed back late, often a minute or two afterwards, so the number in Activity Monitor lags behind what Muse has actually released.

No. Muse only accepts connections from apps running on your own Mac, never from the internet or other devices on your network. Web pages are blocked even when they run on this Mac, and scripts need your key. Both switches are off until you turn them on.

Almost always this is the summon key. Muse ships with the Drop Ring waiting for Control, so that dragging files around your Mac never calls up something you did not ask for. Start the drag first, then hold Control, and the ring opens around your cursor. Keep holding while you move onto the collection you want, and let go to drop.

If you would rather it appeared on its own, open Settings → Collect + Find → Drop Ring and set Hold a Key First to No Key. The same menu lets you swap Control for Command, Option or Shift.

If you are already holding the key and the ring still stays away, one of these will be why:

• Show For is set to Browsers, and the drag started somewhere else. Set it to Every App.
• The app you are dragging from is listed under Never Show For. CleanShot X is on that list out of the box, so drags from its screenshot tray are left alone on purpose.
• The drag started inside Muse's own window. The ring only catches things arriving from other apps.
• The thing being dragged is not an image, file, link or piece of text.

No. Items you've hidden don't appear in anything AI apps or scripts can see: not in search, collections, the Trash or the library counts. They can't open, change or move them either. To let an AI app use one, unhide it first.

From version 1.0.19 Muse can do this for you. Open Settings → Library → Library Folder → Change, pick where you want the library, and Muse copies everything across, checks the copy is complete before it switches over, and restarts into it. Your old folder is left exactly as it was. That is also how you point Muse at a library you have already carried over: choose the folder it is in and Muse opens it rather than copying anything.

If you would rather do it by hand, or you are on an older version, it is a plain folder copy. Your whole library is a single self-contained folder, so moving Macs is a copy rather than an import. By default it lives in your Pictures folder and is called Muse Library. Inside it are your original files, in dated folders under their real names, alongside the small database that holds your collections, boards and tags. Settings → Library → Your Files shows the path and has a Reveal button that opens it in Finder.

To move everything over:

1. Quit Muse on the old Mac, so the database is closed and settled.
2. Copy the Muse Library folder to the new Mac, by AirDrop, an external drive, or whichever way you prefer.
3. Put it in the same place, inside Pictures, and open Muse. It picks up exactly where you left off.

If you would rather keep it somewhere else, put it wherever you like and open Muse. When it cannot find a library it asks you to point at the folder, and everything comes back once you do.

Two things in Settings help here. Backup keeps scheduled copies in a folder you choose, and one of those is often the easiest thing to carry across. Export a Copy writes a plain version organised into folders by board, with real filenames, links as double-clickable .webloc files and notes as .txt, which is useful if you want a copy that does not need Muse at all.

Your licence covers up to three Macs, so activating on the new one does not cost you the old one. See "How do I move my licence to a new Mac?" if you want to free a slot.

Muse doesn't let an AI app browse your Mac. An AI app can ask Muse to save a file or folder by its location, and it's then copied into your library like anything else you save. The first time Muse opens a file in Desktop, Documents or Downloads, macOS asks for your permission.

Check that Allow AI Apps is on in Settings > Intelligence > MCP Server. After pasting the setup, quit and reopen your AI app, since most only read their MCP settings when they start. If you moved Muse after copying the setup, for example into Applications, click Copy Setup again and replace the old entry, because the setup includes where Muse is. If Muse shows a warning under Allow AI Apps, follow it first.

Turn off Allow AI Apps in Settings > Intelligence > MCP Server, and every AI app is shut out straight away. For scripts, turn off Allow Scripts. Or choose Make a New Key next to Key: anything still using the old key is shut out, and your own scripts keep working once you give them the new one. To remove Muse from just one AI app, delete the muse entry from that app's MCP settings.

Anything removed is in Muse's Trash, where you can restore it. For other changes, like renamed items or edited notes, open Settings > Library > Backup, click Restore next to Undo AI Changes and pick the day. Your library goes back to how it was before the first change an AI app or script made that day, and Muse restarts. Anything you saved or changed since then is undone too. If you change your mind, choose Undo Last Restore from the same menu.

Open Settings > Library > Backup and click Choose next to Restore a Backup, then pick the date you want. Muse copies that backup next to your current library, restarts, and opens the copy. Your current library stays in its folder untouched. To go back to it, choose Back to the Library Before Restoring from the same menu. Restore a Backup appears once you have a backup in your Backup Folder, so if you do not see it, press Back Up Now first. Undo AI Changes, just below it, is separate and only covers changes made by an AI app or script.

Muse has a Save Web Page shortcut that works from any browser, with no extension needed. It is also in the plus menu at the top right of the Muse window, as Save Current Page, with the key shown beside it. Press it while a page is in front and Muse asks the browser for the address and the title, then shows you the Capture Card with both already filled in, ready for you to set the collection and tags. Press Cmd-Return and the page is saved as a link, with a snapshot taken in the background so you keep what it said. It works in Safari, Chrome, Arc, Dia, Edge, Brave and Vivaldi. If something other than a browser is in front, Muse tells you there is no page to save rather than guessing. The shortcut is listed in Settings > Shortcuts, where you can rebind it.

Yes. Open the ••• menu at the top right of the window and switch on Notes. Every item that has a note then shows it on its card, on a strip of frosted glass at the foot of the picture. You see one line at a glance, and hovering the card opens the whole note. The glass reads the picture underneath, so it turns light over pale images and dark over dark ones and the words stay clear either way.

To change a note, click it and type. Return saves, Shift-Return starts a new line, and Escape puts back what was there. To add a note to something that has none, right-click it and choose Add Note, which opens the note on the card itself. That works even in a view where Notes is switched off, and the note tucks away again once you save.

Title and Tags in the same menu put those on the glass too, with the title in bold above the note. Notes are searchable, so anything you write can be found again with Cmd-K. The setting is remembered for each view, so you can show notes in one collection and keep another as pictures only. Notes on cards need version 1.0.37 or later.

Yes. Muse connects to AI apps through MCP, a standard way for AI apps to use other apps on your Mac. Once connected, an AI app can search your library and look at your pictures. It can find similar items and save links, pictures, files and notes. It can add tags, rename items, write notes, file items into collections, create and edit collections, and open what it found in Muse. It's off until you turn on Settings > Intelligence > MCP Server > Allow AI Apps.

In Muse, open Settings > Intelligence > MCP Server, turn on Allow AI Apps, then click Copy Setup. In Claude Desktop, open Settings > Developer > Edit Config, then quit Claude completely with Command-Q, since it can rewrite the file while it runs. Paste the setup into the file, save it, and reopen Claude. If the file already lists other servers, add the muse entry alongside them. In Claude Code, paste the setup into a chat and ask Claude to add Muse. Codex keeps its settings in a different format, so for Codex, run this in Terminal instead: codex mcp add muse -- /Applications/Muse.app/Contents/MacOS/muse-mcp. In other apps, paste it where the app keeps its MCP settings. If Muse is closed when an AI app needs it, Muse opens in the background.

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Gemini, Cursor, Raycast, LM Studio and most other AI apps on your Mac that support MCP servers use the same setup from Copy Setup. Codex works too, with its own one-line setup, covered in the question on connecting an AI app. VS Code works too, but its settings file names the section "servers" instead of "mcpServers". Claude on the web and the Claude iPhone app can't connect, because Muse only accepts connections from apps running on your Mac.

Yes, through Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app. Open Codex, go to Settings > MCP Servers, choose Add Server, pick STDIO, and enter /Applications/Muse.app/Contents/MacOS/muse-mcp as the command. ChatGPT's everyday chats, on the web, your phone or the desktop app, only reach MCP servers on the internet, so they can't connect to Muse, which only accepts connections from apps on your Mac.

The Claude section lets Muse use Claude, with your own Anthropic API key, to write richer tags, image prompts and searches for what you save. MCP Server works the other way round: it lets Claude and other AI apps search and organise your library from a chat. They're separate, and you can use either, both or neither.

No. MCP Server and Local API are part of Muse, with no account, no sign-up and no API key. Your AI app's own plan still applies to your chats in it.

Yes. Turn on Settings > Intelligence > Local API > Allow Scripts, and your own scripts and shortcuts can search, save and organise your library, using the same actions AI apps have. Each request needs your key, which you copy from the same section. API Guide lists every action with examples. Muse needs to be open while your scripts run.

They share the same actions. MCP Server is for AI apps: you paste the setup once, then just ask. Local API is for your own scripts and shortcuts, which send requests to Muse with a key you copy from Settings > Intelligence.

Open Settings > Intelligence and switch off Instant AI under On Your Mac. Instant AI is the on-device tagging, text-in-screenshot reading and colour matching Muse does for new items, and all of it stays on your Mac. With it off, new items arrive as they are, and anything already tagged keeps its tags. Search by word, title and note carries on as usual. Switch it back on and Muse catches up on the pictures, videos, files and links saved in the meantime.

Open Settings > Intelligence and switch off Search by Meaning under On Your Mac. Muse asks what to do with the 300 MB download. Turn Off keeps it, so switching back on is instant. Delete Download frees the space, and turning it on again downloads it once more. While it is off, searches match words and tags only. The first time, the same row shows a Download button, and the download stays on your Mac.

Yes. Muse for iPhone puts your Muse library on your phone. You can browse and search your collections, open saved links, look through your pictures and save to Muse from the share sheet in other apps. It is a free download from the App Store and works alongside Muse for Mac. Your library travels between the two through your own iCloud, so there is no new account to make and nothing passes through a server of ours.

Three things:

• An iPhone running iOS 26 or later.
• The latest version of Muse for Mac, with Sync With iCloud switched on in Settings > Sync.
• The same iCloud account (your Apple Account) signed in on your Mac and your iPhone.

Muse for iPhone is made for iPhone and shows upright, in portrait. There is no iPad version yet.

No. Muse for iPhone is free, with no in-app purchases and no licence key to enter. Your Muse licence lives on your Mac, and the iPhone app uses the library your Mac shares with it, and the changes you make on your phone go back to your Mac. There is no Muse account either: the only sign-in involved is the iCloud account already on your phone.

Muse for iPhone is always free, and it keeps working with everything it already has. Your library reaches your phone from Muse on your Mac, so once your Mac's free trial ends, your Mac pauses syncing until you activate your licence there. Anything you save on your phone in the meantime waits safely in your iCloud. As soon as Muse is activated on your Mac, syncing carries on and those saves join your library.

On your Mac, update Muse, open Settings > Sync and switch on Sync With iCloud. Then open Muse on your iPhone and tap Continue on the first two welcome slides. The third says "Open Muse on your Mac" while it checks iCloud, and your library starts arriving on its own, counted as it lands ("Your library is arriving"). Tap Start Browsing as soon as it appears; the rest keeps arriving in the background. If you tap Not Now instead, the library still arrives and Muse shows it when it does. Both devices need the same Apple Account.

It depends on the size of your library and your connection. Muse sends a compact index of everything plus one small picture per item, roughly 135 MB for a library of three thousand things, and it arrives in batches. The welcome screen counts the items as they land, and you can tap Start Browsing as soon as it appears. Keep Muse open on your Mac until it has finished sending: Settings > Sync shows Syncing with a running count while it works, and On once everything is up.

No. Once your library has arrived, your iPhone keeps its own copy, so you can browse and search with your Mac shut. Muse does need to be open on your Mac for changes to travel. Anything new you collect on your Mac reaches your phone once Muse has sent it, and anything you save on your phone joins your Mac's library the next time Muse is open there. To send straight away, press Sync Now in Settings > Sync on your Mac.

Muse keeps it small on purpose. For your Mac's library it sends each item's details and one small picture, about 45 KB an item, which comes to roughly 135 MB for 3,000 items. That is small next to the 5 GB of iCloud storage every Apple Account starts with, and Muse shows the figure for your own library beside the Sync With iCloud switch. Your Mac's full-size files stay on your Mac unless you switch on Full-Size Pictures. Pictures, videos and documents you save from your iPhone send their full-size file to your iCloud too, so your Mac receives the original. Everything lives in your own private iCloud storage.

Full-Size Pictures is a switch in Settings > Sync on your Mac, shown once Sync With iCloud is on, with the extra iCloud space it needs written beside it. With it on, Muse also uploads the original of each picture, video and document. Your iPhone fetches an original only when you open that item, so pictures open sharp, videos play and documents open. Your phone keeps up to about 500 MB of these and clears the ones you opened longest ago first. With it off, your iPhone shows the small copy of each picture.

Yes, for most things. Your iPhone keeps your whole library's details and a small picture of every item, so you can browse your collections, search and look through your pictures with no signal. Opening a picture at full size, playing a video or opening a document needs a connection the first time, once Full-Size Pictures is on for your Mac, because those files come from your iCloud as you open them. Anything you add inside Muse while offline is kept on your phone and sent when you are next connected.

Muse for iPhone is a companion to Muse for Mac: your library is built and organised on your Mac, and your iPhone shows it wherever you are. If you do not have Muse for Mac yet, tap Don't Have Muse for Mac? on the last welcome screen, then Get Muse for Mac, or open Settings > About > Muse for Mac at any time. You can try it free first.

Very few. Muse asks for the camera only when you choose Add > Take a Photo, and iOS shows the reason: "Muse uses the camera so you can add a photo straight into your library." Adding from your photo library uses Apple's own picker, so Muse only receives the photos you choose and needs no photo permission. When you tap Save a Link or use Save Clipboard, iOS may ask whether Muse can paste from another app. Muse does not send you notifications, use your location or track you.

Muse opens on All, everything in your library, with one glass bar floating near the bottom. By default it holds Add, Collections and Search. The Collections button shows where you are and how many things are there, so it reads All when you first open Muse. Tap it to see your collections, and tap it again to return to All. Swipe in from the left edge to go back a step. To change the bar, tap the Collections button, then Settings (it sits where Search was), then Toolbar. Switch buttons on from Add, Collections, Search, Inbox and Settings, and drag them into any order. Collections or Settings always stays.

• Tap a picture to open it, or a link to open the page.
• Press and hold a picture, link or note, then slide to an action and let go.
• Pinch on a wall of pictures to fit more or fewer across the screen.
• Pull down from the top of any wall or list and let go to search.
• Swipe in from the left edge to go back.
• Shake your iPhone to return to All, closing anything that is open.

In an open picture, swipe left or right for the next one, swipe down to close it, tap to show its buttons, and pinch or double tap to zoom.

Tap the button on the bar that shows where you are (it reads All when you first open Muse). You will see All, your Inbox and then your collections, in the same order as on your Mac. Tap one to open it. A collection that holds others shows them first, with its own items below. Choose how collections look in Settings > Display > Collections. Stacks shows each one as a little pile of its newest pictures. List shows one line each, with the same icons as your Mac, an arrow to open the collections inside, and pinned collections at the top. Turn on Show Counts in Display to see how much each one holds.

Pinch with two fingers on a wall of pictures, on the Collections screen, or on link Previews. On a wall of pictures you can go from one to four across. The wall follows your fingers, settles on the nearest size and keeps the picture you were looking at in place. On the Collections screen, pinch to fit one to three stacks across, and on a screen of link Previews, one to four. The wall's size is one choice for the whole app, so it stays the same as you move between collections. Stacks and link previews each remember their own size.

Tap a picture to open it full screen. Pinch to zoom up to four times and drag to look around, or double tap to zoom in on that spot and double tap again to zoom back out. Swipe left or right for the next one and swipe down to close. Tap once to show its buttons: favourite, file into a collection, open the page it came from (when it has one), share, Info and more, which holds Rename and Delete. Press on words in a picture to select and copy them, as in Photos.

Yes. Tap a note and it opens as its words, ready to read, scroll and copy. Tap a PDF or another document and you will see its name, type and size with an Open button, which shows the whole document in Apple's Quick Look, where you can turn the pages and share it. PDFs you saved on your iPhone open straight away. Documents from your Mac need Full-Size Pictures switched on in Settings > Sync on your Mac; until then the screen tells you so.

Yes. Open a video and it plays where its preview was, using Apple's own player with a scrubber. Videos start muted; tap the speaker in the top corner for sound. Sound follows your iPhone's Ring/Silent switch and plays alongside your music rather than stopping it. A video needs its full file, which your iPhone fetches from iCloud as you open it, so switch on Full-Size Pictures in Settings > Sync on your Mac. Videos you saved on your iPhone play straight away.

Tap a link and the page opens in your default browser. To keep pages inside Muse instead, go to Settings > General > Open Links and choose In Muse, which shows the page in a Safari window you close with one tap. The two choices are named Default Browser and In Muse. A screen holding only links shows them as a List, each with its site's icon, or as Previews, the picture each page shares. Choose in Settings > Display > Links.

Yes. Settings > Display holds these options:

• Show in All: choose which kinds appear in All: Pictures, Videos, Links, Notes and Files. Collections and search still show everything.
• Order: Newest First or Oldest First.
• Collections: Stacks or List.
• Links and Link Order, for screens holding only links, including by Name.
• Show Link Names and Show Counts.

These apply across the whole app. Inside a collection, Newest First means most recently filed there.

In almost any app, tap Share and choose Muse. A small card springs up from the bottom, says Saving and then Saved, and closes by itself after a few seconds. It works from Safari, Photos, Files, X, Pinterest and most other apps. If Muse is not in the row of apps, scroll to the end of the row, tap More and switch Muse on. Muse saves one item at a time from the share sheet. To add several photos at once, use Add > Photos and Videos inside Muse.

Muse puts it where your last share went, and shows the name on the card. The first time, or if that collection has gone, Muse uses the collection you have filed into most lately, or your Inbox if you have not filed anything into a collection yet. To choose somewhere else, tap the name on the card before it closes. You will see your three most-used collections and your Inbox, with a Search collections field for any other. The item moves there and the card says Saved to and the name.

Muse saves a link or web page, a picture, a video, a file such as a PDF, or a piece of text. When an app shares a picture together with the post it came from, Muse keeps the picture and remembers the post as its source. Pinterest pins are saved as their picture. X posts are saved as their photo or video. Share a whole post with several photos and each photo is saved as its own item; share one photo from X's photo viewer and you get just that photo. Text is saved as a note, titled with its first line.

Tap Add (the plus) on the bar. The sheet says Add to Inbox, or Add to the name of the collection you are standing in, and offers four tiles:

• Photos and Videos: pick up to 20 at once from your photo library.
• Take a Photo: use the camera.
• Save a Link: paste or type a web address. A link on your clipboard is filled in for you.
• New Collection: a name, an icon and a place to put it.

Yes. Ask Siri to "Save my clipboard to Muse", "Open my Muse inbox", "Search Muse", "Make a collection in Muse" or "Open" a collection "in Muse". In the Shortcuts app, Muse offers Save to Muse (a link, text or picture, with an optional collection and tags), Save Clipboard, Create Collection, Add Tags, Set Favourite, Open Inbox, Open Collection and Search Muse. Muse also adds three controls for Control Center, the Lock Screen or the Action button: Save Clipboard, Search Muse and Open Inbox. Depending on your iPhone's Paste from Other Apps setting, iOS may ask before Muse reads your clipboard.

• Collection: the newest pictures in a collection you choose. Touch and hold the widget, then choose Edit Widget to pick one.
• Recent Saves: your latest saves, from any device.
• Inbox: a Lock Screen widget showing how much is in your Inbox and, in the larger shape, what was saved today.

Collection and Recent Saves come in small, medium and large, showing one, three or six pictures. Tap a picture in the medium or large ones to open it. Tap anywhere else and the Collection widget opens its collection, while Recent Saves opens All.

Yes. Muse adds your items and collections to your iPhone's own search, so swiping down on the Home Screen and typing a title, a tag, a collection name or a word from a note finds them. Tap a result to open it in Muse. Items you have hidden on your Mac are left out. This index is kept on your iPhone and is private to you.

Press and hold the item, slide to Collections and let go. The File sheet lists every collection with a Search Collections field; tap one to file the item there. If nothing matches, Muse offers to create a collection with that name. In an open picture, tap the folder button for your most-used collections and your Inbox. Each item lives in one collection, so filing it moves it, and the bar confirms with Filed to and the name.

Press and hold any picture, link or note for a moment and a row of six round buttons appears above it, in this order: Favourite, Collections, Share, Info, Select and Delete. Without lifting your finger, slide towards the one you want. Its name appears and you feel a tick as you reach each one. Let go to choose it, or let go with none highlighted and nothing happens. An item that is already a favourite shows Unfavourite instead.

To make one, tap Add > New Collection and type a name. Muse picks an icon from the name, or tap the icon to choose a symbol or an emoji. Inside places it within another collection. Later, press and hold a collection and choose Pin, Rename or Choose Icon. Pinned collections sit at the top of the List. Moving, reordering and deleting collections happen on your Mac, and your iPhone follows.

Press and hold the item and slide to Info, or tap the i button in an open picture. Info shows its Name, Tags, Collection, Source and Properties. Tap the title to rename it, tap Add Note to write a note, tap Add beside the tags to add your own (with suggestions from tags you already use), or tap the x on a tag to remove it. Everything you change here reaches your Mac.

Press and hold any item and slide to Select. Every item then shows a small ring; tap the ones you want. The bar shows how many you have, such as "3 Selected", with buttons to add them to a collection, share them or delete them, and an x to finish. Adding to a collection files them all in one go. Select is available on your walls of pictures and links, and not in search results.

Tap the heart in an open picture or in Info, or press and hold an item and slide to Favourite. You will feel a heartbeat when it is marked. Favourites reach your Mac too, where they appear under Favourites in the sidebar.

Press and hold the item and slide to Delete, or use Delete in an open picture's more menu, in Info, or in Select. Deleting from the hold menu happens straight away and the bar says Moved to Trash; the other ways ask first. Nothing is lost: deleted items go to the Trash on your Mac, and you can put them back from there until you empty it.

Press and hold the item and slide to Share, or use the share button in an open picture or in Info. Muse sends the picture, video or file itself when your iPhone has it, and the smaller copy if the full-size one has not downloaded yet. A link goes as its web address and a note as its words. To share several at once, use Select and then Share.

Yes. Things you save on your iPhone, and the changes you make there, reach your Mac's library: favourites, titles, notes, tags, filing, deletions, new collections, and their names, icons and pins. Your Mac collects them the next time Muse is open on it. A few things are done on your Mac only: moving, reordering and deleting collections, emptying the Trash, hiding items, and the Canvas.

Tap Search on the bar, or pull any screen down and let go. The field reads Search and where you are. From All or Collections it searches your whole library, apart from anything you have hidden from All on your Mac, and inside a collection or the Inbox it searches just that one. It finds titles, notes, tags and the words your Mac has read inside pictures as you type, even for kinds you have switched off in Show in All. The number of matches shows in the field. Links and notes appear first, then pictures. Tap the x to close search.

Yes. Type a colour such as blue, or a colour with a word, such as blue poster. Or tap the colour wheel at the end of the search field, then slide along the two strips: the top one picks the colour, the bottom one runs from dark to light. The results change as you slide and the field names the colour. Colour search finds pictures whose colours your Mac has read, which Instant AI does by default.

Yes. Type what a picture shows, such as red car or quiet kitchen, and Muse finds matching pictures even if those words were never typed on them. Your Mac reads your pictures with its on-device image model, once you download and switch on Search by Meaning in Settings > Intelligence there (a 300 MB download that stays on your Mac), and shares what it learned with your iPhone. Your iPhone does the matching itself, with no internet needed. It works from three letters, and the first search in a while can take a moment longer.

Check these in order:

1. Muse on your Mac is the latest version, with Sync With iCloud switched on in Settings > Sync.
2. Your Mac and iPhone use the same Apple Account.
3. Muse is open on your Mac so it can send your library up. Settings > Sync shows Syncing or On; Paused means your licence needs activating there.
4. On your iPhone, Settings > General shows Synced or Syncing.

If the screen still says "Open Muse on your Mac", open Muse on your iPhone again, then try Download Library Again in Settings > General.

Muse brings your library through iCloud, so your iPhone needs the same Apple Account as your Mac. Tap Open Settings if you see it, or open the Settings app yourself and sign in at the top. Then return to Muse and your library starts arriving on its own. If you signed out after setting Muse up, Muse clears this iPhone's copy (it keeps it while anything you saved is still waiting to be sent), and signing back in brings the library back the next time you open Muse.

Your Mac sends changes a moment after you make them, as long as Muse is open there; Settings > Sync should say On or Syncing. Your iPhone picks them up each time you open Muse, and iCloud also nudges it in the background, so switch away and back again if it has not caught up. To send your latest changes straight away, press Sync Now in Settings > Sync on your Mac. If one item still looks out of date, try Download Library Again in Settings > General on your iPhone.

Your iPhone keeps a small copy of every picture and fetches the full-size file from iCloud when you open it. That needs Full-Size Pictures switched on in Settings > Sync on your Mac, plus a little time for your Mac to upload your originals. Until then pictures stay on the small copy, and a video says "Not Downloaded Yet" and "It's in your library but hasn't downloaded yet." (it says "Loading Video" while it fetches). A document says "Turn on Full-Size Pictures in Settings > Sync on your Mac to open it here." Each one needs a connection the first time you open it.

When your iCloud storage is full, Muse shows "iCloud is full. New saves can't sync." at the top of the screen. Nothing is lost: new saves wait on your iPhone and are sent once iCloud has room again, and the note clears once a save gets through. Free up space in the Settings app under your Apple Account, then iCloud. On your Mac, the iCloud storage is full card in Settings > Sync has Manage Storage and, while Full-Size Pictures is switched on, Remove Full-Size Pictures, which frees the space your originals use. Switching Full-Size Pictures off alone stops new uploads but leaves the ones already there.

It is in Settings > General. Download Library Again removes this iPhone's copy of your library and downloads it again from iCloud, which refreshes anything that looks out of date. It also clears any full-size pictures kept on your phone, which are fetched again only when you open them. Muse asks first ("Download Library Again?" with Download Again and Cancel). If anything saved on your iPhone has not reached iCloud yet, it says how many items would be lost, so connect to the internet and let them send first. Your Mac and your iCloud are not affected.

In the share sheet, scroll the row of apps to the end, tap More and switch Muse on. Muse saves one thing at a time from the share sheet, so when several photos are selected it will not appear; to add many at once, open Muse and use Add > Photos and Videos, which takes up to 20 at a time. Muse needs iOS 26 or later.

A screen that holds only links shows each site's icon by default. To see the picture each page shares, choose Previews in Settings > Display > Links. Where a link sits among pictures, Muse uses the page's own picture, or the snapshot your Mac made, and otherwise shows the link's name and site. Some pages publish no picture, or ask visitors to sign in first, so there is nothing to show; Muse asks again after a week, and sooner when a site did not answer.

Deleting Muse from your iPhone removes its copy of your library from the phone. Your Mac's library and your iCloud copy stay as they are, and installing Muse again brings the library back. Before you delete it, open Settings > General and tap Download Library Again: Muse tells you if anything you saved is still waiting to be sent (then choose Cancel). Let it send first, because anything unsent goes with the app. To take your library out of iCloud too, open Settings > Sync on your Mac, open the menu beside Sync Now and choose Delete the iCloud Copy. This also removes full-size pictures. Your Mac's library stays as it is and syncing turns off.

Muse's bar starts with Add, Collections and Search, and Settings joins it whenever you open Collections, in Search's place. So tap Collections, then Settings. To keep Settings on the bar all the time, go to Settings > Toolbar and switch on Settings. One of Collections or Settings always stays on the bar, so the last of the two cannot be switched off.

Settings > General shows Synced with the time it last checked, Syncing while it fetches, Not Signed In beside General when iCloud is signed out, and Not Fully Synced with a short reason underneath, such as "Can't reach iCloud" or "iCloud is full. New saves can't sync." The same reason appears as a note at the top of the screen; tap it for a page with Sync Now. Having no connection is not a problem: Muse shows what it has and tries again next time.

Post it on this Support Centre. Report a Bug and Request a Feature are both here, they take no account and no email, and every post is read.

Muse asks for no email address and never phones home, so a post here is genuinely the only way something reaches us. If a bug is stopping you buying, or there is one feature you are waiting on, say so plainly: that is the most useful thing anyone sends us, and it is what decides what gets built next.

Three ways in, all the same place:

1. From Muse: the Help menu lists Report a Bug, Request a Feature, Review Roadmap and the rest.
2. From Settings: open Settings → Support for the same list with a line of description under each.
3. From here: the sections at the top of this Support Centre.

Leave an email address when you post and you will get our replies by email. Leave it out and the post is completely anonymous; it is read either way.

Review Roadmap shows what is already planned, so it is worth a look before you write: your request may already be on it, and adding a comment to an existing one carries more weight than a second copy of it.

From version 1.0.20, new installs meet all of this during setup, so nobody has to go looking for it.

Chorus is a menu-bar app that gives you real control over your Mac's audio. Group several output devices so they play as one, with a proper volume slider (something macOS's own multi-output tool cannot do). Pick your microphone, send individual apps to specific speakers, switch automatically when a device connects, and trigger any of it with a keyboard shortcut. Built for setups like two Studio Displays that should just work together as one sound.

Just download and open it. Every feature works immediately for 14 days, with no account, no card details, and nothing to fill in. If you decide to keep it, it is a one-time purchase of $9.99 with no subscription. If you don't, the trial simply ends and nothing is charged. There is no separate "demo mode" to worry about; the trial is the full app.

Download the DMG from theodorehq.com/chorus, open it, and drag Chorus into your Applications folder. When you open it for the first time, a small speaker icon appears in your menu bar. That icon is Chorus: click it to see the panel with your outputs, input and playing apps. There is nothing else to set up, and no restart is needed.

Chorus lives entirely in the menu bar, so it never appears in the Dock or in Cmd-Tab. This is intentional: it is a quick-access audio control, not a document window you switch between. Look for a small speaker icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen, usually near the clock. Clicking it opens the panel; right-clicking it opens Settings and other options.

Right-click (or Control-click) the Chorus icon in your menu bar and choose "Settings…" from the menu that appears. The same menu also has "Open Chorus" for the main panel, a Support submenu, "Check for Updates," and Quit. Settings itself is a separate window with tabs for General, Outputs, Inputs, Auto-Switch, Volume & Keys, Dictation, Shortcuts, Automation and About.

Chorus needs macOS 13 (Ventura) or later and runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, since it ships as a single universal app. Two features need a slightly newer system: per-app volume and routing, and the live level meters in the panel, both need macOS 14.4 or later, because they use a newer part of macOS's audio system. Everything else works from macOS 13 onward.

Chorus checks for updates automatically, roughly once an hour, and again shortly after it starts up. When one is found you'll see a Sparkle update prompt with what's new; approving it downloads and installs the new version for you. To check right away, right-click the menu-bar icon and choose "Check for Updates." Every future update is included at no extra cost, whether you're on the trial or have bought a licence.

Right-click the menu-bar icon, choose Settings, and open the General tab. Turn on "Launch at Login" and Chorus will start quietly in the menu bar every time you sign in, with no window popping up. This uses Apple's standard Login Items system, so you can also switch it off from System Settings, General, Login Items if you ever prefer to start Chorus manually.

Right-click the menu-bar icon and choose Quit (or press Command-Q while the Chorus panel is open), then drag Chorus from your Applications folder to the Trash. Chorus doesn't install a driver, a kernel extension, or anything else outside the app itself, so nothing is left behind that changes how your Mac's audio works; it goes straight back to exactly how it was before. If you turned on Launch at Login, that setting is removed automatically when you delete the app.

Open the panel and click the "New Group" button in the Output card (the small icon in its top-right corner). Choose the devices you want to play together, such as two Studio Displays, give the group a name, and save it. The group then appears in your Output list alongside your single devices, and selecting it sends audio to every device in it at once, in sync.

Yes. Once a group is selected, the panel shows a master volume slider for it, and your Mac's volume keys and menu-bar scroll both control that group directly. This is the main thing Chorus adds over macOS's built-in multi-output device, which plays to several speakers at once but gives you no way to control their combined volume at all.

Yes. Open the group in the panel and you'll see a separate slider for each device inside it, shown as a percentage, alongside the group's overall master volume. If one Studio Display naturally plays louder than the other, pull its slider down until they sound even, then leave the master slider for your everyday volume control. Balance settings are saved with the group.

Right-click the group in the Output card of the panel and choose Rename. A small box opens with the group's name; type the new one and press Return or click Save. Press Escape or click Cancel to leave it as it was. A group always needs a name, so Save stays off while the field is empty.

This works for any group at any time, whether or not it is playing. Renaming a group that is playing does not interrupt it.

Yes. Open the panel and every app currently playing audio appears in the Apps section with its own volume slider, going up to 400% for a real boost, plus a mute button. Changing one app's volume has no effect on anything else playing. This needs macOS 14.4 or later; on 13 or 14.3 the Apps section simply doesn't appear, since the underlying system support isn't there yet.

Yes, this is one of Chorus's core features. In the Apps section, click an app's device menu and choose where it should play, separately from everything else. Music can stay on your desk speakers while a call goes to your headphones, each at its own volume. Chorus remembers each app's chosen device, so it keeps routing there the next time that app plays sound.

Open the panel and the Input card shows your available microphones. Click the one you want, and it becomes your Mac's system default input straight away, the same as changing it in System Settings, only faster. If you don't see a microphone you expect, check Settings, Inputs to make sure it hasn't been hidden.

Yes. Auto-Switch lets Chorus choose your speakers, and your microphone, for you whenever something connects or disconnects. It is off until you turn it on in Settings, Auto-Switch, and Outputs and Inputs each have their own switch and their own list.

Each list is read from the top down, and Chorus uses the first entry whose devices are all connected:

• Rules come first. A rule says "when these devices are connected, use this group or device", for example "when both Studio Displays are connected, use my Studio Displays group".
• Your other speakers sit below the rules, and when a rule stops matching, Chorus switches to the first of them that is connected. Until you arrange them, your Mac's own speakers come first and AirPlay devices come last; Move Up and Move Down put them in any order you like.

A few things worth knowing:

• Order matters. The first rule that matches wins, and a new rule is added at the bottom, so put your most specific rule at the top, such as a headphones rule above a rule for your desk speakers.
• Chorus acts when your devices change, not all the time. If you pick something yourself in the panel, Chorus leaves it alone until a device connects or disconnects.
• A rule can name a device that is not plugged in right now. Chorus remembers the devices it has seen and shows them as "Not connected", so you can set up a headphones rule without wearing them.
• Each rule has its own switch, so you can pause one without deleting it. If you delete a group a rule uses, the rule shows "Deleted Group" until you point it somewhere else.

Yes. Open Settings and go to the Shortcuts tab, where you'll find every group, every output device, and every input device listed with a field next to it. Click a field and press the key combination you want; it works from any app, system-wide. You can also assign shortcuts for two general actions: showing or hiding the panel, and Mute Speakers, which silences your sound and leaves your microphone alone. To remove a shortcut, click its field and press Escape.

Yes. Your Mac's regular F11/F12 volume keys and mute key control whichever group is currently active, showing the same on-screen feedback you'd expect. This needs Accessibility permission, since that's how macOS lets any app listen for those keys. Settings, Volume & Keys shows whether it's granted, with an Enable button if it isn't yet. The mute key goes further than the volume keys: it silences everything your Mac can play through, including your main output and any app you've sent to its own speaker, and it stays muted until you press it again.

Two handy ones. Scroll up or down while your pointer is over the Chorus menu-bar icon to adjust the volume of the active group (or your default output, if no group is on) without opening the panel at all. Hold Option and click the icon to instantly toggle mute. Both are quicker than opening the panel for a small adjustment. While Chorus is quietening your audio for a dictation, the icon dims until your audio is back.

Yes. Open Settings, go to Outputs or Inputs, and switch off any device you don't want cluttering the panel or the New Group picker, such as a hub output you never actually listen through. A hidden device already inside a group keeps working normally, and a hidden input can still be used by an Auto-Switch rule; hiding it only tidies what you see day to day.

Yes, both are optional and live in Settings, Volume & Keys. "Show Volume HUD" displays a small on-screen overlay when the volume keys change a group, and you can choose where it appears from a 3x3 position grid. "Confirmation Sound" plays a short tick through a device the moment you select it, so you can hear which one you've just switched to. Turn either off if you'd rather have silence.

Yes. Chorus responds to a handful of chorus:// links that any launcher, automation app or Stream Deck can open: activate a named group, deactivate the active one, switch to a single device, set the volume, or toggle mute. Settings, Automation lists each command with an example, ready to paste into whatever tool you're wiring it up in.

Chorus steps aside and then brings your group back by itself. If headphones or another device take over the sound, Chorus lets them, and switches your group back on once they disconnect. If your group's speakers disappear for a while, which speakers built into monitors often do when the screens sleep, Chorus pauses the group and turns it back on as soon as a speaker returns. Turning a group off yourself always sticks. If you pick a different output in the Mac's own sound menu, Chorus leaves the sound there for as long as that device stays connected. To have a group take over whenever certain speakers are connected, add an Auto-Switch rule in Settings.

Here is how to make Chorus turn a group on whenever its speakers are connected:

1. Right-click the Chorus icon in your menu bar and choose Settings.
2. Open Auto-Switch, choose Outputs, and turn Auto-Switch on.
3. Click Add Rule.
4. Under "When these are connected", tick every speaker in your group.
5. Under "Then use this output", pick your group, then click Save.

From then on, Chorus turns your group on whenever all of those speakers are connected, including after your Mac or your screens have been asleep. To change or remove a rule later, click the ... button beside it for Edit, Move Up, Move Down and Delete.

If you also use headphones, add a rule for them and move it above your group's rule. Otherwise the group rule wins and Chorus keeps the sound on your group when the headphones connect.

Yes. Open Settings, Auto-Switch, choose Inputs and turn it on. Microphones work the same way as speakers: click Add Rule, tick the device that should trigger it under "When these are connected", then pick the microphone under "Then use this input".

For example, a rule for your headset means that plugging it in switches your Mac to the headset's microphone. Below your rules sit your other microphones, and when a rule stops matching, Chorus switches to the first of them that is connected. Until you arrange them, your Mac's own microphone comes first; Move Up and Move Down put them in any order you like.

The input list is completely separate from the output one, so a rule for your speakers never changes your microphone. A rule keeps working if you later hide its microphone in Settings, Inputs.

Normally the Chorus panel closes as soon as you click somewhere else, like any menu-bar app. Turn on Keep Panel Open in Settings, General and it stays on screen while you work in other apps, which is handy while you are balancing speakers or setting app volumes. Click the menu-bar icon or press Escape to close it.

Yes, and microphones too. Right-click any speaker or microphone in the panel and choose Rename, or open Settings, Outputs or Inputs and click the ... button beside it. Type the new name, such as "Left Display", and press Return or click Save. With a group playing, you can also double-click a speaker's name under the group.

The new name shows everywhere in Chorus, which makes two identical displays easy to tell apart. To go back to the device's own name, choose Reset Name from the same menu, or clear the name and save.

When you create a group, one speaker keeps time and the others stay in step with it, which is how Chorus keeps them playing together without drifting apart. The first speaker you tick becomes the clock, and the New Group screen shows which one it is under "Master (clock)". To choose a different one before you save, click the metronome icon beside it.

Any speaker works, and your main speaker is usually the natural choice. The clock is set when the group is created, so to change it later, create the group again and pick a different speaker.

When a dictation app like Raycast, superwhisper or Paraspeech starts listening, Chorus can pause, lower or mute your audio, then bring it back as soon as you stop. Open Settings and choose the Dictation tab to see the dictation apps on your Mac. For each one, Default follows that app's own setting, or pick Pause, Lower, Mute or Off to have Chorus handle it. Lowered Volume sets how loud your audio stays when an app is set to Lower, from 0% to 100%. Pause stops your music or podcast and carries on from the same spot when you finish. Your audio fades down and back up smoothly, and the menu bar icon dims while Chorus is quietening it. It works with groups and single speakers, and needs macOS 14.4 or later. If your dictation app isn't listed, use Add App.

Chorus recognises superwhisper, Paraspeech, Raycast, VoiceInk, TypeWhisper, Pindrop, Hex, Handy, Wispr Flow, MacWhisper and Monologue. Only the ones installed on your Mac appear in Settings, Dictation. For any other app that listens to your microphone, click Add App at the bottom of the list and choose it from your Applications folder. To remove an app you added, right-click its row and choose Remove.

Default does whatever that dictation app is set to do itself. Chorus reads the setting from superwhisper, VoiceInk, TypeWhisper, Pindrop, Hex and Handy, so changing it in those apps changes what Chorus does. Raycast mutes. For apps whose setting Chorus can't read, such as Paraspeech, Wispr Flow and MacWhisper, and for any app you add, Default lowers your audio. The button Default matches is shown with a light blue tint, so you can always see what will happen. Pick a different option to override it.

Pause stops what's playing, such as your music or a podcast, and carries on from the same spot when you finish. Lower turns your audio down to the level you set in Lowered Volume. Mute silences your speakers completely. Off leaves your audio exactly as it is. Whichever you choose, your audio fades down as you start dictating and fades back up about half a second after you stop.

Open Settings, choose Dictation, and move the Lowered Volume slider. It sets how loud your audio stays while an app set to Lower is listening, from 0% to 100% of your normal volume. At 0% your speakers are muted. The slider is greyed out when none of your apps will lower your audio, because it only applies to Lower.

Yes. With a group, Chorus handles your audio for every app, including those on Default. On a single speaker, such as your Mac's own speakers or headphones, Default leaves it to the dictation app, since those apps already handle a single speaker themselves. Any other choice you make, such as Pause, applies on every speaker.

Open Settings, choose Dictation, and turn off the switch beside Apps. Chorus then leaves your audio alone whenever you dictate, and your dictation apps behave exactly as they would without Chorus. Your choices are kept, so turning the switch back on picks up where you left off. To leave a single app alone, choose Off for that app instead.

The icon dims while Chorus has paused, lowered or muted your audio for a dictation, and returns to normal as your audio comes back. It's a quick way to see that Chorus stepped in, and that it will bring your audio back by itself when you finish.

Chorus is a one-time purchase of $9.99. There's no subscription, no recurring charge, and no separate fee for future updates; every version you'll ever get is included in that single price. A licence covers up to three Macs, and you get a full 14-day trial first, so you can try everything before deciding.

After buying, Polar shows your key straight away and emails it to you too. In Chorus, right-click the menu-bar icon, choose Settings, and open the About tab: under Licence you'll find Enter Licence Key. Paste it in and this Mac activates immediately, whether your trial is still running or has already finished. Keys look like CHORUS- followed by a string of letters and numbers, so paste rather than retype it to avoid a mistyped character.

Sign in to your Polar account with the email address you used to buy Chorus, and your key is right there. If you can't find your purchase confirmation email or the portal doesn't recognise your address, email support@theodorehq.com and we'll look it up and get it back to you.

One Chorus licence activates on up to three Macs at once, for your own personal use. If you regularly work between a desktop and a laptop, or have a home and an office setup, that's usually plenty. If you ever need a fourth, deactivating an old Mac you no longer use frees up its slot straight away.

Yes. Open Settings, Shortcuts, where every group, speaker and microphone is listed with a field beside it. Click a field and press the keys you want. Shortcuts work from any app.

• A group's shortcut turns that group on, and pressing it again turns it off.
• A speaker's shortcut sends your sound straight to that speaker, with a short tick so you can hear where it went if Confirmation Sound is on.
• A microphone's shortcut switches your Mac's input to that microphone.

There are also two general shortcuts: Show or Hide Panel, and Mute Speakers, which silences your sound and leaves your microphone alone.

A shortcut needs at least one of Command, Option, Control or Shift. If another app already uses the same keys, the shortcut may not fire, so pick a combination nothing else uses. To remove a shortcut, click its field and press Escape or Delete. Devices you have hidden in Settings are left out of the list.

Shortcuts also work with a Stream Deck: add a Hotkey action to a button and record the same keys.

Yes. Grouping, routing, auto-switch, shortcuts and every audio feature run entirely on your Mac and need no internet connection at all. The only time Chorus needs to be online is to activate a licence key the first time, and to occasionally revalidate it, which it does automatically. If you're offline when that happens, a bought licence keeps working for 7 days before it needs to check in again.

Once your free trial is up, opening Chorus shows a simple screen with a Buy button instead of the panel. Nothing is deleted or reset: your groups, shortcuts and settings are all still there, waiting for a licence key. Buy whenever you're ready and everything picks up exactly where you left it, right down to your custom groups and shortcuts.

If Chorus isn't right for you, email support@theodorehq.com within 14 days of buying and we'll refund you in full.

Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 also always apply: if Chorus doesn't work as described, you're entitled to a repair, a replacement or a refund by law.

Open the panel and check which output or group has the tick next to it; that's what your Mac is currently playing through. If it's a group, make sure every device in it is switched on and connected. It's also worth checking that individual app hasn't been muted or routed elsewhere in the Apps section, since a per-app route overrides the system default for that one app only.

Yes. Chorus responds to links that any launcher, automation app or Stream Deck can open. Settings, Automation lists the main ones, ready to copy:

• chorus://activate?group=Studio Displays turns a group on, by its name
• chorus://deactivate turns the active group off
• chorus://single?device=AirPods sends your sound to one device, using the name your Mac gives it in its Sound settings
• chorus://volume?set=50 sets the group volume from 0 to 100, and chorus://volume?delta=10 or delta=-10 nudges it up or down
• chorus://mute mutes or unmutes your speakers

The volume links work while a group is on. There is also a link for one app at a time, on macOS 14.4 or later: chorus://app?bundle=com.spotify.client&volume=50 sets Spotify's volume, and you can add mute=1 to mute it, or device=AirPods to send it to one speaker.

To switch your microphone from a Stream Deck, give the microphone a keyboard shortcut in Settings, Shortcuts, then add a Hotkey action on the Stream Deck that presses it.

If a device is missing, check it's genuinely connected and check Settings, Outputs or Inputs to make sure you haven't hidden it there by mistake; hidden devices are switched off from that same screen. If instead a device you hid keeps reappearing, it's usually a USB or Thunderbolt hub reassigning that device a slightly different internal identifier on reconnect; Chorus recognises this and re-applies your setting automatically, but it can take one more reconnect to catch up.

The physical F11/F12 volume keys need Accessibility permission to work with any app, not just Chorus. Open Settings, Volume & Keys, and check whether it shows as granted; if not, click Enable and approve the system prompt. If you've reinstalled or updated Chorus and it was working before, macOS sometimes needs the permission granted again: open System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, and toggle Chorus off and back on. Right after you log in, macOS can take a moment to let Chorus use the keys; Chorus keeps trying on its own, and if it still can't, the panel shows a Restart button that sorts it out.

If you've purchased Chorus, your licence key is stored in your Mac's Keychain rather than in a plain settings file, since that's the properly secure place for it. macOS asks you to confirm this the first time, and choosing "Always Allow" means you won't be asked again. During the free trial, nothing licence-related touches the Keychain at all, so trial users shouldn't see this prompt.

Per-app control needs macOS 14.4 or later; on 13 or 14.3 the Apps section doesn't appear at all, so check Settings, About for your macOS version first. If you're on 14.4+, an app only shows up while it's actually producing sound, so check something is actually playing. If it's still not appearing, quit and reopen the app in question: Chorus picks up newly launched apps as soon as they start playing audio.

Call apps like FaceTime, Zoom and Teams always play through a single real device tied to whichever microphone is currently selected, never a combined group; this is how macOS itself handles call audio, to keep echo cancellation working properly. So a call plays through whichever device your input is set to. If you want a call to come from a particular screen, switch your input to the microphone on that device in the panel first.

Yes, this is what macOS calls its audio-capture permission, and Chorus asks for it only when you press Enable Per-App Audio in the Apps section of the panel. That one permission covers per-app volume, routing and the live level meters. It sounds bigger than it is: Chorus reads live audio only to measure its level or send it to a different device, and nothing is ever recorded, saved, or sent anywhere. You can see exactly this described in our privacy policy at theodorehq.com/chorus/privacy.html.

Yes. Accessibility is the standard macOS permission any app needs to respond to the physical volume keys, and it's the only reason Chorus asks for it. If you'd rather not grant it, that's fine: every other feature works exactly the same, you'll just use the panel, the menu-bar scroll, or your own custom shortcuts to adjust volume instead of the physical keys.

First check Auto-Switch is actually turned on in Settings, for the Outputs or Inputs scope you're expecting it to affect. Then check the rule itself: it only fires when every device it lists is connected at once, so if a rule needs two speakers and only one is plugged in, it won't trigger. Next check the order, which is the most common surprise: the list runs top to bottom and the first rule that matches wins, and a new rule is added at the bottom, so a broader rule above it can win every time. Use Move Up to put the more specific rule first, for example a headphones rule above a rule about your desk speakers. Auto-Switch also won't override a device you've just chosen manually, until something about your connected devices actually changes.

Right-click the menu-bar icon, open Settings, and go to About, where you'll find direct links to Report a Bug, Request a Feature, and our full FAQ and roadmap. You can also go straight to support.theodorehq.com/chorus, or email support@theodorehq.com. We read every report and reply from a real person, not a form letter.

Many dictation apps quieten other audio by changing the Mac's own volume or mute switch. A group plays through several speakers at once, and macOS doesn't give a group a single volume of its own, so those settings have nothing to change. Chorus handles it for you instead. Open Settings, choose Dictation, and make sure the switch beside Apps is on. With Default selected, Chorus follows your dictation app's own setting. You can also pick Pause, Lower or Mute for any app. This needs Chorus 1.0.10 or later on macOS 14.4 or later.

Pause works with anything that appears in your Mac's Now Playing controls, such as Music, Spotify, podcast apps and videos playing in a browser. It only pauses if something is actually playing, and when you finish it resumes that same app, and only if it is still paused, so music you stopped yourself never starts on its own. If Now Playing can't be reached, Chorus mutes your audio instead so you are never talked over. If Pause still does nothing, check the app shows in Now Playing in Control Centre.

That's deliberate. If you change the volume while Chorus has your audio lowered or muted, Chorus takes it as you wanting to hear it and steps aside until that dictation ends. The next time you dictate, it quietens your audio as normal.

Chorus waits about half a second after your dictation app stops listening, then fades your audio back up, so it doesn't flicker if you pause mid-sentence. For Paraspeech it waits about a second, because Paraspeech briefly restarts the microphone while you dictate. If a dictation app ever leaves the microphone open for more than ten minutes, Chorus brings your audio back anyway.

Chorus lives in your menu bar as a small speaker icon near the clock, rather than in a window. On a busy menu bar, that icon can end up hidden behind the camera notch or tucked away by a menu bar app such as Bartender or Ice. Open Chorus again from your Applications folder or Spotlight and its panel appears straight away, so you can carry on using it. To bring the icon back into view, quit one or two other menu bar apps, or show Chorus from your menu bar manager.

Chorus makes three kinds of network request: a check for app updates about once an hour, licence activation and validation with our payment provider Polar, which sends your licence key and your Mac's name so we can enforce the three-Mac limit, and a small number of anonymous usage counts sent to a server we run ourselves. Nothing about what you listen to is ever collected, and no audio leaves your Mac.

If you use Chorus through Setapp, the app tells Setapp's own framework when it is used so that Setapp can pay us, and sends none of the three requests above: Setapp handles updates and payment itself.

You can turn the usage counts off at any time in Settings, About, with Share Anonymous Usage. With it off, Chorus sends no usage counts at all; your licence and trial work exactly the same. If a count cannot be sent, for example because a network blocker refuses it, Chorus tries again a couple of times over a few minutes and then lets it go, so it never keeps asking.

No. When Chorus reads audio, for per-app volume control, routing, or the live level meters, it's only ever measuring the signal or sending it to a different device in real time. Nothing is ever written to disk, saved, or transmitted anywhere. This is the same for both the free trial and a purchased licence; the behaviour never changes. Dictation controls never listen to your microphone either: they only notice when a dictation app is using it.

Two, and both are optional. Accessibility lets your physical volume keys control an active group; without it, everything else still works, you just adjust volume from the panel or a shortcut instead. The audio permission lets Chorus read levels for per-app control and the live meters, and re-route audio between devices; it never records or saves anything. Chorus explains both in its short welcome when you first open it, and again in the app the moment it asks for either.

Everything lives on your own Mac. Your groups, shortcuts, hidden devices and other preferences are stored in your Mac's local settings, and your licence key (if you've bought one) is kept securely in the macOS Keychain rather than a plain file. Nothing is backed up to a Chorus account or server, because there is no account; it's all local to the machine it's installed on.

No, and there never will be. You don't create an account to use the trial, and you don't create one after buying either; your licence key is all that's needed. The only email Chorus ever knows about is the one you used to check out with Polar, used purely to send your receipt and key, never for anything else.

No. Chorus never listens to, records or saves anything from your microphone. It only checks whether a dictation app is using the microphone, which your Mac reports without any audio involved, and needs no permission. To follow an app's own setting it reads that app's preferences on your Mac, and for Pause it uses your Mac's Now Playing controls. None of this leaves your Mac.

Docket is a complete support centre you run yourself: bug reports, feature requests, a public roadmap, a changelog, an FAQ and testimonials, all on your own domain under your own brand. Underneath it is a folder of Markdown files in your own GitHub repository and a static website built from them. There is no database, no server to maintain and no account with us. You buy it once and the code is yours.

Those are hosted services you pay for monthly, where your customers' feedback lives on their servers and the price rises with seats or tracked users. Docket is a one-time purchase of the source code. It runs on your hosting, your data sits in your own repository, and there is no monthly bill, no seat count and no per-board pricing. The trade is that you host it and you own the upkeep, which for a static site is close to nothing.

Free gives you the whole board: bugs, features, voting, roadmap, changelog, testimonials, FAQ, your own domain and the full design system, on unlimited products. You reply by hand and it carries a small "Powered by Docket" badge. Pro at $49 adds the work being done for you: AI first replies, email notifications, the digest, Slack and Discord alerts, the feedback widget, automatic update pull requests, and badge removal. Studio at $199 adds everything Pro has plus client deployments, a view across all your clients, and replies signed per teammate.

The free edition is a complete working support centre with every board section, your own domain and the full design system, on unlimited products. It is a working support centre rather than a trial. There are also interactive demos of all three editions on our website, where you can click through a realistic board rather than reading about one. If you outgrow the free edition, the paid ones add the automation rather than unlocking the basics.

You need a free GitHub account, a hosting account (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare and Deno Deploy all work, and free plans are fine), and ideally a domain you already own so the board can live on a subdomain like support.yourcompany.com. For the paid editions you also want a coding agent you already use, such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor. Optional extras are an AI key and an email provider key, both on your own accounts.

For the paid editions, no. You open the repository with your coding agent, paste one line, and it does the setup while answering your questions. The free edition installs by hand following INSTALL.md, which is five steps of editing two files and clicking deploy. Either way you will click buttons in GitHub and your hosting provider, and you will need to paste a couple of keys into settings pages. Nobody needs to write code.

Node 22 or newer, and git. That is the whole list, because Docket has no dependencies to install: there is no npm install step and no build tools to set up. If you are letting a coding agent do the setup it will check this for you. You can even do most of the work in GitHub's web interface and your host's dashboard without touching a terminal, though having Node locally makes checking your work much easier.

Payment is handled by Polar, who are the seller. You connect your GitHub account through Polar and are invited as a read-only collaborator on the repository for the edition you bought. Accept the invitation, then use GitHub's "use this template" flow to create your own copy under your own account in one click. That copy is entirely yours, with no git connection back to ours, which matters because your customers' reports become files in it.

Open your new repository with your coding agent and say "Set up Docket by following SETUP.md." It asks you a handful of questions: your company name, your support email address, the address the board will live at, and which products you support. It fills in config.js and products.json while you get on with something else. The parts only you can do are pasting keys into GitHub and your host, and pointing your domain. Fifteen minutes is realistic.

Docket is a static site plus two small endpoints, so it runs anywhere that serves both. We document Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages and Deno Deploy in docs/hosting.md, and each needs no changes to the code. Netlify and Cloudflare are the easiest free options. Vercel's Hobby plan does not permit commercial use, so if you are a business on Vercel you will need one of their paid plans. Moving hosts later is a matter of repointing the domain.

Docket needs its own subdomain, something like support.yourcompany.com or feedback.yourcompany.com. It cannot live in a folder of an existing site, because it serves its own pages from the root. Point that subdomain at your host following their instructions, and HTTPS is issued automatically by all four hosts we document. If you do not own a domain yet you can start on the free address your host gives you and move later, and nothing breaks when you do.

Two files carry almost everything. products.json lists what you support, one entry each, with a short id that becomes part of the web address, so choose those carefully as changing one later breaks links. config.js holds your company name, your support address, your accent colour and which sections each product shows. Start with the sections you will actually use: a board full of empty sections makes a new support centre look abandoned, and adding one later is a one-line change.

Example content lives in data.example/ and is never used once your own products.json exists, so there is nothing to delete and no risk of a stranger's demo items reaching your live site. If you would rather see a populated board first to get a feel for it, copy the examples across with cp -R data.example data, have a look, then remove it with rm -rf data before you go live. Your own first real report creates the folder properly.

Docket runs the same both ways. Most people choose private, because the repository holds your customers' submissions including their encrypted email addresses, and there is no reason for that to be browsable. Your published board is a separate thing and stays public either way. If you hold a paid edition, keep it private: the licence allows you to run and change the code but not to publish the source.

Run npm run build and open dist/index.html in your browser. That is the exact site your host will serve, so what you see is what customers get. The one thing that will not work locally is submitting the form, since that needs the endpoints your host provides. Netlify, Vercel and Cloudflare also build a preview for every pull request, which is the easiest way to check a change before it reaches your live board.

npm run check walks through your setup and tells you in plain English what is still missing, naming each thing rather than showing an error code. When it says everything is set up, it is. After that, open your live board and file a test bug through the form the way a customer would. It should appear on the board within a few seconds. Delete it afterwards by removing the file from data/ and committing.

Buy the edition you want, accept the invitation and create your copy from the new template, then move your data/ folder, config.js and products.json across. Those are the files that hold everything you have written, and they are unchanged between editions. Your coding agent can do this in a few minutes. Nothing about your board's addresses or content changes, so links you have already shared keep working.

We do not ship an importer for Canny, UserJot or Featurebase. Your data in Docket is plain Markdown with a short block of fields at the top, in a git repository, so the practical route is to export from your current tool and ask your coding agent to convert it. That is exactly the kind of repetitive job agents are good at, and docs/data-schema.md describes the format it needs to produce.

The paid editions ship a setup guide and an operating guide written for an agent to follow, plus three skills for triaging support, posting a changelog and updating the FAQ. Anything that can read a repository and follow instructions inside it will work: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Gemini among them. There is nothing to install and no plugin. The free edition does not need an agent at all, since it installs by hand.

People can report a bug, request a feature, leave a testimonial and comment on existing items. Feature requests and bugs can be voted on, once per person, without anyone signing up for anything. Every item gets its own page with a permanent address you can link to, and on the paid editions anyone can ask there to be emailed when it ships. Testimonials are held until you approve them, so nothing appears on your site under that heading without your say-so.

There is no account, no password and nothing to forget. Someone fills in a short form and their report is on the board. An email address is optional, and the only thing it is ever used for is telling that person their issue was answered or their request shipped. Voting works the same way, once per person, with no sign-up. Removing that barrier is a large part of why boards like this get used at all.

Every bug and feature carries a status, and each status is a real page with its own address, so you can link somebody straight to everything you have planned. The board shows all items with a status on each row, and you can filter to one status at a time. Declined only appears when you have actually declined something, so a new board never shows an empty tab. The roadmap draws from the same items.

Statuses are defined in the code rather than in a setting, so adding one means editing several places that list them, including the labels, the colours and the board columns. It is a job for your coding agent rather than a line in config.js, and it takes a few minutes rather than an afternoon. Because those are files Docket owns, copy the change somewhere durable or expect a future update's pull request to flag it.

Every report, request, testimonial, comment and vote is a Markdown file in the data/ folder of your own repository, with a short block of fields at the top. There is no database. That means you can read everything in a text editor, search it with ordinary tools, back it up by cloning, and edit or delete anything by changing a file and committing. It also means your coding agent can already see all of it, without any integration.

Docket ships two small endpoints, one to submit and one to vote. When somebody submits, the endpoint writes a new Markdown file into your repository using a token you supply. Your host sees the commit and rebuilds the site, which usually takes under a minute. Nothing sits in a queue and nothing passes through us. If two people submit in the same second, both are kept.

On the paid editions, a scheduled job runs twice an hour, reads new bugs and feature requests, and writes a short first reply in the voice you set in config.js. It posts the reply to the board and emails it to whoever submitted, if they left an address. The reply usually lands about half an hour after the post, and it is labelled Automatic Reply on the board and in the email, so readers can tell. You can rename that label in your settings. The point is that nobody waits a day to hear something, and you still decide what actually happens to the item.

You bring your own API key and the cost lands on your own bill, not ours. A first reply reads a handful of small files and writes a short answer, which comes to well under a penny each with the default model. It is the only running cost Docket has. There is also a hard ceiling: ai.maxRepliesPerDay defaults to 50, counted against replies already posted, so an unusual day cannot produce an unusual bill.

Leave the AI key unset and no first replies are written. Nothing else changes: submissions still arrive, emails still send, the board still works, and the scheduled job ends quietly having found nothing to do. You can also lower ai.maxRepliesPerDay to throttle it rather than switching it off, or delete the workflow file entirely if you would rather it never ran.

On the paid editions there are five. A short receipt confirming a submission landed. The first reply, when it is written. Any official reply you add to an item, sent on to whoever raised it. A notice on the day an item ships, to everyone who pressed Email Me When It Ships on its page. And one to you about each new post, or a single digest instead if you turn that on. Receipts and your alerts pause for the day once more than 50 submissions have arrived, a limit you can change. All five need an email provider key; without one, replies still appear on your board and simply do not reach an inbox.

Twenty alerts in a morning is a thing people mute, and a muted alert is worse than none. Set digest.when to "daily" or "hourly" in config.js, with digest.timezone set to your real timezone and digest.hour to the hour you want it. You then get one email describing everything that happened on your board, grouped by product. Quiet days send nothing at all, so a slow week costs you no email.

The paid editions post to Slack or Discord the moment anything arrives. Create an incoming webhook in whichever you use, and add the URL as a WEBHOOK_URL secret in your repository settings. Docket works out which service it is from the URL. This is separate from email, so you can have alerts in a channel and no inbox notifications, or both.

On the paid editions, one script tag on your own site puts a small button in the corner of your product. People can report a bug, request a feature, leave a testimonial, browse your roadmap and search your answers without leaving what they were doing. It reads a small file your build produces, so its search and roadmap stay current automatically. It can also show a short line below Send, such as that posts are public, with a link to your privacy page. docs/api.md covers the attributes and the one setting it needs.

The page carrying the widget is a different site from your support centre, so the browser will not let it post until you say that page is allowed. Add its address to widget.allowedOrigins in config.js and redeploy. This is granted to that one site by name rather than to everybody, which is what stops anyone else posting to your board. It is the single most common thing to miss when adding the widget.

The paid editions include two more pieces in kit/. The callout card is a small card you paste onto any page of your own site, linking through to your board, with a few things to change inside it and no script involved. The quick menu is one link anywhere on your site that opens a short menu straight onto any section: report a bug, request a feature, the roadmap, your answers. Run npm run quick-menu and it writes a ready-to-paste copy for each of your products, showing only the sections that product has. A support centre nobody can find is a support centre nobody uses.

Add an entry to products.json for each one. There is no limit on any edition, because charging per board is charging you for shipping more. Each product gets its own sections, its own accent colour and its own addresses, and the home page lists them all. You can also give each product a different set of sections, so a small tool might show only bugs and a changelog while your flagship shows everything.

Add an entry with its id, name, accent colour and the sections you want it to show, then commit. It appears on your home page with its own board and its own addresses. There is no limit on any edition. Choose the id carefully, because it becomes part of every web address for that product and changing it later breaks any link you have already shared.

The quickest lever is each product's accent in products.json, a single colour that flows through that product's board, its emails and its widget, including a frame tint that adapts so a vivid brand colour sits as calmly as a muted one. Your logo, tab icon and the picture shown when a link is shared are set in config.js. Beyond that, the stylesheet, the page templates and the copy are ordinary files you can change. They belong to Docket, so an update replaces them, and the update pull request names any you have edited before you merge. Ask your agent for what you want in plain English.

The whole board is designed for small screens, not just shrunk to fit. On a phone every section sits in a row above the board so moving between bugs, features and the roadmap is a single tap, the roadmap columns stack rather than scrolling sideways, and the filters show which way they scroll. Since most people reach a support centre from a link in an app or an email, that is where a lot of your traffic will be.

Open the item's file in data/, add your reply under the ## Replies heading, and commit. That is the whole thing. On the paid editions, that reply is then emailed on to whoever raised the item automatically. You can also ask your coding agent to do it, which is what the support skill is for: it reads the board, drafts replies for you to approve, and posts the ones you accept.

Anyone with write access to your repository can reply, change statuses and publish changelog entries, because all of that is editing files and committing. There is no separate user system, no seats and no per-person cost, on any edition. On Studio, replies can be signed by each teammate individually rather than all appearing under one name, so customers see who they are talking to.

Every section has search, covering bugs, features, the roadmap, the changelog, testimonials and your FAQ. It runs in the browser over the content the page already carries, so there is nothing to index, nothing to pay for and nothing that can fall out of step with your data. It works on hundreds of items comfortably. The widget carries its own smaller search over your answers and roadmap.

Docket builds static pages, so all your text, headings and structured data are in the page source rather than assembled by a script afterwards. That is what search engines and AI crawlers need. Every edition builds a sitemap, an llms.txt and crawler rules. The paid editions add IndexNow, which tells Bing, Yandex and DuckDuckGo about your pages every day. In practice a well-used board becomes a genuine source of search traffic.

The free edition carries a small badge in the sidebar footer. It is an ordinary link that loads nothing and reports nothing. Pro and Studio ship with no badge at all, so there is nothing to remove and nothing of ours on a page your customers think belongs to you. This is the only cosmetic difference between the editions.

Boards are public and there is no privacy setting to turn on. A post is a commit, so it appears as soon as it is made, unless you turn on Hold for Approval in your settings. Then new reports, requests and comments wait until you approve them, by deleting one line in the item's file, and no automatic reply goes out until you do. Testimonials always wait for you. You can delete or edit anything at any time, and because it is your repository that is an ordinary change rather than a request to us. You hold the code, so putting a board behind your own gate is a change you can make and keep.

Submissions are text only. In practice the fields ask for enough detail that most reports are actionable, and people often paste a link to an image they have hosted elsewhere. If file uploads matter to you, that is a feature you can build on top rather than one you have to wait for us to ship, since you hold the code and the endpoints are yours to extend.

There are two endpoints, one to submit and one to vote, both locked to your own pages rather than open to other sites. Your own scripts and agents can submit too, by sending the key you set as SUBMIT_API_KEY. There is no read API and no MCP server, and that is on purpose rather than pending: your data is Markdown in the repository your agent already has open, so there is nothing for a server to serve. Reading your board means opening a file.

The free edition is $0 forever. Pro is $49 and Studio is $199, both one-time payments. There is no subscription, no renewal, no seat pricing and no per-board pricing. The price is the same whether ten people or ten thousand use your board, and the same as your team grows. The only ongoing cost is your own AI usage if you turn that on, which is well under a penny per reply on your own account.

You buy a copy of the source. Use it, change it, and run it on as many of your own products as you like, forever. Updates are included with no time limit and no renewal. There is no licence key, no activation and nothing that expires. The two things you may not do are sell the code on or publish the source. That is the whole of it.

That single line separates them. If you are shipping your own products, however many, Pro is the right one. If you set up, run or maintain a support centre for somebody else as part of your service, that is a client deployment and it needs Studio. Studio has no limit on how many clients, each can have their own install on their own domain, and it adds a view across all of them plus replies signed by individual teammates.

You are not stuck and you do not start again. Email support@theodorehq.com and we move your access to Studio for the difference between the two prices. There is no change fee and no time limit on doing it. Your existing install carries on exactly as it is; you simply gain the right to run them for clients, and the Studio features arrive with your next update.

There is no limit on installs, boards, products, items, or the number of people who use them. Pro covers everything you ship yourself. Studio covers that plus everything you run for clients. Contractors you engage may work on your install without needing their own copy. What the licence stops is selling the code on or publishing the source, not the number of places you run it.

If Docket isn't right for you, email support@theodorehq.com within 14 days of buying and we'll refund you in full. Your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 are unaffected. Refunds are issued by Polar, who are the seller of record for the purchase.

It is one payment. The code is already in your repository, it does not call home and there is no licence to check, so it keeps running whatever happens next, including whatever happens to us. There is no expiry, no degraded mode and no feature that switches off. The honest reason there is no licence check is that there is nothing for one to enforce.

On the paid editions a job checks once a day and, when there is a new version, opens a pull request against your repository written in plain English about what changed. Nothing on your site changes until you click Merge. Updates are included for as long as Docket exists, with no renewal. The update check needs one GitHub token to download new versions, which the setup guide walks you through. The free edition has no updater, so you take new versions by hand when you want them.

config.js, products.json, data/ and assets/ are yours and no update touches them. Files that belong to Docket are replaced, and if you have edited one the pull request names it and says plainly that your changes to that file will be lost, before you merge. If you want Docket itself to behave differently, the durable route is to say so on our support board, because the change then belongs to everyone and survives every update.

The site is yours, the code is yours and it builds from your own repository, so it keeps running whether or not we do. There is no service to shut down, no server of ours in the path and no licence to expire. The daily update check would simply find nothing and carry on quietly. You would keep every feature you have on the day it happened, indefinitely.

Your domain, your company name and your colour. The paid editions carry no badge, no attribution and no link to us anywhere on the page. Replies are signed with your company name, or whatever you set as your official author name. The free edition carries one small "Powered by Docket" link in the sidebar footer, and nothing else.

This is the first thing to try for almost any problem. It walks your whole setup and reports in plain English what is present and what is not, naming each missing key or setting and what turns on when you add it. It separates things that must be fixed before customers see the board from optional extras you can leave. If it says everything is set up, the problem is somewhere else and worth emailing us about.

A successful build is not always a deploy. Open your host's dashboard and compare the newest deployment's time against your last push. If the deployment is older, nothing was triggered, which usually means the project was created from the command line and has no git connection. Reconnect the project to the repository in your host's settings and push again. Until that is linked, pushing publishes nothing.

It tells you exactly what is wrong with a data file in plain English, naming the file and the problem rather than showing a stack trace. The usual causes are a missing field in the block at the top of the file, or a date in the wrong format. npm run build deliberately refuses to publish a malformed file rather than shipping a broken page, so a failed build has protected your live site rather than broken it.

Submissions are written to your repository with the token you supplied, so the usual cause is that the token has expired. Fine-grained GitHub tokens have an expiry date, and when it passes, submissions stop being saved. Check the commits in your repository: if the file is there but the page is not, the site simply has not rebuilt yet, which takes about a minute. If there is no commit, regenerate the token and update it in your host's settings.

Docket builds static pages, which is what makes it fast, free to serve and readable by search engines. The cost of that is a short delay between a submission being written and the page showing it, usually well under a minute. The person submitting sees a confirmation immediately and gets their receipt email straight away, so the delay is invisible to them.

Three things cause almost all of it. The provider key needs to be in your repository's Actions secrets, not only in your host's settings, because the jobs that send email run in GitHub rather than on your site. EMAIL_ENCRYPTION_KEY must be set or addresses cannot be read back to send to. And your sending domain needs verifying with your provider, with SPF and DKIM records added, or mail is accepted and then quietly discarded. npm run check names whichever is missing.

Mailgun runs separate European and United States infrastructure, and sending to the wrong one fails with an error that reads exactly like a bad key. If your Mailgun account is European, set MAILGUN_REGION to eu. Mailgun also needs MAILGUN_DOMAIN alongside its key, because its endpoint is per sending domain and there is nothing sensible to guess. Those two together resolve nearly every Mailgun setup.

The job that writes replies runs on GitHub Actions, not on your website, so its key belongs in your repository under Settings, Secrets and variables, Actions. A key in your host's environment variables will not reach it. Check the key matches the provider named in ai.provider, and check ai.maxRepliesPerDay has not already been reached for the day. Open the Actions tab to see whether the job ran and what it reported.

Scheduled runs are queued rather than guaranteed, and under load GitHub delays them, sometimes by several minutes. On a repository with no activity for sixty days it stops running them until you push again. Every job also has a "Run workflow" button in the Actions tab, so you never have to wait for a schedule to test something. GitHub's clock is UTC and does not follow daylight saving, which is worth remembering if a job looks an hour out for half the year.

Add the subdomain in your host's dashboard first, then create the record it asks for at your domain registrar. All four hosts we document issue the HTTPS certificate automatically once the record resolves to them, which can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. A certificate warning almost always means the record is not yet pointing where the host expects, rather than a problem with the certificate.

Every submission, reply and change is a commit, so nothing is ever really gone. Open the file's history on GitHub and you can see every version and restore the one you want, or ask your coding agent to recover it. This is one of the quiet advantages of storing everything as files: an accidental deletion is an ordinary thing to undo rather than a support request to somebody else.

Cloning your repository gives you every submission, every reply, your settings and your entire history in one folder. There is no database to dump and no export format to worry about, because the files you would export are the files it already runs on. GitHub is holding a copy already, so a clone on your own machine or a scheduled mirror is belt and braces rather than the only line of defence.

Anything a visitor triggers, such as a submission or a vote, is in your host's function logs. Anything scheduled, such as first replies, the digest or the update check, is in the Actions tab of your GitHub repository, with a full log per run. Between those two you can see every step. The scheduled jobs also report clearly when they have nothing to do rather than failing, so a green run with no output is usually correct.

The pull request lists any file Docket owns that you have edited, and says plainly that merging replaces your version. Nothing changes until you merge, so you can close it, reapply your change afterwards, or keep your version and skip that update. For a change you want permanently, the durable pattern is to copy the file to a new name and use your copy, since a file you create is never touched by an update.

Docket is a static site plus two endpoints, and adapters for Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare and Deno Deploy all ship in the box. Moving means connecting the new host to the same repository, copying your environment variables across, and repointing your domain. Your repository, your content and your addresses are untouched. docs/hosting.md covers what each host needs.

Email us at support@theodorehq.com and we answer within one working day. Docket has its own support centre where you can file a bug or request a feature publicly, which is often faster because other people can see it and vote. Whatever route you use, send the output of npm run check, your hosting provider, and the log from the failing run if there is one. That is usually enough to answer without a second exchange.

Every submission is a file in your GitHub repository, on your hosting, under your control. It never reaches us, because there is no path for it to travel: Docket has no server of ours in it and no account with us. Who can read it is whoever you have given access to that repository, and nobody else. If you make the repository private, only your collaborators can see the raw files, while the published board shows what you choose to publish.

The form asks for what they are reporting, their name as they wish to give it, and optionally an email address. Nothing else is taken: no account, no device fingerprint, no tracking identifier and no hidden fields beyond the one that catches bots. The email address is used for one purpose, telling that person what happened to their item, and nothing else. Leaving it blank works fine and they can still post and vote.

Addresses are encrypted with a key only you hold, before anything is written to your repository, and none of them appear on any page. This matters because a git repository's history is permanent, so a readable address written into it could never truly be deleted. Encrypted, honouring a deletion request is an ordinary edit. Keep EMAIL_ENCRYPTION_KEY somewhere safe: losing it makes every stored address permanently unreadable.

GitHub stores your repository. Your hosting provider serves the site. Beyond that, everything is optional and yours: an AI provider if you want first replies written, an email provider if you want mail sent, Slack or Discord if you want alerts. Each is your own account with your own agreement with them, and none of them is required for the board itself to work. We are not in that list, because nothing routes through us.

When a first reply is written, the item's title and description are sent to whichever provider you configured, along with your voice settings, so it can write a relevant answer. No email addresses are included. Whether that text is used for training is governed by your own agreement with that provider, not by us, and the major providers do not train on API traffic by default. If you would rather send nothing at all, leave the AI key unset.

A Docket board sets no cookies, loads no third-party scripts and carries no analytics or advertising of any kind out of the box. There is nothing to put a cookie banner on, because there is nothing to consent to. If you want analytics you can add your own by setting analytics.scriptUrl and analytics.websiteId in config.js, in which case the choice of provider and the consent obligations that come with it are yours.

The free edition makes no request to us for any reason, ever, because it has no updater in it. The paid editions ask once a day whether a newer version exists. That request carries no licence key, no repository name, no domain, no account and no unique identifier, so there is nothing in it that distinguishes your install from anybody else's. It runs inside GitHub rather than on your server. Delete the update workflow and even that stops.

Because your customers' data lives in your repository and never reaches us, you are the data controller for it and we are not a processor of it. That is unusually simple compared with a hosted tool, where you would need a processing agreement. What you do need is a privacy notice on your own board explaining what you collect and why. Docket ships no legal templates, and LEGAL-CHECKLIST.md sets out what running a public board commits you to.

Find their item in data/, delete the file or remove the personal parts, and commit. The board rebuilds without it. Because addresses are encrypted rather than stored in the clear, an address in your git history is not readable to anyone without your key, so a normal deletion genuinely resolves the request rather than leaving a copy behind in history. You can do this yourself in a minute, without asking anyone.

Keys live in your host's environment variables and in your repository's Actions secrets, never in a file in the repository. .env is already ignored by git so a local copy cannot be committed by accident. For the token your site uses, choose a fine-grained GitHub token scoped to the one repository with Contents read and write and nothing else. The update check needs a classic token with the repo scope, because GitHub does not let a fine-grained token read another organisation's repository you were invited to, and that is where new versions come from. Keep it only as a secret in your own repository. Set an expiry on both and put a reminder in your calendar. If a key is ever exposed, revoke it at the provider and issue a new one.

A hidden field catches bots that fill in every field they find. An origin check turns away other websites. Your forms run an automatic check before they send, which a script firing at your form has not done, so it is turned away and nobody is emailed. And there is a rate limit per visitor: five submissions and twenty votes per ten minutes. On top of that, emails stop for the day after 50 submissions, a limit you can change, and AI replies are capped per day, so even an unusual night cannot produce an unusual bill. Anything that does get through is a file you delete and commit.

Yes, a free one. Loop walks you through it in a few minutes.

Free up to 10 GB a month, then about $0.015 per GB, paid to Cloudflare. Cloudflare may ask for a card.

macOS 14 or later. Recording needs macOS 15.

Loop stores every file and link in your own free Cloudflare account, so it shows Not Set Up until that account is connected. Choose Set Up Loop in the menu bar panel, or in Settings under Account, and Loop walks you through signing in and turning on storage. It only takes a few minutes. If a teammate invited you, choose Join a Team instead and open the invite link they sent you.

A simple electronic signature. They type their name, and you get a signed copy with a record.

Press the + beside Templates in the sidebar, or choose File, then New Template, and pick a PDF, Word, Pages, PowerPoint or Keynote file. Loop opens it so you can place your fields and signatures on the pages. Press Done and the template is saved. Press Cancel and nothing is saved, so you can open the editor and look around freely.

Open the template and press Use Template. Fill in the fields, then add the name and email of each recipient. The document fills in beside you as you type. Press Create Link and Loop makes the link and copies it, ready to paste into your own email or message. Loop does not send anything itself, so you stay in control of how it reaches them.

Fields are the blanks you fill in each time you use a template, such as a client name or company. Client Name, Company and Date are suggestions to start from. A field only exists once you place it on the page, so place the ones you need and add your own with New Field. Date fields start as today's date. Each field prints onto the document exactly where you placed it.

A Recipient is a signatory you add each time you send a copy, by typing their name and email in Use Template. A Fixed Signatory is the same person on every copy, for example you or your business partner, so you enter their name and email once on the template. Copies ask for signatures whenever anyone is listed, and each signatory signs in the order shown.

Open the template and find Signatories. Press the ... beside a signatory to move them earlier or later in the order, change them between Recipient and Fixed Signatory, or remove them. Add Signatory adds another. If you remove everyone, copies stop asking for signatures, and adding a signatory turns signing back on. Each signatory sees the signatures before theirs.

Loop does not send email. Create Link makes the link and copies it, so you can paste it into your own email, message or chat. This keeps you in charge of the wording and the timing, and your files stay in your own Cloudflare account throughout. Reminders and team invites work the same way: Loop opens a ready-to-send email in your mail app for you to review and send.

Open Settings, choose Notifications, and set Reminders under Signing to After 1 Day, After 3 Days or After 7 Days. When a signatory has not signed that long into their turn, Loop shows a Not Signed Yet notification once. Click it and a ready email opens in your mail app, addressed to them with the link, so a nudge takes one click.

You can make a template from a PDF, or from a Word, Pages, PowerPoint, Keynote, RTF or ODT file. Anything that is not already a PDF is turned into pages first, so you can place fields and signatures on it the same way. Each copy you create is a PDF with your typed words printed on it.

Open the template and look at Sent. Your 12 most recent copies are listed by recipient, showing whether each is Signed, Opened or Not Opened. Click any one to see its full activity, including who opened it, how far they read and when they signed. Copies are ordinary links, so everything you can do with a link works on them too.

When Feedback is on for a link, readers can leave notes and emoji, and on PDFs and pictures they can also draw on the pages. Word and similar files become pages, so they can be drawn on too. Drawings are seen by everyone with the link, and your activity shows who drew on which page. Turn Feedback on or off for each link, or set the default in Settings under Defaults.

Open the link, choose Settings, and press Replace under File. Everyone with the link then sees the new file at the same address. Loop keeps every earlier version, along with how many people read each one, so you always know who saw what. The File menu has Replace File too.

Open the link and find the Versions card. It lists every version of the file with its size, the date and how many people read it. Press Restore on an earlier one to make it current again. The version it replaces is kept, so you can switch back at any time. All versions are stored in your own Cloudflare account.

Open the link, choose Settings, and look for Chat Preview. You can set a title, a description and a picture, best at 1200 by 630 pixels. To set a default picture for all your links, use Customise. Your own pictures appear to readers once you have bought Loop, and during the trial links show Loop's own preview card.

Open Settings, choose Account, and press Set Up under Custom Domain. Type an address such as files.yourcompany.com and Loop shows the one record to add where you manage your domain, with a button that opens your provider's page. A whole domain works too, through a nameserver change. Once it is live, new links use your address.

Open Settings, choose Account, and press Invite under Invite Teammate. Loop opens a ready email in your mail app with their invite link, which works for seven days. Teammates share from their own Mac and never pay. Invites need a Team licence or the free trial. A team can hold 5 or 10 people, including you, depending on your licence.

14 days, with everything included.

Yes. They live in your own account.

Pro is for one person and costs $49. Team is for a group sharing from their own Macs: $199 for up to 5 people or $349 for up to 10, you included. All three are a single payment and each key works on up to 3 Macs. Teammates never pay, and they share the same templates and brand. During your trial you can compare them in Settings under Licence.

Open the Help menu in Loop and choose Report a Bug, Request a Feature or Roadmap. The same links are in Settings under Support. Each opens our Support Centre, where you can describe what happened, vote on ideas, and see what is planned. We read everything, and you can also email support@theodorehq.com.