Question 1

What is Muse?

Accepted Answer

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 if you switch on sync it travels to your iPhone and other Macs through your own iCloud. 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.

Question 2

What do I need to run Muse?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 3

Is there a step-by-step guide to using Muse?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 4

How do I install Muse and open it the first time?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 5

Where is the Muse Guide in the app?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 6

Is there a free trial, and do I need a card?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 7

Do I need an account or a login?

Accepted Answer

No. Muse has no account and no sign-in. You download the app and start using it, and your library lives 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. If you use Muse for iPhone, your library travels through your own iCloud, never a server of ours.

Question 8

How do I save my first thing into Muse?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 9

What are all the ways to collect things into Muse?

Accepted Answer

Muse gives you several ways to collect. Start dragging anything on your Mac, hold Control, and the Drop Ring opens 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 your library 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 keyboard shortcuts can be changed in Settings.

Question 10

How do I start over with an empty library?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 11

How do I capture or search from any other app?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 12

What is the Capture Card?

Accepted Answer

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). Press Add Note at the foot of the card, or Cmd-N, to open a Note row and write a note before you save (version 1.0.51 or later): Tab reaches it after Tags, Shift-Return starts a new line, and the note is saved with the item, added beneath any note it already has. If you do nothing, it waits patiently and never times out; it closes only when you answer, with Cmd-Return to save, or Escape or a click outside the card to throw the save away. 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 skip it; saves then go where Destination, just above it, says: your Inbox, Ask Each Time, or File Automatically.

Question 13

Can I hide Muse from the Dock?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Turn off Show in Dock in Settings > General, and Muse leaves both the Dock and the app switcher while it keeps running in the background. Open the Launcher with Cmd-Shift-K (the default shortcut) to search your library, import files, and open Muse's window (choose Go to All) or Settings, or open Muse from Spotlight. With the Dock icon off, the menus at the top of the screen go too, so press Cmd-Q in the Muse window to quit. (Version 1.0.48 or later.)

Question 14

How does the web clipper work, and which browsers does it support?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 15

Can I undo a change in Muse?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Press Cmd-Z to undo everyday changes to your library, such as moving, tagging, renaming, trashing or restoring items, editing notes, favouriting or hiding, and changes to collections. Press Shift-Cmd-Z to redo. Emptying the Trash can't be undone, and it clears the undo history. (Version 1.0.48 or later.)

Question 16

How do I take a screenshot straight into Muse?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 17

How do I find duplicates in my library?

Accepted Answer

Choose File > Find Duplicates. Muse looks for files that are exactly the same, byte for byte, and lists each set. Press Merge on a set, or Merge All, and Muse keeps one copy, adds the others' tags and notes to it, and moves the rest to the Trash. It keeps the one filed in a collection (the Inbox doesn't count) first, then a favourite, then the oldest. Links and items hidden from All are left out. Cmd-Z undoes a merge. (Version 1.0.48 or later.)

Question 18

What is the Drop Ring?

Accepted Answer

What is the Drop Ring?Hold Control while dragging and a ring of your collections opens around the cursor.

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.

Question 19

Can Muse watch a folder for new files?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In Settings > Collect + Find > Watched Folders, press + and choose a folder. New files that land there from then on are copied into your Inbox once they have finished arriving, and the originals stay where they are. Files that were already in the folder when you chose it are left alone, and so are files Muse already has. Muse watches the top level of each folder, not the folders inside it, and leaves files over 2 GB for you to add yourself. It reads only the folders you choose. (Version 1.0.48 or later.)

Question 20

What is the shelf, and how do I turn it on?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 21

How do collections work?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 22

Can I choose the picture a collection shows?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 23

How do I change a collection's icon, colour or name?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 24

How does tagging work?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 25

How do I select several things at once?

Accepted Answer

How do I select several things at once?Drag a box, or Cmd-click and Shift-click.

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.

Question 26

How do I open several links at once?

Accepted Answer

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).

Question 27

How do I search my library?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 28

Can I copy things out of Muse and paste things in?

Accepted Answer

Can I copy things out of Muse and paste things in?Cmd C and Cmd V, the same as anywhere else on your Mac.

Yes, both ways. Select a picture and press Cmd C, then paste it straight into Messages, Figma, a document, anywhere that takes an image. Muse puts the picture file itself on the clipboard, so a PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF or PDF pastes exactly as you saved it, and even a very large picture copies straight away (version 1.0.51 or later). Other formats, such as HEIC and WebP, paste as TIFF. 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.

Question 29

Can Muse find text inside my screenshots, images and documents?

Accepted Answer

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 inside a saved PDF too, on every page of a normal PDF (version 1.0.51 or later), and the words on the first page of other documents such as Word and Pages files, 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.

Question 30

Can I search my library by colour?

Accepted Answer

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, gold 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.

Question 31

Can I save an email in Muse?

Accepted Answer

Can I save an email in Muse?Drag it in from Mail. No converting to PDF first.

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.

Question 32

Can I search by meaning, or describe what I remember?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 33

Does Muse read the words inside my PDFs and documents?

Accepted Answer

Does Muse read the words inside my PDFs and documents?Yes, every page of a PDF, and it all stays on your Mac.

Yes. From version 1.0.51 Muse reads the words on every page of a normal PDF and folds them into search, so you can find a contract by a clause on page 12, or an invoice by an amount printed on it, without ever having written those things down. Search with Cmd-K, the search field or an AI app. Items matching by title, tags, note or first page come first, then PDFs where the word appears only deeper inside.

After you update, Muse reads the PDFs already in your library quietly in the background, one at a time, so a large library fills in gradually. PDFs you save from then on are read soon after they arrive.

Muse also tags a document from its first page, so a saved invoice arrives carrying words like "invoice". Word and Pages documents, spreadsheets, presentations and plain text are read from their first page. A file Muse cannot read a page of, such as an archive or a disk image, is tagged from its filename instead.

A few limits: a scanned PDF is a picture of each page with no words inside it, so only its first page is searchable; a PDF that needs a password to open cannot be read; and a very long or unusual PDF may be read only in part, or skipped if it takes too long. The words from pages after the first stay in your library on this Mac and are not synced. The first page's words are kept like the text in your pictures, so they travel with your library if you switch on iCloud sync. Nothing is sent to us.

Question 34

Can Muse find images similar to one I have?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 35

Can I read a PDF inside Muse?

Accepted Answer

Can I read a PDF inside Muse?Yes. A PDF opens as a scrolling, zoomable document.

Yes, on the Mac, from version 1.0.51. Click a PDF, or select it and press Space, and the large view opens it as a scrolling document of its pages, fitted to the width. Pinch, or press Cmd-Plus, Cmd-Minus and Cmd-0, to zoom in, zoom out and fit the width again.

Press Cmd-F and a Find in Document box appears at the top. Return jumps to the next match, Shift-Return to the one before, and Escape closes the box. Up, Down, Page Up and Page Down scroll the pages, while Left and Right still move to the next item. You can select text and copy it, and links inside the PDF work.

If a PDF needs a password, is damaged, or is too large or slow to open, Muse shows its first page instead and says so in a short message. Searching inside PDFs reads every page of a normal PDF; see "Does Muse read the words inside my PDFs and documents?".

Question 36

Can Muse describe an image or write an AI prompt for it?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 37

How does Muse handle links and bookmarks?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 38

Can I import from Pocket, Eagle, Raindrop, Pinterest, mymind or my browser?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Muse imports from a Pocket export (the rilexport.html file), an Eagle library folder, a Raindrop.io CSV export (it also reads generic CSVs), a Pinterest account export, a mymind export (version 1.0.51 or later), 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. A mymind export arrives as one collection called mymind, with your tags and dates kept; see "How do I bring my mymind library into Muse?" for the steps. 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, for everything except mymind, on the welcome screens when you first set Muse up. For mymind, use File > Import mymind Export or Settings. 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.

Question 39

Can I bring in my X bookmarks or Instagram saved posts?

Accepted Answer

Can I bring in my X bookmarks or Instagram saved posts?Yes, both, through the browser extension.

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.

Question 40

How do I bring my Pinterest boards into Muse?

Accepted Answer

How do I bring my Pinterest boards into Muse?Request your data from Pinterest, then choose the export in Settings.

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.

Question 41

Can I save a post from X in one click?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 42

Can Save Page to Muse leave the tab open?

Accepted Answer

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).

Question 43

What is the Canvas?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 44

Can Muse save my Instagram saved posts?

Accepted Answer

Can Muse save my Instagram saved posts?Yes, as you scroll your own Saved page.

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.

Question 45

How do I look at an item up close?

Accepted Answer

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). A PDF opens as a scrolling, zoomable document you can search with Cmd-F (version 1.0.51 or later); see "Can I read a PDF inside Muse?". 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.

Question 46

How does Muse handle video?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 47

How do I mark my best finds?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 48

Where does Muse keep my files?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 49

How do I bring my mymind library into Muse?

Accepted Answer

How do I bring my mymind library into Muse?File > Import mymind Export, then pick the exported folder.

Export your library from mymind first. You get a folder with your files and a file called cards.csv. In Muse (version 1.0.51 or later) choose File > Import mymind Export, or open Settings > Library > Import & Export, choose Import From, then mymind Export. Pick that folder; the cards.csv inside it works too.

Everything arrives in one new collection called mymind, with your tags and your original save dates. Links come in as links, notes and quotes as notes, and images, videos and PDFs as files. A progress message shows at the bottom while it works, and you can keep using Muse.

It is safe to run twice: cards already in Muse are skipped, so nothing doubles up and your later changes stay. If you already have a collection called mymind, the import goes into a new one named mymind with the date.

Muse does not bring Spaces across, so everything lands in the one collection. If a card names a file the export does not include, such as a screenshot, Muse tells you how many were missing.

Question 50

How do I back up my library?

Accepted Answer

How do I back up my library?Point Muse at a folder and it snapshots on a schedule.

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.

Question 51

Can I get my whole library back out of Muse?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 52

Can I sync my library between my Macs?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Switch on Sync With iCloud in Settings > Sync on each Mac, signed in to the same iCloud account, and they share one library, along with your iPhone. If a Mac with its own library switches this on while your iCloud already holds one, Muse tells you first, backs it up (asking you to choose a backup folder if you have not set one) and combines the two. An identical file or link in both appears once, and collections with the same name in the same place merge. It all travels through your own iCloud, never a server of ours, and one licence still covers up to three Macs.

Question 53

What happens if I save the same thing twice?

Accepted Answer

What happens if I save the same thing twice?Files merge; web pages are saved and flagged.

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: if you filed the new save into a collection, the existing item moves there (an item lives in one collection at a time), and it takes the new save's source address only if it had none. 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 turns the collection chip rose and reads "Already Saved" followed by the name of the collection you have chosen for this save, 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).

When an AI app or script saves a file, picture, link or piece of text Muse already has, it normally gets the existing item back instead of a copy. If it named a collection and the item is still in the Inbox or not filed, Muse files it there. An item already in a collection stays where you put it, and the AI app is told so (version 1.0.51 or later). The exception is when the AI app asks for a second copy of a link or note on purpose, which it gets.

Question 54

How do I delete something, and can I get it back?

Accepted Answer

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. With Sync With iCloud on, emptying the Trash also removes those items' full-size pictures from your iCloud, so the space comes back (version 1.0.48 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.

Question 55

Can I change how my library is shown?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 56

How much does Muse cost?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 57

How do I buy Muse and activate my licence?

Accepted Answer

How do I buy Muse and activate my licence?Buy through the checkout, then paste your key.

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.

Question 58

On how many Macs can I use one licence?

Accepted Answer

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. Muse for iPhone is free and needs no licence, so your phone never counts towards the three. Switch on Sync With iCloud on each Mac, signed in to the same iCloud account, and they share one library through your iCloud.

Question 59

How do I move my licence to a new Mac?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 60

Can I get a refund?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 61

I have lost my licence key. What do I do?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 62

Do AI apps and scripts work during the free trial?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 63

The web clipper is not saving. What should I check?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 64

My X bookmarks or Instagram saves are not arriving.

Accepted Answer

My X bookmarks or Instagram saves are not arriving.Both switches on, and open the page itself.

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.