PLACE

Your research, where you left it

Remember
where you
saw it.

The Mac app that remembers your research: every quote with its source, every video to the second. Ask, and it takes you straight back.

Version 1.0.09.3 MBmacOS 14 or laterApple silicon

First launch needs one extra click.

The PLACE window. A sidebar lists Places, Ask Place, Activity, Saved, Notes and Evidence; the main area shows four places as cards: Visual Design, Pricing Study, University and Unplaced, each with how many memories it holds.
The PLACE save map over a web page: the selected quote in the middle, with Links, Notes and Evidence around it.
Places, the start screen of PLACE, and the map that appears when you save a selection. Both shown with sample data.
  • One shortcut, kept for good
  • It remembers, so you don't have to
  • Ask like you'd ask a friend
  • Private by design

How it works

Three moves.

  1. A highlighted sentence on a page, and a small map offering Links, Notes and Evidence.

    1Capture

    Select text anywhere, press ⌃⌥⌘S. Saved, with its source.

  2. Four place cards; one is selected and opens into its saved items.

    2Find it by project

    PLACE files it under the right project by itself.

  3. A saved quote with an Open Source button, leading back to the page with the sentence highlighted.

    3Reopen the original

    One click, and you are back at that sentence or that second.

A closer look

See it in three screens.

Places in PLACE: four cards, Visual Design, Pricing Study, University and Unplaced, each with a contour background and its number of memories.

Every project gets its own place.

Download for macOS

Features

Built for people who actually check the source.

A web page with a highlighted sentence about pricing. Over it, the PLACE map shows the quote in the middle with three choices: Links on the left, Notes above and Evidence on the right, which is selected.

Research with its source

Save a selection with its source.

Select text in any app, press ⌃⌥⌘S, done.

Activity in PLACE. A remembered YouTube video, Building a Mac menu bar app, part 3, with an Open at 00:15 button, the transcript line at that moment, and a strip showing it was watched from 00:15 to 01:05 and from 04:20 to 04:47.

Video moments, to the second

Videos and articles, to the second.

No more scrubbing through a 40-minute video for one sentence.

Ask PLACE answering why Escape leaves keyboard focus in the wrong window. Three numbered sentences, each above a quoted passage from a video or article, with Open at 02:55 and Open at 02:43 buttons, and a note that one sentence was left out.

Answers that show their sources

Answers that show their sources.

Type what you half-remember. Every sentence of the answer sits on the passage that backs it up.

Sources and Privacy, AI connections tab. A switch, Let AI assistants read my PLACE, is off. Below it, Claude Desktop is expanded with four numbered steps and Reconnect, Copy Settings and Save Skill buttons; Claude Code, Codex, Gemini and ChatGPT are listed underneath.

Evidence for your AI assistants

Hand your evidence to AI assistants.

Stop re-explaining your research. Claude, Codex and Gemini can read what you choose to share.

Why PLACE

Not another bookmark folder.

  • Bookmarks remember the page.

    PLACE remembers the sentence.

  • Notes apps lose the source.

    PLACE can't.

  • Chatbots guess.

    PLACE shows its work.

Apple Intelligence inside

Smart, without the bill.

Everyday AI runs on Apple Intelligence, right on your Mac. It costs you nothing and uploads nothing. No PLACE subscription.

  • No extra AI fees
  • Private
  • Quick
  • Your choice

Apple Intelligence needs macOS 26 on a supported Mac.

Privacy

Your research stays yours.

It lives on your Mac

No account, no sync, no servers of ours.

You decide what AI sees

Nothing goes to a cloud AI until you allow it.

Pause or delete, any time

One click pauses Memory. Delete anything, whenever you like.

Full privacy details

Install

Up and running in two minutes.

One extra click the first time, because this hackathon build isn't notarized by Apple yet.

  1. Drag PLACE to Applications

    Open the download and drag PLACE onto Applications.

  2. Click Done

    macOS says it can't check PLACE. Click Done.

  3. Open Anyway

    Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. Once.

Full install guide

FAQ

Good questions.

How it works

Saving a selection

Select text in any app and press ⌃⌥⌘S. A small map appears: ← saves it to Links, ↑ to Notes, → to Evidence, and Return confirms. In supported browsers PLACE keeps the page address, so Open Source at Quote takes you back to the highlighted sentence.

Places

A place gathers the saved items that mention one of its keywords, plus related memories. Give it one current task and PLACE may suggest one timely next step from your own research, with its sources. Saved items that match no place are under Unplaced.

Memory and Activity

Memory is off until you turn it on. With the Chrome companion it keeps the parts of YouTube videos you played and the articles on sites you approve; with screen memory, the text of the window in front about every 10 seconds. Activity lists all of it by day.

Ask and cited answers

Typing in Ask searches your memory and saved quotes on this Mac, without AI. Press Return to ask your AI provider: it gets your question and the best passages and writes up to four sentences. PLACE keeps a sentence only if it matches the passage it cites, and every time and link comes from PLACE's own record.

Catch Me Up

Catch Me Up reviews the mail and chat windows screen memory saw in the last 24 hours and lists what still needs you. With Apple Intelligence it runs on this Mac; otherwise PLACE asks before sending that text to your AI provider.

Visual mode

Press ⌃⌥⌘V in any app. PLACE keeps one picture per second of the window in front while a countdown runs in the menu bar; press it again to stop early. It is the only time PLACE keeps pictures, and only because you started it.

AI connections

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI can read what you choose to share, read-only, through a connector that runs on this Mac. ChatGPT and Grok can't reach apps on your Mac, so you paste a brief into them instead. Every read is listed in AI connections.

Privacy

What is stored, and where?

Everything is in ~/Library/Application Support/PLACE on this Mac. Saved items are in board.json. Memory (videos, articles and screen text) is in Memory.sqlite. Visual mode pictures are in the Visual folder. What assistants may see, and the list of their reads, are in assistant-access.json and assistant-access-log.jsonl. API keys are in your macOS Keychain. Nothing is synced.

What leaves this Mac, and when?

Only three things. Text sent to a cloud AI provider: a quote you explain, after you press Send; Ask, suggestions and summaries, after you allow your provider. What an assistant reads through AI connections, which then goes to that assistant's provider. And video thumbnails, which are loaded from YouTube. With Apple Intelligence, AI runs on this Mac and sends nothing.

How do I pause Memory?

Click Recording at the bottom of the sidebar; it changes to Paused and nothing new is remembered until you click it again. Pause Memory is also in the PLACE menu in the menu bar. Saving with ⌃⌥⌘S still works while Memory is paused.

How do I delete what PLACE has kept?

In Sources & Privacy → Privacy & data: Clear Screen Memory, Delete All Visual Sessions, or Clear All Memory. To remove one video, article, screen capture or visual session, open it in Activity and delete it there. Saved items are separate: delete one from its inspector, or all of them in Settings → Privacy & Data. Memory older than your setting (7, 30 or 90 days) is deleted automatically.

What does screen memory skip?

Password managers (1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, Dashlane), Keychain Access, Passwords, PLACE itself, the login window and the screen saver; private windows in Chrome-family browsers; and any time the screen is locked or you've been away for 5 minutes. It keeps only the text: the picture is thrown away right after reading.

Your next research session starts where the last one ended.

Free. No account.

Download for macOSRead the install guide