Clipbeam: A fully private AI knowledge management system
Clipbeam The problem my app solves: Information is scattered across different apps, files, web pages, etc. People on average spend 2 hours a week searching for information they know they have saved somewhere, but have to scroll through / search across different apps to retrieve it. Clipbeam is a central repository that can capture information across notes, files, web pages, YouTube videos, screenshots, voice notes and more. It is powered by a local AI agent that automatically organizes all this information and offers semantic search and an AI assistant that can answer detailed questions about any information captured across all media. Consider it a truly personal AI assistant, that you train on whatever data you want it to base its answers on. My app is better than apps like Notion or Google Keep because it was built from the ground up to be fully private. The AI model and chat assistant runs entirely on your device and even works when you don't have an internet connection. It is fully media agnostic, so doesn't just understand 'notes', but also images, web links, videos and voice memos. It combines the functionality of an AI chat app with the functionality of a full-fledged knowledge library, with items automatically categorized by topics and media type. There is a universal keyboard shortcut Command ⌘ + C + B that captures anything you select across macOS. Other features include: Voice recognition and voice chat: You can dictate notes, clip voice notes and use voice chat with the AI assistant. Sync folders: Clipbeam can automatically watch a folder on your hard drive. If you watch your Obsidian vault or a folder in your iCloud Drive, whatever is synced to this folder is automatically added to your knowledge vault. Sync bookmarks: Clipbeam can watch your Safari bookmarks, so anything you bookmark on either your phone or Mac is automatically added to your knowledge library. Clipbeam Pricing: Free on a single device Backup your vault and sync items across devices for: $49.99 lifetime license OR $2.99 per month / $29.99 per year. AI Disclaimer: This post was entirely written by the developer. No AI was used to generate or edit this post. This app was not vibe-coded. Clipbeam is offered by RDC Media Ltd, a company based in the United Kingdom. See privacy policy and terms. LinkedIn Discord Download Clipbeam
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Interesting, do you have a demo somewhere? I'd like to see some practical uses for this
On the website I recorded a demo video showcasing an alpha version of the app and how it can benefit workflows. The idea is that as you go about your normal day, you simply add content to it as you would copy paste things across macOS. Then, when the time comes to retrieve information, you either search for it by roughly describing what you're looking for or by asking the AI assistant to give you whatever detail you need. You can download and test the app without needing to make a purchase!
Neat. So one device is completely free, no paywalls right? And the lifetime is $50 for unlimited devices ?
Indeed! Free download, unlimited use, then when you feel it really adds value to you, you enable 'Backup & Sync', which is when you'll be asked to make a payment.
This looks like a thoughtful take on knowledge management since I can just copy/paste. I’m curious what “fully private” means in practice: is everything indexed and inferred locally, or is there any cloud component?
Fully indexed and inferred locally. The only time the app connects to the internet is if you clip a web URL, it then downloads the page to index the information on it. If you enable backup and sync, it uses your personal Google Drive to store your vault. Your vault is end-to-end encrypted by a password you choose when you turn this on, so Google would not be able to read or index the data. All other features run fully on-device.
Hi, can I use Nextcloud (WebDav) for sync with Clipbeam or do you plan to add WebDav support?
I've currently only built Google Drive sync but am happy to add additional sync providers where there is demand! I had not considered WebDav, but that might be an interesting approach to instantly support more than one provider. I'll look into it, I normally update the app with new features every month or so!
Thank you! I'd suggest to make a roadmap including hints for paid features and prices because at the moment it's hard to decide if a lifetime license is worth it or not.
Can it cite where it got the information, either with a link or (ideally) with a direct quote plus a link? That's what I need for AI search to actually be useful. If I have to manually search to check everything I might as well just do a regular search in the first place.
The assistant should quote every clip it references when it answers your questions! You can also challenge it and push it to provide more details on its sources when chatting.
Could you share the which model do you use to run it locally? Is it Apple's foundation model or some other open weight one?
It's Qwen 3.5 4b
Wow that seems awesome !! I will definitely give it a try. One question though, you said we could ask it to watch or Obsidian folder (or any folders) but is there some risks of deleted files or anything ?
So when you watch a folder: Clipbeam automatically creates clips from whatever is in that folder. If something is deleted from that folder outside of Clipbeam, it's matching clip is automatically deleted. If you delete the clip inside Clipbeam, a warning modal is popped up letting you know that the clip is from a tracked folder and if you were to delete it, the matching file would be deleted, as per this screenshot:
This is really interesting, I just started using it and need help with a few things. Can i disable the sound it makes when i do command+c+b? Can i remap the hotkeys so its not command+c+b.
Thanks so much for that feedback! I did not build a control for the sound, but what you can do if you really don't like it, what you can do is right click the clipbeam app, click 'Show package contents', then go into 'Contents', 'Resources', 'sounds' and then delete 'notify.wav'. That will delete the sound altogether, so Clipbeam won't play it anymore. At this stage it is not possible to change the shortcut key I'm afraid. If you join my discord at https://discord.gg/8PwyprHh, I'm currently crowdsourcing feature requests for future releases, if you can post this request there it will help me prioritize this based on user demand?
A few days ago an app called Informity AI (free) was presented at the sub of the neighbours. Would you say Clipbeam is a similar app?
Hadn't heard of this one before! From a first look it seems similar where it relates to chatting with files, but what Clipbeam offers on top of that is chatting with links, notes, YouTube videos and text snippets, being fully media agnostic. Also, Clipbeam isn't only chat, but also a 'knowledge explorer' that lists and automatically organizes and tags all your sources as 'clips' that you can scroll through and search using a UI similar to macOS finder. So if you quickly want to retrieve a source without having a specific chat query about it, it works for that too. Lastly, Clipbeam supports voice chat, which I didn't see advertised on this webpage. Note that Clipbeam is free on a single device too, I didn't see any cross device sync functionality advertised?
That's a very clear explanation. Thanks! Eager to try out ClipBeam.
In times when Claude, Openclaw, etc. have a bunch of (more) functions, it's hard to see the benefit. Which AI model do you use? In special do I have to download it?
Yeah it's really for people that want a simple download and run experience and a nice UI. It's neatly packaged in a single app, doesn't require using the terminal or editing md files, etc. I guess it can be seen more like Claude Desktop compared to Claude Code, but then fully private and offline. None of your data or conversations are sent to a server for processing, whereas with Claude Desktop they are. Some people feel uncomfortable with their data being logged / used for AI training or used to create advertising profiles, and for these people this can be a nice alternative. The app downloads the required models during first run. It downloads Qwen 3.5 4b, whisper and nomic embed 1.5.
Going to add additional sync options besides Google?
Yes, you're not the first one to ask! Which provider did you have in mind?
Intriguing! I'll definitely try this out.