New in 0.2: Ask Findit, photo search, history sidebar

Any file.
Any question.
One keystroke.

Thousands of documents, and you need one. Press ⌥Space, type the few words you remember, and see it open beside the list. Then ask it a question, and get an answer that points to the page.

Download free See what it does for you

Free for Apple silicon Macs · macOS 13+ · Version 0.2.0

Findit window searching for ‘fernhill lease ext:pdf’. A history sidebar lists recent files, the results list shows seven PDFs from one client’s lease matter, and the selected lease amendment is previewed on the right. — Two words and a file type narrowed 3,192 files to one client’s lease documents.`↩` open · `⌘J` ask

Free, and built for your MacNo accountNo telemetryIndex stays on your MacAI only when you choose itKeyboard first

WHO IT’S FOR / 01

However you work,
you’ve been here.

The file is somewhere in a folder you named years ago. The answer is somewhere on page 14. Pick the one that sounds like you.

AS A STUDENT

It’s 11 pm. The essay is due Friday.

Your notes are spread across six modules and twelve weeks of folders. You remember “week 6” and “1848”, not the file name. And you’re not sure the draft meets the brief.

Find the notes. Type hist 201 week 6. Words match in any order, across file and folder names. The Markdown opens in the preview.
Check the draft against the brief. Add both to Ask Findit with ⌘J, press ⌘5. Word limits, required headings, file type and the due date are marked Met, Not met or Needs review.
Ask the reading. Add a PDF and ask a question. The answer cites the page; click it and the passage is highlighted.

Also handy: scanned handouts and whiteboard photos are read on your Mac, so you can quote them.

Ask Findit’s Check view comparing an essay draft with a history assignment brief. Requirements for word count, headings and file type are listed with Met, Not met or Needs review, each linked to the lines of the brief. — Check: the brief becomes a checklist, and each line points to the evidence.

AS A LAWYER

The client is on the phone. Which version did they sign?

Hundreds of matters, thousands of PDFs, three drafts of every agreement. You remember the client and “lease”. You need the executed copy, and you need clause 3, now.

Find the document. fernhill lease ext:pdf narrows thousands of files to one matter. Add dm:30d for recent changes or in:~/Matters to stay in one folder.
Ask it. ⌘J adds the PDF to Ask Findit. “How much notice does the tenant need to end early?” The answer cites page 3, highlighted in the original.
See what changed. Add the draft and the signed copy, press ⌘3: every changed word, with its page in both versions.

Confidential material stays put: the index, previews and comparisons run on your Mac. Answers use Apple’s on-device model, a model server on your Mac, or Cloud AI only after you approve exactly what is sent.

Ask Findit with a lease amendment PDF as context. The answer states the tenant can end the lease from 1 July 2026 with six months’ written notice and cites the passage; the cited page is shown with the clause highlighted. — An answer with its source: click the citation and the clause lights up on the page. Sample answer shown.

IN THE OFFICE

The meeting starts in four minutes.

You need last quarter’s invoice, the latest deck, and the contract someone renamed “final_v2”. Folder hunting won’t make it.

Filter instead of browsing. invoice dm:3m ext:pdf, deck dm:7d, tag:client size:>1mb. Combine words and filters freely.
Reopen yesterday’s work. The history sidebar lists everything you opened through Findit, grouped Today, Yesterday and earlier. One click reopens it.
Check the numbers. In Ask Findit, Calculate (⌘2) lists every amount in a PDF with its page, adds the ones you tick with exact decimals, and confirms the stated total.

Also: tag files with real Finder tags (⌘T), arrange windows by typing “left half”, keep reusable text as snippets.

Findit searching ‘invoice dm:3m ext:pdf’. The filters appear as chips and the results list invoice PDFs modified in the last three months. — Filters show as chips you can remove. Type, date, size, folder, tag.

AS A RESEARCHER OR WRITER

You know you wrote it down. Somewhere.

Years of notes, papers and drafts. You remember the idea, not the words, and definitely not the file name.

Search by meaning. Turn on on-device semantic search, then sem:why the uprisings failed finds notes about the idea. Or content:"exact phrase" for the words themselves.
Quote with confidence. Ask a paper a question; every claim in the answer links to its page, and you can read exactly what the model was given.
Review every edit. Compare two drafts by word, ignoring line breaks, to see each change an editor made.

Content and meaning search cover text, Markdown, CSV, JSON, HTML and code files. PDFs and Office files are found by name and previewed; ask about PDFs in Ask Findit.

TRY

ext:md sem:notes about the 1848 revolutionscontent:"serfdom" ext:mdre:chapter-\d+ dm:2026-09draft in:~/Writing !old

AT HOME

Did the energy bill really go up that much?

Bills, receipts, tax returns and warranty cards, saved as PDFs and phone photos. You want a total, a split, and proof.

Find it. electricity bill dm:1y or tax return. Tag paperwork once, find it forever with tag:tax.
Add it up. Calculate lists each amount with its line on the page. Tick the charges; Findit checks them against the bill’s own total and splits it to the cent.
Read a paper receipt. Paste a photo with ⌘⇧V. Text is recognized on your Mac and the amounts join the worksheet, marked as recognized.

Calculate is Findit’s own exact arithmetic. No AI model is asked, and currencies are never mixed.

Ask Findit’s Calculate view for a household bill PDF. Electricity, water and internet charges from page 2 are ticked and add up to 167.54 EUR, the same as the bill’s Total due line. — Calculate: every amount traced to its page, added with exact decimals.

AS A DEVELOPER

Every repo, every file, a few keystrokes away.

Ten projects, a hundred config files with the same name, and a JWT someone pasted in chat.

Jump into the right window. repo:. config ext:json, then ⌘↩ opens the file in the VS Code, Cursor or Xcode window for its project.
Edit in place. ⌘E edits text and code right in the preview; ⌘S saves.
Convert locally. Ask Findit’s Convert (⌘4) formats and validates JSON, decodes JWTs, Base64, URLs and timestamps, and turns CSV into Markdown tables.

Plus a findit CLI, findit:// links, glob and regex filters, “why ranked” (⌘I), and your own local plugins.

TRY

glob:*.swift dm:7dre:invoice-\d{4} ext:jsonrepo:. kind:dir testfindit --json "auth service"

AS A TEACHER

Years of lessons, at your fingertips.

Worksheets from three schools, five syllabus versions, and a stack of submissions to check against the brief.

Find the lesson. year 9 photosynthesis worksheet finds it wherever it ended up. Filter with tag: or dm:.
Check a submission. Check (⌘5) tests the word limit, required headings and the due date, and leaves judgement to you as Needs review.
See what changed. Compare (⌘3) lists every difference between two versions of a syllabus or policy.

Reuse feedback with snippets: type snip and a name. Snippets can include today’s date.

Ask Findit’s Compare view showing the differences between a draft and a final version of a document: changed amounts and words are highlighted, with page numbers for both versions. — Compare: exact differences, with the changed words marked and their pages.

FOR YOUR PHOTOS

“Birthday photos from last year.”

Twenty thousand photos in Apple Photos and a few old folders. You remember the occasion and roughly when.

Ask in plain words. Type “find my beach photos from summer 2024”. Findit repeats what it understood (“Beach photos from summer 2024”) before it searches.
Checked on your Mac. Dates come from Photos and the pictures themselves; subjects such as birthday, beach, snow, dog or sunset are confirmed by Apple’s image classifier on your Mac.
Open or reveal. ↩ opens the photo, ⌘R shows it in Finder or Photos.

Apple Photos access is asked for, never assumed. Photos never leave your Mac, including to Cloud AI. Archive drives stay searchable while unplugged if you opt in.

TRY

photos birthday 2025photos snow last winterphotos screenshots this monthis:offline on:Archive ext:nef,cr3

Also built for keyboard and VoiceOver users (every action has a key, results and outcomes are announced) and job seekers (check a cover letter against the advert’s limits and closing date).

A SMALL MEMORY IS ENOUGH / 02

Start with what
you remember.

Words in any order. A filter when you need one.
A preview to tell you you’ve found it.

TRY A SEARCH

Remember the client and “lease”? That’s enough.

A browser illustration with six fictional files. It runs on this page only: no network requests, no file access, nothing stored.

EVERYTHING IN ONE PANEL / 03

Find it. Understand it.
Do something with it.

One translucent panel over whatever you’re doing. Esc, and you’re back where you were.

Find with a few words.

Names and paths, any word order, forgiving of case, accents and punctuation. Its own index, so new files show up in moments. Add filters when you know more.

budget ext:pdf dm:7din:~/Clients tag:signedcontract size:>1mb !draft

Type · date · size · folder · tag · project · glob · regex

See inside before you open.

PDFs, Office documents, images, audio, video, Markdown and highlighted code, right beside the results. Edit text and code in place.

Findit in dark mode showing ‘hist 201 week 6’ with lecture notes for week 6 rendered as formatted Markdown in the preview.

Space for Quick Look · ⌘E to edit · ⌘S to save

Act without leaving the keyboard.

Open, open with, copy paths, tag, drag out, move to Trash with undo. Open code in the editor window for its project.

↩ Open

⌘O Open with

⌘T Finder tags

⌘C Copy path

⌘⌫ Trash · ⌘Z undo

Multi-select with ⇧ and ⌘

NEW

History sidebar

Everything you opened through Findit (files, apps, settings, photos, commands), grouped by day. Click to reopen; ⌘\ hides it.

NEW

Pin it open

The pushpin or ⌘⇧P keeps Findit on screen while you work in other apps and open results.

NEW

Photo search

“Snow photos from last winter” searches Apple Photos and your folders by date and subject, checked on your Mac.

LAUNCHER

Apps, settings, answers

Open apps and System Settings panes, do arithmetic as you type, arrange and switch windows, run system actions.

NEW · ASK FINDIT / 04

Ask your documents.
Check every answer.

Press ⌘J on a file, or add a PDF, text, the clipboard or a screenshot. Answers cite the line or page, and Findit shows you exactly where.

Ask Findit answering a question about a lease PDF with a citation, and the cited page shown with the passage highlighted. — **Conversation** ⌘1 Questions about PDFs, text and images, with citations you can click. Scanned pages are read on your Mac. Sample answer shown.

Calculate view adding ticked amounts from a bill PDF. — **Calculate** ⌘2 Amounts from a bill or statement, exact decimals, matched to the stated total, split to the cent.

Compare view listing differences between two versions of a lease amendment. — **Compare** ⌘3 Every difference between two versions, by line or by word, with pages and changed numbers.

Check view listing requirements of an essay brief as Met, Not met or Needs review. — **Check** ⌘5 A draft against its brief: word limits, headings, page counts, file type, due dates.

No model until you choose one.

Local AI uses Apple’s on-device model (macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence) or a model server you run, such as Ollama or LM Studio. Cloud AI uses Anthropic with your own API key.

Cloud AI asks first.

Before anything leaves your Mac, Findit lists the question, each source and how much of it will be sent. Nothing goes until you click Send.

Some answers need no AI at all.

Calculate, Compare, Check and Convert (⌘4: JSON, CSV, Base64, JWT, timestamps) are Findit’s own code. Same input, same result.

GO A LITTLE DEEPER

More of your Mac.
Still one panel.

Every capability below ships today. Optional features stay off until you turn them on.

Search inside files, or by meaning Optional

Turn on content indexing for content:budget and jump to matching lines. Turn on on-device semantic search for sem:the garden plan. These cover text, Markdown, CSV, JSON, HTML and code files up to 2 MB; the English model runs on your Mac.

Ask about PDFs, scans and screenshots

Ask Findit reads PDFs page by page (up to 500 pages) and cites the page. Pages without a text layer and images are read with Apple’s text recognition on your Mac (up to 50 scanned pages per document), and recognized text is always marked as such.

A search that understands your context

Recent use and your active project help rank results. Filter by Git repository, choose a sort order, see “why ranked” with ⌘I, and save named folder scopes such as in:@work. Glob and regex filters are there for precise patterns.

Photos by date and subject Permission asked

Plain-word questions such as “birthday photos from last year”, or photos mode. Searches Apple Photos (after you allow it) and image folders, newest first, with thumbnails. Subjects are confirmed on your Mac by Apple’s Vision classifier; the status says how many photos were checked.

Cloud files and disconnected disks Opt-in retention

See iCloud placeholders without downloading them. Keep a searchable list of an opted-in external disk while it’s unplugged; results tell you to reconnect before opening.

Apps, settings, windows and quick answers

Launch apps, jump to System Settings panes, calculate as you type, run system actions, arrange windows (“left half”) or switch windows with win. Window actions need Accessibility permission.

Clipboard history and snippets Optional

Keep a local clipboard history (clip), pin useful entries, and insert saved text with snip, including today’s date or the clipboard. Stored text stays on your Mac.

For the terminal and your own workflows

A read-only findit CLI with JSON output and shell helpers, the findit:// URL scheme, and optional local plugins that run your own scripts on selected files.

Your folders, file types and exclusions

Choose folders, disks and file types. Hidden files are opt-in. Use .finditignore files and exclusions to keep noisy or private folders out. Full Disk Access is optional.

A native Mac experience

Menu-bar app, configurable global shortcut, light and dark appearance, launch at login, Quick Look, full keyboard navigation, VoiceOver labels and announcements, and Reduce Motion support. No browser wrapper.

LOCAL BY DESIGN / 05

Your files.
Your questions.
Your business.

Read the privacy details

Search should help you use your information. It shouldn’t ask you to hand it over.

Findit’s index lives on your Mac. File names, indexed text, searches, history and photos aren’t uploaded anywhere. There’s no account, no telemetry, no cloud sync.

✓ Content indexing, semantic search and clipboard history are opt-in.

✓ Apple Photos is read only after you allow it, and photos never leave your Mac.

✓ Local AI stays on your Mac. Cloud AI sends only what you approve, under your own key.

✓ Ask Findit conversations are kept in memory and gone when you quit.

Network use is limited to things you start: Cloud AI, update checks, a web-search row, a model download you choose, opening an iCloud file, and plugins you enable.

A SMALL TOOL. A LOT MORE MOMENTUM.

Make room for
what comes next.

Download Findit

Free · Apple silicon · macOS 13 Ventura or later

Version 0.2.0 · Signed and notarized · SHA-256 checksum

Already installed? Choose Check for Updates in the menu bar.

WHAT’S NEW IN 0.2

Ask Findit (⌘J): cited answers about PDFs, text and images; Calculate, Compare, Convert and Check.
Text recognition for scanned PDF pages and images, on your Mac.
Photo search by date and subject in plain words, across Apple Photos and folders.
History sidebar and pin to keep Findit open.
A new look: one sheet of glass, clearer rows, actions with their keys.

01 / INSTALL

Drag it to Applications.

Open the DMG, copy Findit to Applications, and launch it once. It lives in the menu bar.

02 / MAKE IT YOURS

Choose where to look.

Findit starts with Documents, Desktop, Downloads and your media folders. Add project roots, disks and file types in Settings.

03 / JUST TYPE

Press ⌥Space.

Type a few words. ↩ opens, ⌘J asks, Esc takes you back.

GOOD QUESTIONS

A few things
before you begin.

Which Macs can use Findit?

Apple silicon Macs running macOS 13 Ventura or later. There is no Intel, Windows, Linux or iOS version.

Is Findit free? Do I need an account?

Findit is free to download and use, with no account. Cloud AI is optional and uses your own Anthropic API key; Findit doesn’t sell or bill AI usage.

Can it search inside PDFs and Word files?

Findit finds PDFs, Word and other Office files by name, path, type, date, size and tag, and previews them. Content and meaning search cover text, Markdown, CSV, JSON, HTML and code files. To ask about what’s inside a PDF, add it to Ask Findit; it reads the PDF page by page and cites pages. For Word, Pages or Excel files, export to PDF or paste the text.

Do I need AI to use Findit?

No. Search, previews, file actions, photos, Calculate, Compare, Check and Convert work without any model. A model is used only for conversation answers, and only after you choose Local AI or Cloud AI.

Which AI can I use?

Apple’s on-device model on macOS 26 or later with Apple Intelligence; a model server you run on your Mac (Ollama, LM Studio, llama-server); or Anthropic with your own API key. Findit doesn’t download or start models for you. Any model can be wrong, so check the cited lines.

Does Findit use Spotlight?

No. Findit keeps its own index of names, paths and optional content, updated as files change. The first index needs a little time to finish.

Will it find everything on my Mac?

It searches the folders and file types you choose. It starts with Documents, Desktop, Downloads, Movies, Music, Pictures and Applications. Add other folders, disks and source-code extensions in Settings › Index.

Do I need Full Disk Access?

It’s optional. Without it, Findit skips protected locations and searches everything macOS lets it read. Accessibility is only needed for window actions; Photos access only for Apple Photos search.

Does it work offline?

Search, previews, photos, text recognition, Calculate, Compare, Check, Convert and Local AI work without a connection. Cloud AI, updates and web-search rows need one.

How do I update or remove Findit?

Findit checks for updates automatically; you can also choose Check for Updates from the menu bar. To remove it, quit, move it to the Trash, and delete the Findit folder in ~/Library/Application Support. See the privacy page.

Any file.Any question.One keystroke.

However you work,you’ve been here.