pinakea

pinakea is a native macOS desktop application that turns scattered saved content — browser clips, PDFs, screenshots, Apple Mail, and Obsidian notes — into a single searchable body of work. It indexes originals where they already live rather than moving them, then enriches each item with AI-generated titles, tags, micro summaries, and semantic embeddings so material can be found by meaning rather than exact keywords. The tool is currently in public beta, with applications open and shortlisted testers invited into a private download cohort.

What It Is

pinakea sits in the category of personal knowledge management and AI-powered research assistants, but with a strong emphasis on traceability and local data control. Its core job is to make large, mixed archives of saved material findable and queryable without requiring users to reorganize or re-file anything. Every search result, summary, and chat answer links back to the original source — whether that is an Obsidian note, a PDF on disk, an email, or a clipped web page.

How the Capture and Enrichment Pipeline Works

When content enters pinakea, an automated AI pipeline processes it in the background:

• Browser clips from Chrome, Chromium, and Safari are converted to clean Markdown and deduplicated by canonical URL.
• Files and folders are indexed in place — text, Markdown, PDFs, images, and HTML.
• Apple Mail is indexed locally without OAuth, with account and date-range controls.
• Obsidian vaults are ingested Markdown-first with frontmatter support and deep links back to obsidian://.
• Feedbin stars import full text and stay in sync.
• YouTube transcripts are extracted when videos are clipped, making spoken content searchable.

Each item receives chunking and embeddings, micro summaries, AI-generated titles, and AI-generated tags automatically.

Two AI Modes: Online and Mixed

pinakea offers two processing modes. Online Mode is the recommended default and routes automatic item processing through OpenRouter using models such as Qwen3 Embedding 8B and Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite, with parallel processing for faster initial indexing. Mixed Mode keeps automatic item processing (embeddings, micro summaries, titles, tags) on the Mac while still using OpenRouter for chat and long summaries — suited for smaller sets where avoiding remote processing cost matters more than speed. The app tracks remote spend in both modes so users can monitor OpenRouter usage directly.

Integrations and Extensions

pinakea is designed to meet users in their existing workflows rather than replace them:

• Chrome and Safari browser clippers with one-click saving, offline queueing, and smart deduplication.
• Obsidian companion plugin for opening or chatting about the current note directly in pinakea, running entirely locally with no network required.
• Raycast extension for search, recent items, clipping URLs, chat, and daily summary commands from anywhere on the desktop.
• Browser access (server mode) lets users open their library in a browser on another device — phone, tablet, or laptop — with search, chat, and clipping. Off by default, local-network only when enabled, password protected, with optional remote access via Tailscale.
• MCP bridge allows pinakea to be used inside Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, or other MCP-capable clients, enabling search and chat across the library from within those tools.

Data Privacy and Local Control

The privacy model is a core design principle. Original files, the pinakea database, and the local index stay on the user's Mac. pinakea does not upload or store content on its own servers. Cloud AI usage is bring-your-own-key via OpenRouter, with no pinakea surcharge or hidden markup. Content goes directly from the Mac to the AI provider over encrypted connections.

Current Status: Public Beta

pinakea is currently in a public beta phase. The beta application is open, and shortlisted testers are invited into a private download cohort. The pricing page notes that paid checkout and device activation happen inside the app via Settings → License, with billing handled through Paddle as Merchant of Record.