A local-first visual memory layer for macOS.
Capture what you copy and screenshot into a calm, searchable card feed.
No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry.
It is not important to know how something works. It is important to know where it is.
Hort is a persistent memory dashboard for copied text, URLs, images, and macOS screenshots. It stores everything locally and makes the result searchable, organisable, and portable.
Download the latest Hort-<version>.zip from
Releases, unzip it, and move
Hort.app into Applications. Hort requires macOS 14 or newer.
Hort is open source, ad-hoc signed, and not notarized because it ships without a paid Apple Developer account. On macOS 15 or newer, try to open it once and then use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway. On older macOS versions, Control-click the app and choose Open.
Detailed installation and permission help is in the user guide.
- Capture: clipboard text, web URLs, copied images, files, and new macOS screenshots from the Desktop. OCR makes screenshot text searchable.
- Organise: Inbox, favorites, archive, boards, folders, tags, drag and drop, multi-select, and bulk actions.
- Retrieve: fast SQLite FTS5 keyword search plus optional local semantic search through Ollama.
- Preview and undo: native Quick Look, direct URL opening, and undo after deletion.
- Export: Obsidian-friendly ZIPs with Markdown frontmatter and portable image links.
- Stay available: an optional menu bar item, launch at login, and English and German interfaces.
Optional AI features use an Ollama service on localhost:11434 and are disabled
by default. Hort has no cloud fallback.
- Generate summaries and suggested tags on demand or through Autopilot.
- Build local embeddings for semantic search.
- Ask questions across selected memories with source citations.
- Analyse images with a locally installed vision model.
Captured text is treated as untrusted data rather than model instructions.
Hort has no accounts, cloud sync, analytics, or telemetry. It skips clipboard
items marked concealed or transient, excludes common password managers by
default, never logs captured content in release builds, and keeps its store under
~/Library/Application Support/Hort/.
The Privacy tab shows capture, local AI, telemetry, storage, and excluded-app status. Read Privacy and Data Handling for exact boundaries, including how Desktop screenshots differ from clipboard exclusions.
Security problems should be reported privately according to SECURITY.md, never through a public issue.
Requirements: macOS 14 or newer and Xcode command line tools.
# Tests plus a local Gitleaks scan when installed
Scripts/check.sh
# Build a release app into dist/
Scripts/build-app.sh release
# Build and install into /Applications
Scripts/build-app.sh release install
# Create a verified ZIP and SHA-256 checksum
Scripts/release.shSee Development for project layout and release details. GitHub Actions runs tests and a secret scan for every pull request.
Swift · SwiftUI · SQLite via GRDB · FTS5 · local Ollama embeddings and generation · native macOS, with no Electron, web views, accounts, or cloud service.
Focused bug fixes and improvements are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting a pull request. Use fabricated data in tests and reports; never include real captures or personal paths.
Hort is released under the MIT License.