Zettly

Think your way.

A calm canvas for notes on the Mac. Drop a thought, a link, a photo or a voice note anywhere, and keep going. Zettly works out what each card is, and the board takes shape around it.

Coming soon to the Mac App Store Free · macOS 15 or later
Zettly's Sample space: cards grouped into frames called Reading, Ideas & drafts, Home & admin, Learning · Rust and Lisbon · October on notebook-ruled paper, with the spaces sidebar on the left.

capture without filing

Write it down. Decide nothing.

  • ⌘N, type, done. The card lands on the board and you're back to what you were doing.
  • Cards hold text, checklists, code, quotes, images, PDFs, links and recordings.
  • Search and add from any app with a global shortcut.
The new-card sheet over the board, with a note titled ‘Pricing, plainly’ being written.

structure that arranges itself

The board sorts itself out.

  • Every card is read as an idea, a task, a note or an event, and drifts to the others of its kind.
  • Untitled cards get titles. Long ones get summaries. Related cards are suggested as links, which you accept or dismiss.
  • Frames summarise what they hold, and spaces nest inside spaces.
A card selected with the Inspector open, showing a suggested title and two possible connections to other cards.

voice notes

Say it. Get a card.

Record from the control bar, or import an audio file. The recording is transcribed on your Mac and turned into a title, a summary, to-dos, tags and main points. The transcript follows along as it plays.

A voice note card about a Lisbon trip, with its transcript, a play button, four to-dos and four tags shown in the Inspector.

find anything

⌘K finds it.

Search every card and run every command from one palette. Show every match on the board, or across all your spaces at once. Press ⇧1 for an overview of the whole space.

The search palette open with the query ‘attention’, listing seven matching cards and frames, and actions below.

AI on your terms

Your Mac, your server, or your key.

  • Apple Intelligence by default, running on your Mac.
  • Or a local model server: LM Studio, Ollama or LiteLLM.
  • Or your own key for Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. Nothing goes to a cloud provider until you press Allow, and the key stays in your Keychain.
  • Every AI feature has its own switch. With AI off, Zettly is still a fast, private canvas.
Settings, AI tab: Apple Intelligence chosen as the default model, with Local model, Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini listed, and a switch for each AI feature.

a board that feels like paper

Notebook, squared, grid or plain.

In light or dark. Pan with two fingers, pinch to zoom, hold ⌘ to align a card as you drag. Every board command is in the menu bar with its shortcut.

The same board in dark mode on grid paper.

Your notes stay yours.

  • Cards are files on your Mac. Keep a space in any folder you choose.
  • No account, no sign-up, no analytics, no ads, no tracking.
  • Export a space as Markdown with its attachments, or as a TextBundle, and import it back whole.

Read the privacy policy

Requirements

macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Apple Intelligence features and on-device transcription need macOS 26 on a Mac that supports Apple Intelligence, with it turned on. Elsewhere, use a local model or your own API key, or work without AI.