Storage is a question of location. Memory is a question of meaning. Almost every tool I have used is very good at the first one and quietly indifferent to the second.
You rarely forget where something is. You forget what it was called.
Reading, not filing
When something arrives in Shelf, it gets read on your Mac: the words in a screenshot, the substance of a page, what a PDF is actually about. Not to label it, but so the thing can be found later by the part you remember.
Related is not the same as similar
Similar asks whether two things resemble each other. Related asks whether one belongs to the context of the other. Only the second one is useful when you are trying to remember.
Because these belong to the same idea.
Because you kept them in the same hour.
Because one answered the other.
A connection you cannot explain is worse than no connection at all.
So Shelf only shows a relationship it can point at. If there is no evidence, there is no line drawn. Memory earns trust by being right about the small things.
Written by Dragoon.
memory · search · local-first
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