Your digital life is full of things
you meant to remember.
A screenshot at 2am. A link in a group chat. A PDF someone needed you to read. You kept all of it, which is not the same as remembering any of it.
Shelf treats those things as visual memory: pieces of a day you lived, rather than files waiting to be filed.
01 · What you keep
Six shapes of the same instinct.
Everything below arrives for one reason: this might matter later. Shelf accepts all of it without asking you to decide where it goes.
Screenshots
The fastest way to keep something, and the hardest to find later. Shelf reads the text and the look of each one.
Links and bookmarks
A URL is a promise to read something. Shelf keeps the page's title, text and preview so the promise survives.
Images and inspiration
References you collected for a reason you can no longer name. Shelf remembers the reason around them.
Articles
Long reads you saved mid-scroll. Kept readable, and searchable by what they actually said.
PDFs
Specs, papers, invoices, decks. Shelf reads inside them, not just at their filenames.
Notes
Three lines now beat a perfect note you never wrote. Notes sit next to whatever prompted them.
02 · Why folders fail
Filing assumes you'll remember
where you filed.
A folder is a bet on your future self using the same word you used today. A filename is a bet you'll recall the name at all. Keyword search is a third bet: that the thing you need contains the exact words you're about to type.
Most of what you save loses those bets. Not because the tools are bad, but because they store objects while you remember moments.
Folders
Ask you to choose one place for something that belongs to several.
Filenames
Screenshot 2026-02-11 at 22.41.06.png tells you nothing you remember.
Keyword search
Needs the words. Your memory arrived as a picture and a feeling.
Shelf starts from what you actually retain: how it looked, roughly when it happened, and what you were working on.
03 · Shelf's view
A memory, with its context still attached.
When something enters Shelf, it isn't reduced to a file. Shelf reads the text inside it, notes the day, the app or site it came from, and the work it sat beside.
ScreenshotA dark interface with one accent
Sidebar navigation
Muted greys, single accent
Related to: Onboarding research
Saved August 14
ArticleOn designing for recall
Read the same afternoon
Mentions spaced repetition
Related to: Onboarding research
Saved August 14
NoteThree lines about the sidebar
Written minutes after the screenshot
Related to: Onboarding research
Saved August 14
04 · In the app
What Shelf does today.
Capture from the top of your screen, anywhere in macOS. Shelf reads text inside images and PDFs, keeps a preview, records where and when it arrived, and indexes all of it for search by meaning.
Your library stays on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded to make search work.
Next thought
Keeping is easy. The hard part is the moment you need it back.
Shelf V3 is the current build. Shelf does not use automatic updates, so download the latest build here and install it over your current version.
This is intentional. Shelf is built around a local-first, privacy-focused philosophy. An automatic updater requires additional background processes, network connections, update infrastructure, and another system with permission to modify the app. We prefer to keep Shelf’s network footprint and background activity as small as possible.
Manual updates keep the process explicit: Shelf only checks the internet when a feature actually needs it, and you decide when a new version is downloaded and installed.