Frequently Asked Questions

Think of Clipbeam as your ultra-organized assistant that remembers everything you share with it. Whether it's a web page, a note, a spreadsheet, or that photo/screenshot you know you'll need at some point, just clip it and a local offline AI swoops in to tag, summarize, and structure it for future reference. Later on, you can type a casual sentence ("What did I learn about solar panels?") or ask "What were the ingredients for the recipe of chocolate chip cookies I saved?". Clipbeam will fetch exactly what you need, fast and fully privately. Clipbeam does not send anything you share with it to the internet, it simply lives and runs on your computer.

Almost anything! Web URLs, voice recordings, Office documents, images, YouTube videos... you name it, Clipbeam will understand it. You can also snag plain text snippets. Each piece gets smartly analyzed and enriched with metadata. You can also use the Clipbeam notepad to create fresh notes. The Clipbeam notepad has live audio dictation built-in, perfect for those "aha!" moments or when just thinking out loud.

Drag & drop, click one of the three icons at the top, or use the keyboard shortcut: command ⌘ + C + B. The first icon opens the notepad, the second launches a file picker, and the third pastes whatever's on your clipboard as a new Clip. You can toggle the keyboard shortcut under Edit > System‑wide command ⌘ + c + b.

Clipbeam ships with a lightweight AI model that can interpret text, images and audio. Rather than being pre-trained on massive general knowledge, you train it yourself using whatever you clip. This dramatically cuts the processing power and memory needed compared to the “all-knowing” AIs you may have encountered elsewhere.

The upside of this design is that your data stays private, and nothing has to be sent out for analysis. The trade-off, however, is that the AI comes with certain limitations.

Clipbeam has limited world knowledge and is tuned for short-form content. It can however search the internet to complement its limited knowledge. Clipbeam uses the privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo to expand its knowledge, but will always ask you for permission before attempting a web search.

While you can feed it any file, asking Clipbeam to dissect a hundred-page PDF may cause it to miss nuances and overlook broader conclusions. Clipbeam can also sometimes get things wrong. For best results, use Clipbeam with notes, screenshots, or brief articles. Also, always check critical answers, as Clipbeam may make mistakes!.

Nope! All clips stay on your computer only. The AI that categorises and retrieves them runs locally, no internet required (except when you clip a URL, in which case Clipbeam briefly goes online just to read the page so it can tag it right). Clipbeam may sometimes suggest to do a web search to expand its knowledge. You stay in control and can always say you do not want it to search the web.

You can click 'Track folder' to select any folder on your hard drive. Clipbeam will then automatically create clips from any file inside that folder (including inside sub-folders). These clips are not copied to Clipbeam's folder, but simply observed where they are.

Whenever you delete files from the folder, their corresponding clips will also be deleted. Whenever you add new files to the folder, corresponding clips will automatically be created.

Any changes you make to files that were already clipped will also sync with Clipbeam, but the clip's title, keywords and summary will not change. Clipbeam will however answer any questions based on the latest file contents.

There are two ways to clip web pages:

1. Press ⌘ + C + B while selecting the web url.

2. Turn on 'Track Safari'. When this option is on, any link you add to Safari's 'Reading List' will automatically appear in Clipbeam. You can also just create a 'Clipbeam' folder inside your bookmarks, whatever is saved in there will also appear in Clipbeam. In order for this to work, you will need to enable Full Disk Access.

Yes, you can sync Clipbeam with Obsidian!

This only works if your vault is not encrypted. Simply click on 'Track folder' and select your Obsidian vault. From that moment on, anything you create in Obsidian will automatically appear in Clipbeam. Whatever you edit or delete will also sync with Clipbeam. If you delete a note in Clipbeam, it will also be deleted from Obsidian. Clipbeam will warn you about this whenever you try and delete an Obsidian note.

Clips you create inside Clipbeam remain separate and are not synced with Obsidian.

There is no Clipbeam app for phones and tablets yet, so you cannot search, chat about your clips or use other AI features from your phone. You can however still clip notes, links, files or photos when you are on-the-go using Cloud folders or iCloud bookmarks. They will then automatically appear on your Mac inside Clipbeam.

If you click on 'Track folder' and select a folder that is synced with a Cloud service (such as Google Drive or Dropbox), this will work automatically. Whatever you upload to the Cloud will magically appear inside Clipbeam as soon as files are synced with your Mac. The same applies to bookmarks you create with iCloud Bookmarks. if you allow Clipbeam to track Safari bookmarks, whatever you add to Safari's reading list or bookmark under a 'Clipbeam' folder will appear automatically.

Select the clip in the clips overview. You will see that the right sidebar shows the clip details. You can simply type to change the title, summary, keywords or related topics. As soon as you exit out of the clip, your changes will be saved.

Topics allow you to combine multiple clips that relate to a certain topic. Clipbeam will automatically categorize clips across different topics as it creates them. But you can also create topics yourself. Let's say you're working on a Shakespeare essay. Simply create a topic named 'Shakespeare', and whatever related material you clip afterwards will automatically be added. Note that previously existing clips will not be added automatically. Clips that already existed before you created the topic can be dragged into the topic manually. You can also add topics via the Clip details.

The top search bar looks through three layers:

1. Exact words in the original file/text.
2. Keywords and summaries that Clipbeam generated.
3. Natural-language queries with semantic search (e.g. "things that could be useful when planning a holiday"). You'll see Clipbeam indicate when it is 'matching additional clips' that could relate to your query. This can take awhile, as Clipbeam uses its intelligence to decide whether a seemingly unrelated clip could still be relevant to you.

Want to filter by a tag? Wrap it in brackets, e.g. [music]. Tags can be added manually via the Clip's detail page on any clip.

Chat is your shortcut to the treasure chest. Ask Clipbeam for a fact ("what was the date of that dinner invite"), or even to combine info from multiple clips ("How does my resume match this job post web link?") and it'll whip up a response, without you needing to open the original clips themselves.

Global chat: Click the generic chat button on the left → Clipbeam scans all your clips.

Focused chat: Attach specific clips (via the clip detail page or clicking on 'Clips' in the chat window). When attaching clips to a chat, only those clips are considered during a chat and any other clips are temporarily 'forgotten'.

For deep dives, attaching relevant clips is the way to go, as the assistant can get confused when considering too many clips to help you with your request.

Clipbeam only remembers clips. Any conversations you have will be forgotten when you close the chat.

You can however make Clipbeam remember basic details about you beyond what is in your clips. Click on the profile icon in the chat window to add an 'about me'. In this field you can put any information that you want Clipbeam to be aware of across all chats.

If anything comes up in a chat that you want to save, simply ask Clipbeam to clip it. Clipbeam will then turn the information into a clip that can be used for future conversations.

Clipbeam supports two ways to use your voice:

1. When you clip audio or video, Clipbeam silently listens, extracts the spoken words, and adds them to its metadata.

2. In chat, you can hit the audio icon or press Shift + Space. You'll hear a "ding" - that's Clipbeam listening. Speak, then pause; it will answer automatically using a synthesized voice. If you're in a noisy spot, tap the space bar to tell it you're done. To interrupt Clipbeam while it is speaking, just press space. Press Shift + Space again or click "End voice chat" to stop the voice conversation completely.

3. In the Clipbeam notepad you can press the microphone button to dictate. Whatever you say will automatically be typed into the window. When you are done, it will be saved as a text note.

Nope. Voice processing stays on your device, just like every other AI feature: 100% private and offline. That's just Clipbeam's jam.

Clipbeam opens URLs in the background to read them. If a page requires you to log in, Clipbeam can't see past the login screen unless you save that account under File > Social Accounts. Currently supported are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium and Threads. Some sites also block bots; in those cases you can manually add tags or a summary.

Your feedback fuels this project! Use the feedback form to report bugs or offer other feedback.