Blur is an open-source personal memory app for your desktop (macOS now, Windows and Linux in progress) that keeps a searchable record of your day and answers questions about it.
The alternative to letting an AI read everything: your memory stays encrypted on your device, a local planner picks the few items a question needs, and a model only ever sees those.
- macOS available now
- Windows in progress
- Linux in progress
Not an AI that reads everything
Most memory tools send your history to a model and let it work things out. Blur is designed the other way round.
- Nothing leaves your Mac unless you turn on a model. That model is a local Ollama model or an endpoint you configure.
- A local planner reads your question, not a model. It is deterministic. Time questions and "what did you capture from WhatsApp" are answered with no model at all.
- A model only gets a handful of items. They are selected and size-limited, each with its time and app, never your whole memory. Blur shows how many items were sent for each answer.
- Recaps start from summaries. They are built from short hourly summaries Blur already wrote, so a recap of today is a few kilobytes, not hundreds of captures.
- You stay in control. You decide what is captured with allowed and blocked apps and sites and timed pauses, how long it is kept, and you can delete all of it.
How it works
Blur reads, stores and answers in three steps, all on your Mac.
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Capture
Blur reads text from the app you are focused on through macOS Accessibility. It never takes screenshots.
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Encrypted store
Captured text goes into a local encrypted database. The key lives on your device.
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Ask or recap
The LLM is only used when necessary, and it only sees the few items a local planner picked for your question. Answers cite what they came from.
What you get
Today
A recap of your day with next steps and notes.
Ask
Questions answered from your memory. General questions never send captured data.
Search
Find anything you saw or wrote, by exact words.
Library
Facts about people and projects that you review and keep.
Time
Where your time went, per app and per range.
Quick ask
A panel under the notch. Open it by hovering the notch, from a link in the window, or with a keyboard shortcut you choose.
Safari capture
Optional page capture through a Safari extension.
Sync
Between your own Macs, through any synced folder such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox.
MCP
Let Claude and other MCP clients read your memory, if you set it up.
Private by default
Blur is built so that you decide what is captured, what is kept and what leaves your Mac.
- Stored locally and encrypted. The database key is in your macOS Keychain, and the app runs in the macOS App Sandbox.
- You grant access once. Capture uses macOS Accessibility. Blur never records the screen.
- You choose what it sees. Pick the apps and sites it may capture and the ones it must never capture. Pause any time, including for 15 minutes, 1 hour or until tomorrow morning.
- AI is optional and off by default. Use a local Ollama model or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint you configure. With a model on, you get hourly recaps and a daily recap. Without one, you get a model-free "This hour so far" draft.
- Sync without a shared database. Blur writes encrypted, append-only segments, protected by a passphrase, to a folder you pick. The database is never synced, and deletions propagate.
- Retention is yours. Keep 30, 90 or 180 days, 1 year, or turn it off. "Delete all memory" removes everything.
For developers
Blur is written in Go and the source is open on GitHub. Windows and Linux capture exist in the codebase but are not finished. macOS is the supported target.
Read your memory from MCP clients
If you set it up, Claude and other MCP clients can read your memory through a local MCP server.
blur mcpWhere to look
make macos-appbuilds the macOS app bundle. It uses the GoUI CLI to package the app and signs it with the App Sandbox entitlements by default.platform/macosholds the entitlements, the Safari extension project and its signing inputs.cmd/blur-packagepackages the Windows and Linux builds as archives.