New project
Upload project photoChoose an image or drop one here
Cognota uses the browser displaying this local app for microphone capture. Safari, ChatGPT, or Chrome owns that permission rather than Cognota. Grant access here, or retry if setup did not complete.
Checks Cognota's signed native system-audio helper without recording or saving a note. This permission is separate from Safari microphone and screen sharing.
Use private local calendars, connect Google or Microsoft, or read accounts already in Apple Calendar. Manual tasks and events always remain available.
Cognota keeps readable Markdown plus a structured local record store. Automatic additions are visible, attributable, and reversible.
Cognota resolves workflows against your projects, people, meetings, and durable memory before it proposes an action. Background jobs create versioned summaries and review candidates without overwriting your work.
If you forget your passcode, a recovery key is the only way back in without wiping data. Cognota stores only a hash; the readable key is saved once to a file you keep somewhere safe. Generating a new key invalidates the old one, and each key works exactly once.
Manage the shared vocabulary used by notes, tasks, files, projects, and People. AI prefers active eligible tags and asks before creating a new one.
Manage the reusable dependency types shown on tasks. Routine changes save automatically; merge and delete ask first.
Check whether a newer build exists. Paste any https URL that returns a version, for example a GitHub raw file containing {"version":"9.3.0","url":"..."}. Nothing installs automatically.
Cognota snapshots your data automatically every 6 hours and keeps 14 days. Restoring first snapshots your current state, so a restore is always reversible.
Before every download, Cognota writes a local recovery snapshot. Import safely brings back projects, notes, tasks, calendars, settings, and memory. Recordings and attachments stay on the original Mac.
Before installing a new app build, save a full local snapshot. If a release is unstable, restore its matching snapshot after rolling the app back.
Finds recordings on disk that no note, source, or link references anymore, so orphaned files never silently eat your storage.
Permanently clears notes, tasks, projects, settings, API keys, passcode, audio recordings, and attachments from this Mac.
1. Cognota’s setup wizard can install and start Ollama and an appropriate local model for this Mac.
2. Choose MLX Whisper or Faster Whisper for local transcription; one must be ready before setup completes.
3. You can revisit the same guided local model and transcription choices later in Settings without repeating account setup.
Notes can hold attachments, website links, YouTube sources, and social links from X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Captured link cards use platform badges, thumbnails when available, grounded summaries, tags, and an overlay preview with a Note field for your own observations.
Home highlights current work, recent captures, and items that need a project. Inbox is for unassigned or unresolved captured items, and project assignment can use existing projects or create a new one from the flow.
Start a microphone, system-audio, or screen recording from Record. Live captions appear as the recording continues; after stopping, the final local transcript and optional speaker analysis replace the preview. A recording can be minimized into its note, where timestamped captures and linked tasks stay synchronized.
Use Complete with update to record what happened, the result or decision, and an optional next step. Cognota saves the update, closes the task, and moves it out of Open.
Every task keeps a chronological thread of creation, edits, People and project changes, Waiting On activity, completion updates, and follow-up links. Open a task to review its history.
If you enter a next step, Cognota offers to create a separate linked task. It inherits the project, note, People, and relevant tags, while keeping its own due date, status, and progress thread.
A task can wait on several people or actions. Completing a task with unresolved dependencies asks whether to resolve them first; cancelling leaves the task open.
Subtasks are full tasks shown compactly beneath their parent. They can nest, carry People, tags, due dates, dependencies, activity, and follow-ups, and can be dragged to reorder or move into another task or project.
Projects include overview briefs, tasks, notes, files, project-level links, and a timeline. Weekly update briefs and project summaries are built from contained notes, files, sources, links, and task activity.
Use Organize sections on a project to open Layout Studio. Drag section blocks by the handle, hide sections, or save collapsed sections so each project overview matches how you work.
The project timeline sorts notes, links, files, media, tasks, and brief refreshes by capture/update time. The horizontal rail and vertical list stay in sync for scanning a project chronologically.
Use #Project Name in quick entry. Multiword names work without quotes. Cognota links an existing project or opens a prefilled project form when the project does not exist, then returns to the original draft.
Tasks, reminders, events, and projects can link to one or more People records. Use Add person to search existing contacts or create someone new. Cognota never silently creates a contact.
People-to-project links connect related tasks, reminders, meetings, notes, and files in Graph. A person can belong to several projects and a project can include several people.
Cognota Local works without an account or internet connection. Connected Google, Microsoft, and Apple-backed calendars remain optional and every event composer shows its destination.
Settings → Notifications chooses macOS notifications, in-app alerts, both, or off. Sound can be disabled independently. People and projects attached to reminders remain visible when you open them.
Settings starts with topic cards grouped into Intelligence, Capture, Workspace, and Data & Safety. AI & Models includes the local model registry, routing, and a one-click AI self-test. Use the back arrow or quick chips to move between panels.
Cognota supports private Ollama models and optional online providers. OpenAI API keys stay in macOS Keychain; Ask and summaries show whether the selected model runs locally or online.
Re-summarize or Deep refresh opens a chooser for summary type and scope, all processed privately on-device. Summary history keeps the scope, model, sources, and stale status so a later refresh never hides what was previously generated.
After recording stops, Offline speaker analysis groups voice turns locally when the optional helper is installed. Label speakers then lets you confirm names and link them to People. Re-transcribing reruns speaker analysis so labels stay aligned with the newest transcript.
Add a calendar ICS URL for calendar context and choose whether new notes capture location. Appearance controls text size, branding, accent color, and logo.
Ask answers from your local notes, project files, links, media sources, summaries, and Vault content. It returns a direct answer and source cards so you can jump back to the underlying note or capture.
Vault is the searchable library of project files, note attachments, PDFs, DOCX files, photos, videos, links, and media sources. Vault cards open overlays with title, date, summary, related tasks, and actions to open the source.
The passcode locks this app on this Mac. Credentials are stored as a scrypt hash, never plain text. Save the one-time recovery key somewhere safe; each key works once and generating a new key invalidates the old one.
Cognota snapshots your data automatically and can restore prior snapshots from Settings. Delete all data is intentionally harder to reach: it requires username, password, and typing DELETE before the backend will wipe local data.
Everything is stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Cognota: database, recordings, attachments, runtime files, and local settings.
Cmd+K Command palette
N New task · 0 to 8 Core views
P People · W Waiting On · V Vault
Esc Close dialogs and drawers
Local AI setup · OllamaWorkspace and memory files are stored under your macOS account in Cognota’s Application Support folder. Local-model prompts stay on this Mac. Cloud prompts are used only with a provider you configure, and Cognota asks before relevant memory is shared. Verified API keys are stored in macOS Keychain. Your Cognota password is stored as a scrypt hash, not as readable text. Cognota does not claim to encrypt every workspace file separately.