You talk for hours. Nothing comes of it.
The recordings sit in a folder pretending to be a system. Timshel reads them together — connects, compares, and surfaces what you no longer remember. Locally, on your Mac.
Every insight stays in your vault after you leave.From separate recordings — one corpus that composes something.
Three moves: you drop in what you have; Timshel compares it all at once; then it surfaces on its own what's worth developing.
Drop in what you already have.
- Any sourceRecorder, card, a voice memo from your phone — it all lands in one place.
- Transcribed locallywhisper.cpp on your Mac. Audio never goes to any cloud.
- Tagged and readyEvery recording dated and in context, searchable right away.
It compares the whole corpus at once — in one window.
Constellation: the connections Timshel caught on the left; on the right, a reader with the thesis, quoted evidence, and directions to develop. It's a live interface — switch a connection, mark directions, expand the evidence.
Honest about the wire: transcription and your vocabulary are matched locally. For synthesis, only the shortlisted snippets of text go to the server — never the audio, never the whole vault. The recording stays on your Mac.
It surfaces hypotheses on its own.
- Proposes connections"These three recordings connect. Want to do something with it?"
- Helps you draft itFrom loose thoughts to a draft — it doesn't dictate, it proposes.
- Dismiss a miss with one clickYou decide what stays. Always.
Timshel learns your world — locally.
The first time, a recording is full of strangers: names guessed phonetically, companies mangled. Timshel keeps a vocabulary of your people, projects and companies — and every recording teaches the next one.
"…so I called Tektu Reski about the Haldane project, and Kovalski said the deck line was fine — but Yarra from Tektu Reski pushed back on the date."
"…so I called Tech to the Rescue about the Halden project, and Kowalski said the deck line was fine — but Yara from Tech to the Rescue pushed back on the date."
# people & orgs — grows with every recording Tech to the Rescue heard: tektu reski, tektutoreski Kowalski heard: kovalski, kowalksi Yara Mbeki org: Tech to the Rescue Halden project
No hostage data. It's a file you own — and every recording improves the next.
Notes that know what you think.
Every note carries two things a transcript can't: where each idea now stands, and what's still open. Written back as plain Markdown you can read without Timshel.
Stances
Open threads
- Does the roof delay depend on the window delivery, or run parallel?
- Who signs off if the date slips a second time?
A stance is an entity + where it stands (holds / shifted / dropped) + the reason. Status colours borrow the locked semantics — jade for what holds, gold for what shifted.
The open core works today.
Get Timshel
Download the build. Open source under MIT — no account.
Point it at your recordings
Timshel transcribes them locally, tags and organizes — in batches, in the background.
Ask and write
Ask the whole corpus a question, or let it guide you to a finished piece.
Your thoughts stay where they belong.
Local
Transcription runs on your Mac (whisper.cpp). Audio never goes to the cloud — not for a second.
Your files
Notes are plain Markdown in a folder you own. Obsidian, disk, export — whenever you want.
Open source
The core is open source (MIT). Look, verify, run it yourself. No account, no keys handed to us.
Because we never hold your data.
It computes, it doesn't remember.
A certain tool that was meant to remember for you deleted its European users' data in December 2025. Timshel can't lose or delete your data — because it never leaves your Mac. And the Insights server is stateless: it computes, then forgets. That's why the synthesis layer doesn't break local-first.
For people who think out loud — and do a lot of it.
Built for one person first: an Obsidian prosumer with a recorder and a 500-note vault. The privacy cases below are proof, not the pitch.
A recorder in your pocket, a vault you've tended for years.
A 500-note vault and a drawer of voice memos that never make it back in. The good idea from a March walk is somewhere on the device — effectively gone.
Every memo transcribed locally into the vault, tagged and searchable. You ask the whole vault "what did I think about X?" and the memo comes back — with its date.
You dictate a document and hand the file off to be typed — confidential content passes through an assistant or the cloud. And you can't search old dictations anyway.
Dictation transcribed on your Mac, nothing leaves. You ask "what did I decide on Kowalski?" and answer from your own private archive.
An SD card full of hours of conversations and observations. Manual transcription eats weeks, and analysis only starts once everything is typed up.
Drop the card — a batch transcribes overnight. In the morning you ask the whole corpus for themes instead of digging through files one by one.
You come back from the field with six hours of interviews. You transcribe by hand or push sources into someone's cloud. The quote from three conversations ago is gone.
Every interview transcribed locally and tagged. You ask "who talked about X?" and get the quote with its date — and sources never leave your Mac.
Free forever. Pay only when the server works for you.
The core is open and local. Insights adds the synthesis layer — a stateless server that computes, then forgets.
MIT-licensed. No minute meter, ever.
- Local transcription (whisper.cpp) — audio never leaves your Mac
- Your notes, plain Markdown, in a folder you own
- Personal vocabulary that grows with every recording
- Open source — inspect it, run it yourself
The synthesis layer.
- Everything in Core
- Surfaces connections across your whole corpus
- Proposes hypotheses — never dictates
- Stateless server: it computes, it doesn't remember
You pay for the server's work — not for access to your own data.
$7.99 / month if you'd rather go monthly. Already have an LLM key? BYOK $29 / year — bring your own key, we run the orchestration. Pause any time; your local core keeps working.
Frequent questions
Does it really run locally?
Yes. Transcription (whisper.cpp) happens on your Mac. Audio is never sent to any cloud — not for a moment.
Where are my notes kept?
In a folder you own, as plain Markdown. It works with Obsidian; backup and export are entirely on your side. Nothing locked inside someone else's system.
What happens to my vocabulary if I leave?
It stays. Your vocabulary is a plain file in your vault (.timshel/vocabulary.md) — it was never on our servers to begin with. Cancel Insights, delete the app, and the file is still yours, still readable.
Why a subscription from an anti-subscription product?
The core is free forever, MIT, with no minute meter. Insights is a subscription because it's a server doing real compute for you — you pay for the work, not for access to your own data. And you can pause instead of cancel from day one; your local core keeps working either way.
Can I bring my own LLM key?
Yes — BYOK is $29 / year. You bring your own key; we run the orchestration that turns your corpus into connections. Nothing about local transcription changes.
What hardware do I need?
A Mac with Apple Silicon. The transcription models run efficiently on it locally, without reaching for servers.
Can my data disappear?
We can't lose or delete it — because we never hold it. Everything stays on your disk, under your control.
In Steinbeck's East of Eden, Lee spends years on one Hebrew word from Genesis and lands on a choice, not a command: thou mayest. That's the whole design. Timshel proposes — it never dictates. The push is always yours to take, or leave.
Be first when it ships.
The open core — local transcription into your own files — works today. Join the list for the version that finds things in your archive and proposes connections.
−30% on your first year for everyone on the list.
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