Drop anything in.
Drop in a link, PDF, video, or newsletter. BlackHole writes a clean, linked note, files it in your own knowledge base on your machine, and answers your questions from the notes it wrote.
- One-time license, no subscription
- Your own AI key, or fully offline
- Plain Markdown, in a folder you own
- Works with your Obsidian vault
Attention Is All You Need
Introduces the Transformer: an architecture built entirely on self-attention, dropping recurrence for parallelism and long-range context.
You're great at saving things.
Terrible at coming back to them.
Five browser windows, a hundred open tabs, a Drive full of PDFs, a read-later app you stopped opening. The information's all there. It's just not organized, connected, or findable. And tools that promise to fix it hand you a blank vault and ask you to become a part-time librarian first. Most people quit before the payoff.
BlackHole does the librarian part for you.
- Drop in a link and get a clean, filed note
- Everything connects to what you already saved
- Ask a question, get an answer with citations
Three steps. Then BlackHole runs itself.
Drop it in.
A URL, PDF, image, audio, video, or a tweet thread. Drag it, paste it, or capture the current tab in one click.
BlackHole does the work.
BlackHole reads or transcribes what you dropped in, writes a clean note with a title, summary, tags, and source, then links it to your related notes and files it where it belongs.
BlackHole keeps itself organized.
In the background, BlackHole keeps the graph current: new links, merged duplicates, tidy tags. Your knowledge base gets better as it grows, not messier.
Then ask BlackHole anything: “what did I save about the Roman Empire?”, “connect these two ideas,” “draft an outline from everything I saved on sourdough.”
Runs completely offline. And shows you it did.
Flip one switch and BlackHole runs with zero cloud. Every outbound AI request is blocked, and the Activity page keeps a live counter you can watch sit at zero.
Cloud AI with your own API key, for the best results. What you ask about goes to your chosen model provider (for example, OpenRouter).
See it for yourself
Pick a local mode and BlackHole stops every outbound AI request. The Activity page logs what it does, so you can see exactly what happened and watch the cloud-call count sit at zero.
each one logged with host and purpose
secrets stripped before every send · PII opt-in
Runs on your machine
A local model that files your notes right.
Tag, link, and file every note with an AI that runs entirely on your own hardware. We benchmarked seven small local models on an everyday laptop to pick one that's genuinely good at the job, then made it switchable per note.
Want maximum quality? Bring your own cloud key. Want maximum privacy? The local model is right there. Your data, your call.
Powered by Ollama: local models you run yourself, free and open-source.
Offline mode's one exception is an anonymous license check (your key and a machine id). Never your notes.
Text, articles, audio, and documents work fully offline.
On-device image captioningComing soon
Chat answers come with citations to the notes they used, and it's built to say “I couldn't find that” rather than guess.
Want it fully offline on day one?
Get BlackHoleFiling follows PARA. Every note is sorted by how actionable it is, most active first:
- Projects
- active work with a goal or deadline
- Areas
- ongoing responsibilities you maintain
- Resources
- topics and references for later
- Archive
- anything finished or inactive
It all lives in a folder you can open without us.
BlackHole writes standard Markdown into a folder you control, sorted with PARA so you can always find things. Nothing's trapped in a proprietary format.
- Works with any Obsidian vault
- Readable in any text editor, forever
- Delete BlackHole and your notes stay put
Filing follows the PARA method — Tiago Forte's system from Building a Second Brain. Read about PARA (opens in new tab)
What you save comes back to you.
The return trip, built in: a fast triage inbox, a morning digest, and search that works by meaning.
Triage inbox
A fast, keyboard-driven keep / skip / clear queue, so your inbox hits zero instead of becoming a junk drawer. “Keep” accepts the suggested folder in one tap.
Digests & resurfacing
BlackHole brings things back on its own: “on this day”, buried gems, the read-laters you never opened. No flashcards, no homework.
Search by meaning
Find what you saved by what it’s about, not the exact words. Filter by tag, type, and date, then jump to the chat to ask about it.
When you ask, BlackHole reads the whole note, not scraps.
Most “chat with your notes” tools paste in tiny fragments and hope. BlackHole works out the right scope (a topic, a folder, a cluster) and hands the AI the full notes, the way you'd brief a sharp assistant. Ask BlackHole to draft an outline of everything you saved about something, and it compiles a brief and files it back.
Under the hood: a token-budget router. Full notes when they fit, search as the fallback, graph-aware for “how do these connect” questions.
Convinced?
Get BlackHoleA famous AI researcher builds his notes this way. By hand.
In April 2026, Andrej Karpathy popularized building a personal “LLM knowledge base”: let an AI compile your sources into a linked Markdown wiki you can load straight into context. It works, if you're willing to wire it up by hand. BlackHole is the same idea, without the setup.
The manual way
Curate the sources, write the wiki, keep every page linked and current. Yourself.
BlackHole
Drop things in. The wiki writes, links, and maintains itself.
Karpathy's LLM wiki, but without being Karpathy.
Read the original post (opens in new tab)It keeps working after you save.
The vault is the foundation. A maintenance layer runs on top of it, and most of it is already in the build.
A librarian that works nights
LiveA nightly job already rebuilds your knowledge graph, and a morning digest resurfaces what you'd forgotten. Next up: proposed merges and tag cleanups you approve with a click, each landing as a diff you can undo.
- +Rebuilt your knowledge graph
- +Linked 12 new captures into the graph
- +Resurfaced 3 notes in today’s digest
- !Flagged 2 stale notes for review
Use it from any AI
LiveFrom Claude or any MCP-capable AI: say “save this to my second brain” or “what did I save about X” and it routes through BlackHole into your local vault. Capture, search, and grounded answers ship as MCP tools.
A map of everything you know
LiveBlackHole finds the people, concepts, and things your notes are about and how they connect, then uses that map to link notes and answer questions. This one is live — explore it.
The part others skip is the whole product.
What BlackHole does — that the others don't
- Auto tags, links & filingYes
- Brings things back to youYes
- Maintains itself (dedupe, re-linking, tag cleanup)Yes
- Your data stays localYes
- Runs fully offline (no-cloud AI)Yes
- Use from any AIComing soon
- Own it: one-timeYes
Obsidian needs manual plugins; read-later apps keep your notes on their servers; Smart Connections only suggests similar notes.
Read-later apps = Recall, Readwise and similar, which hold your notes on their servers. Smart Connections is the Obsidian similarity plugin. Obsidian runs fully offline with manual plugin setup. ~ = partial.
Everything BlackHole already does.
The whole feature set that ships today — before anything on the roadmap below.
Capture
- Drop a URL, PDF, image, audio, video, or text
- One-click capture from your browser
- Bulk import — Pocket, Readwise, Instapaper, bookmarks
Organize
- Clean Markdown notes with frontmatter + reuse-first tags
- Filed straight into your Obsidian vault
- Auto wiki-linking to related notes
- Dedup on re-drop · triage of low-confidence notes
Retrieve
- Ask your vault — streamed answers with [[citations]]
- Hybrid search (meaning + keyword)
- Knowledge graph + maps of content
- Daily digest + stale-note resurfacing
Privacy & control
- Cloud (BYOK), Local-only, or Offline modes
- Egress guard + activity view
- Your files stay plain Markdown you own
Integrations
- MCP — talk to your vault from Claude Desktop or Code
- Self-updating, signed & notarized macOS app
Where BlackHole goes next.
It's all free during the beta. The first 100 Founders help decide what we build first.
Now
Building it- Sharper answersv0.2
Smarter chunking for more precise retrieval and citations from your vault.
Next
Planned- Research my vaultv0.4Founders vote
Ask one big question, get a synthesized answer across your whole vault.
- Guided setupv0.3
A five-minute first run with a demo vault, so you see the magic before committing your own notes.
- Trustworthy citationsv0.3
Every answer labeled by how well its source backs it — extracted, inferred, or unsupported.
- Keys in the Keychainv0.3
Your API keys stored in the macOS Keychain, not a plain config file.
- True offlinev0.4
Fully offline, zero network — a verified license with no cloud check at all.
Later
We're exploring- More ways inFounders vote
Forward an email or share from your iPhone straight into your vault.
- Faster transcriptionFounders vote
Native Apple-Silicon speed for local audio and video.
- Smarter local searchFounders vote
Reranking and stronger local embeddings for better offline results.
- Vault upkeepFounders vote
Keeps your vault clean as it grows — duplicate detection and a health scan.
Version tags are targets, not promises. Everything here is free during the beta; “Later” items are things we're exploring, and Founders help set the order.
One price, no meter running.
Free
For trying the whole thing
- The full product — no features held back
- 50 saves to try — total, not monthly
- Unlimited questions
- Bring your own AI key, or run fully local
Pro
For everyday use
- Unlimited saves
- Every version, free for life — v1, v2, v3…
- 2 devices
- Bring your own AI key, or run fully local
- Search and auto-linking run on your machine, free
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Managed
For hands-off AI, no keys
- We host the AI — no keys to manage
- Priced separately when it lands
- Everything in Pro, always current
Available after launch
Founders Edition
First 100 licenses
BlackHole is built by one person. The first 100 people who back it at launch aren't just early customers — they're the reason it exists past week one. So Founders get more than a discount.
- Every version, free for life — v1, v2, v3, forever — Founders never pay for an upgrade.
- A numbered Founder badge (#001–#100) — plus your name in the credits.
- A direct line to the founder — priority support, answered by the person who built it.
- A vote on the roadmap — you help decide what ships next.
- Early access — new builds before anyone else.
- Founding price, locked — $79 now · Standard is $129.
I'm not a company with a marketing budget — I'm a developer who got tired of watching my own vault rot, and built the fix. If you're one of the first 100, you're funding the roadmap, and I want you to feel that. Thank you.
What does “bring your own key” actually cost?
Or run fully local — $0, forever.
You pay your AI provider directly for what you use — no markup from us. On a cheap model it's pocket change, and in fully-local mode there's no bill at all.
Typical costs on cheap OpenRouter models (Gemini Flash, GPT-4.1-mini); your provider bills you directly. Asking questions is the main cost — saving is nearly free, and embeddings always run locally. Even a “search my whole vault” question runs about a dime. Fully-local mode costs nothing.
30-day money-back guarantee. Pay once, keep every 1.x update, own it outright.
Pro billing runs through Polar, which handles tax and license keys.
Answers for the skeptical.
Mac, Windows, or Linux?
macOS first. Windows and Linux are on the roadmap.
Is my data private?
Yes, and you can prove it. Pick Cloud, Local-only, or Offline at setup. In a local mode a network guard blocks every outbound AI call, and the Activity page shows a live count that stays at zero. Either way your notes are plain Markdown on your machine.
What's the difference between Cloud, Local-only, and Offline?
Cloud (the default) uses cloud AI with your own key, for the best quality. Local-only runs the AI on your machine with Ollama, with no cloud calls. Offline goes further: zero outbound except an anonymous license check, never your notes.
Do I need Obsidian?
No. BlackHole works on its own with a plain Markdown folder. If you love Obsidian, one click sets it up over the same folder.
Do I need an API key?
For Pro and Free, you bring your own (OpenRouter takes a minute and costs a few dollars a month for most people). Search and auto-linking run on your machine, free. Managed includes everything; no keys.
I don't want to deal with API keys.
That's what the Managed tier is for: we host the AI, you never touch a key. It lands after launch — join the waitlist and we'll tell you when it's live. Or run Local-only with Ollama and skip keys entirely.
What do I get on the free tier?
The whole product — nothing held back — on your first 50 saves. That's a lifetime allowance, not a monthly reset: a trial that never expires. Questions are unlimited even on Free. When BlackHole earns a place in your week, Pro lifts the save cap for one payment.
How do updates work?
Every 1.x update is delivered automatically — free, and no account required. A built-in updater keeps the app current, so “pay once, updates included” is literally true rather than a promise.
What happens at version 2?
Founders Edition (the first 100) includes every future version free for life — v1, v2, v3, for as long as the product exists. Standard includes all 1.x updates; a major release like v2 is a paid upgrade. Both are personal-use licenses, good on up to 2 devices.
What happens if you shut down?
You lose nothing. Your notes are plain Markdown files in your own folder, search runs locally, and a one-time license doesn't phone home to stay valid. The app keeps working; the files were always yours.
Does it lock me in?
No. It's just Markdown files. Export, switch tools, or open them in any editor anytime.
What can I drop in?
Links and web pages, PDFs, images, audio, video, YouTube, and tweet threads (auto-unrolled). More import sources (Pocket, Readwise, bookmarks) are on the way.
Is this RAG?
Not the usual kind. Instead of pasting chopped fragments into the prompt, it loads the full relevant notes into context, and only falls back to search-style retrieval when a topic outgrows the token budget.
Won't you end up with a giant, unsearchable Markdown repo?
The Markdown is just storage. Findability comes from an index next to your files (embeddings + keywords in one SQLite file), so search works the same at a hundred notes or fifty thousand.
Read more →Does it scan the whole corpus on every query?
No. Each note is indexed when it's saved, so a query is a lookup against a bounded set of the most relevant notes — never a scan of the vault.
Read more →What if it files or categorizes something wrong?
Filing is confidence-gated. If the model isn't sure where a note belongs, it parks it in your inbox instead of guessing, so the worst case is “waiting for you to look,” not “buried somewhere wrong.” It also doesn't matter much, because links are computed from a note's content, not its folder. A misfiled note still connects to the right things, and moving it later doesn't break anything.
Why sqlite-vec instead of a dedicated vector DB like LanceDB or pgvector?
Everything already lives in one SQLite file, and sqlite-vec keeps the vectors there too: one store, no extra process, installs clean, runs offline. The tradeoff (exact search, not approximate) is ideal for a personal vault and wrong for millions of documents — we're the former.
Read more →How does it chunk my documents?
Mostly it doesn't. Whole notes are loaded into context when they fit the token budget; chunking is a query-time fallback for oversized notes, never something that happens at intake.
Read more →How are related notes actually linked?
Four signals get fused: exact title and alias matches, semantic similarity from embeddings, shared entities in a knowledge graph, and shared tags. Strong matches become inline [[wikilinks]]; softer ones go in a Related list. None of the four looks at the folder, so connections survive any reorganizing you do later.
Read more →Start saving things you'll actually use again.
One-time license · Your data stays yours · No lock-in (it's just Markdown)