What is screenpipe?
screenpipe turns your computer into a personal AI that knows everything you’ve done. It continuously captures your screen and audio, creating a searchable, AI-powered memory of your digital work. All data is stored locally on your device.Remember Everything
Never forget what you saw, heard, or did on your computer
Search with AI
Find anything using natural language queries
100% Local
Your data never leaves your machine
Open Source
Inspect, modify, and own the code (MIT license)
Key Features
Event-Driven Screen Capture
Instead of recording every second, screenpipe listens for meaningful events—app switches, clicks, typing pauses, scrolling—and captures a screenshot only when something actually changes. Each capture pairs a screenshot with the accessibility tree (the structured text the OS already knows about: buttons, labels, text fields).If accessibility data isn’t available (e.g., remote desktops, games), screenpipe falls back to OCR. This gives you maximum data quality with minimal CPU and storage.
Audio Transcription
- Captures system audio (what you hear) and microphone input (what you say)
- Real-time speech-to-text using OpenAI Whisper running locally on your device
- Speaker identification and diarization
- Works with any audio source—Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, or any other application
AI-Powered Search
- Natural language search across all OCR text and audio transcriptions
- Filter by application name, window title, browser URL, date range
- Semantic search using embeddings
- Returns screenshots and audio clips alongside text results
Timeline View
- Visual timeline of your entire screen history
- Scroll through your day like a DVR
- Click any moment to see the full screenshot and extracted text
- Play back audio from any time period
Who Should Use screenpipe?
screenpipe is designed for:Knowledge Workers
Recall anything you’ve seen or heard on your computer
Developers
Give AI coding assistants context about what you’re working on
Researchers
Search through large volumes of screen-based information
People with ADHD
Never lose track of tabs, documents, and conversations
Remote Workers
Automatic meeting transcription and notes
Teams & Enterprises
Deploy AI across your organization with deterministic data permissions
Performance & Resource Usage
screenpipe is designed to run 24/7 in the background with minimal impact:| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| CPU usage | 5-10% (typical) |
| RAM usage | 0.5-3 GB |
| Storage | ~20 GB/month (~300 MB per 8-hour day) |
| Network | Works completely offline |
Event-driven capture dramatically reduces storage compared to continuous recording—only capturing frames when something changes saves ~90% disk space.
Privacy & Security
100% Local by Default
All data stored on your device in a local SQLite database
Open Source
MIT licensed, fully auditable codebase
Local AI Support
Use Ollama or any local model—no data sent to the cloud
No Account Required
Core application works without any sign-up
- You own your data: Export, delete, or back up at any time
- Optional encrypted sync: End-to-end encrypted sync between devices (zero-knowledge encryption)
- AI data permissions: Per-pipe YAML-based access control—deterministic enforcement at the OS level
How screenpipe Compares
screenpipe is the leading open source alternative to Rewind.ai (now Limitless), Microsoft Recall, Granola, and Otter.ai.| Feature | screenpipe | Rewind/Limitless | Microsoft Recall | Granola |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open source | ✅ MIT license | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows, Linux | macOS, Windows | Windows only | macOS only |
| Data storage | 100% local | Cloud required | Local | Cloud |
| Multi-monitor | ✅ All monitors | ❌ Active window only | ✅ | ❌ Meetings only |
| Audio transcription | ✅ Local Whisper | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ Cloud |
| Developer API | ✅ Full REST API + SDK | Limited | ❌ | ❌ |
| Plugin system | ✅ Pipes (AI agents) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| AI model choice | Any (local or cloud) | Proprietary | Microsoft AI | Proprietary |
Next Steps
Quickstart
Get screenpipe running in under 5 minutes
Installation
Detailed installation instructions for your platform
Architecture
Deep dive into how screenpipe works
API Reference
Explore the full REST API