New Rewind Mac app is a search engine for your digital life

A new Mac app called Rewind wants to make searching through your digital life easier.

Think of it as a helper for your memory or your organizational skills. When installed, it indexes everything you work on, read online, type in chat apps, or say in video meetings.

Then it creates a searchable timeline, so you can always find those pieces of information, even if you can’t remember where you had seen them.

Rewind was created by Dan Siroker, of Optimizely fame, and Brett Bejcek. Here’s what you need to know.

This Mac app is the ‘search engine for your life’

So you know, only some Macs are going to be compatible. Rewind’s AI uses every single part of Apple silicon to create the searchable index.

That means you need a Mac with either an M1 or M2 chip; Intel Macs won’t be powerful enough.

All you have to do after installing is to use your Mac how you would normally. Rewind uses APIs to determine which app is focused on your Mac and then records the behavior from that app.

That could be your daily video conference with your workmates, your research on your browser, or creating files in cloud services. Rewind takes note of everything and creates a timeline you can search.

Those recordings never make it off your Mac, with all the processing done locally using the power of Apple Silicon.

Users can pause or delete recordings anytime or exclude sensitive apps like password managers from being recorded.

Rewind is currently in early access. You can sign up on their website to get access once the company increases availability to more users.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• New M2 MacBook Pro models expected to launch soon
• What is the latest macOS version?
• Apple promotes gambling ads alongside therapy apps (updated)
• Delete these Android and iOS apps: they’re riddled with adware

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.