Fenn
Private offline AI search for everything on your Mac
Fenn is the most comprehensive private, offline search tool for Mac we've seen, handling deep content search across files, apps, and screen recordings, all locally. The Mac-only, Apple Silicon requirement and $9/month price will rule it out for some, but for privacy-first power users, it's hard to beat. If you need Windows/Linux support or team collaboration, consider cloud alternatives like Dropbox Dash or Google Drive search, but accept the privacy trade-offs.
Verified 2d ago · liveness 73/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/fenn
- Privacy-conscious Mac users who want offline semantic search over their entire local file system
- Designers and creatives managing visual assets (Figma, Sketch, Adobe files) who need content-level search
- Researchers and analysts who need to find specific text, images, or audio segments without cloud upload
- Mac users who want to organize, rename, and chat with files using local AI
- Windows or Linux users – Fenn is macOS-only and requires Apple Silicon
- Users needing cloud sync, cross-device search, or team collaboration features
- Those who prefer free tools – Fenn's free trial is limited, then paid plans start at $9/month
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Skip Fenn if you're on Windows or Linux, need cloud sync or team collaboration, or if you're not comfortable with a Mac-only tool that requires Apple Silicon and a paid subscription after a limited free trial.
The free tier is very limited – you'll likely need the $9/month Flex plan for basic AI features like semantic search and chat.
Fenn's pricing at $9/month (billed annually) is positioned for privacy-focused Mac power users. It's more expensive than built-in Spotlight but far cheaper than enterprise cloud search tools. A $249 lifetime option offers a one-time cost for long-term users, while the $999 team tier is steep for small teams compared to collaboration tools like Notion or Dropbox Dash.
In short
Fenn — Private offline AI search for everything on your Mac. Best for Privacy-conscious Mac users who want offline semantic search over their entire local file system, Designers and creatives managing visual assets (Figma, Sketch, Adobe files) who need content-level search, Researchers and analysts who need to find specific text, images, or audio segments without cloud upload. Free to start; paid plans from $9/mo.
What's new in Fenn
Checked 8 days agoAcross the latest 5 updates: 4 feature updates and 1 news mention.
Fenn vs VidFinder: Find the Clip or Find the Moment?
Comparison highlighting Fenn's ability to find exact moments in videos, not just clips.
Use ChatGPT Without Sharing Private Data
Introduces the anonymizer feature that lets you use ChatGPT with local files without exposing private data.
Search Notion Notes on Mac
Adds support for searching Notion notes locally via the Notion offline cache.
Search Craft Notes on Mac
Adds support for searching Craft notes locally, enhancing app data search capabilities.
Search Bear Notes on Mac
Adds support for searching Bear notes locally, expanding the range of indexed note-taking apps.
What people actually say about Fenn — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
33 mentions across 3 sources (Hacker News, Product Hunt, Lemmy) · researched Jul 3, 2026.
- +Semantic search finds files by content, not just filenames
- +Works fully offline with no cloud uploads or account needed
- +Indexes video, audio, images, PDFs, and design files
- +Native Apple Silicon support ensures good performance
- +Chat with files for summaries and comparisons privately
- −Indexing may consume significant disk space over time
- −Future pricing unannounced creates uncertainty for adopters
- −Limited community feedback makes it hard to gauge reliability
- −Search depth in images and audio not fully clear
- −Privacy of visual processing could be explained better
- • Future pricing may be introduced; potential cost for continued use
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Fenn? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: September 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Search inside 50+ file types including PDFs, videos, audio, images, documents, and design files
- Semantic & keyword search
- Agentic search across files
- Chat with files privately – ask, summarize, compare with citations
- AI-powered file renaming based on content
- Auto-organize folders that stay up to date
- Export file data to CSV
- Face recognition and search inside videos
- Find & remove duplicate files
- Screen memory search for meetings, chats, and shared screens
- Audio & video transcription
- File anonymizer before sharing with ChatGPT
- Search Notion, Bear, Craft, Apple Notes, Apple Mail locally
- Search visual content from screenshots and screen recordings
- iPhone Companion app
About Fenn
Fenn is a macOS app that indexes your entire Mac—documents, images, audio, video, screenshots, and design files—and makes it all searchable with on-device AI. Everything runs 100% offline, so your files never leave your machine. For privacy-conscious power users, designers, and researchers, Fenn understands content inside files, letting you find the exact page, timestamp, or screen you need. You can also chat with your files, auto-organize folders, rename files with AI, and export structured data to CSV. Fenn searches inside 50+ file types, including PDFs, Word, Excel, Pages, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, RAW images, Figma files, MP3, MP4, and developer formats like Markdown and XML. It also indexes app data from Apple Notes, Apple Mail, Notion, Bear, and Craft—all locally, using each app's offline cache. Recent updates added face recognition inside videos, the ability to search anything you've seen on your Mac (including meetings and shared screens that were never saved as files), and a file anonymizer that lets you use ChatGPT without sharing private data. Organizing is as central as searching. Fenn's auto-organize folders stay up to date as files change, AI-based renaming works on images, audio, video, and PDFs, and duplicate detection cleans up clutter. Screen memory search recalls moments from meetings, chats, and dashboards that were never saved as files. With citations back to the source file, Fenn's chat feature lets you ask questions, summarize, compare versions, and extract content with confidence. Fenn runs natively on Apple Silicon and requires no account or internet connection for indexing. It integrates with LM Studio for running local LLMs, and can anonymize sensitive data before sharing files with ChatGPT. Priced at $9/month (billed annually) with a $249 lifetime option and a $999 team tier, Fenn positions itself as the most private and capable local search tool for Mac. Unlike cloud-based search tools like Dropbox Dash, Fenn keeps
Behind the Verdict
Sandwich your verdict here. If it's mostly positive, offer a caveat; if mixed, lead with the redeeming quality. Private AI search on Mac is a niche, and Fenn owns it. Unlike Spotlight or cloud tools like Dropbox Dash, Fenn actually reads the content inside your PDFs, videos, and design files—then lets you ask questions and get answers with citations. The indexing is fully on-device, which is a legit privacy win: no files ever leave your Mac, and there’s no account required. The pricing structure is refreshingly simple: $9/month billed annually, a $249 lifetime option, and a $999 team tier. The free trial is limited, but the lifetime deal is the one to watch if you’re a long-term Mac user—pay once, get all features including updates for a year. For teams, the $999 one-time fee covers multiple Macs, which is rare among local search tools. Where Fenn loses points: it’s macOS-only and requires Apple Silicon, so Windows or Linux users are out. And if you rely on cloud sync or team collaboration features, this isn't built for that—it’s strictly a local, single-user tool. The indexing does chew up disk space, so on a small SSD you might need to be selective about what you index. Compared to alternatives, Fenn is the most thorough offline option we’ve tested. Spotlight finds file names, but Fenn finds content within files, audio, and video. Dropbox Dash is fine for cloud-synced files, but you’re sending your data to Dropbox’s servers. For privacy-first users, the trade-off is worth it. In practice, the face recognition and screen memory search are the killer features—recall a moment from a meeting or a shared screen you never saved as a file. That’s not something you get anywhere else locally. Just make sure you have the storage headroom and a recent Mac, and you’ll
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Fenn actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You need to find a specific design asset from a past project stored in Figma or Adobe files.
Outcome: Use Fenn's semantic search to locate the file by describing its content, then chat with it to extract the exact element you need.
You need to recall a specific statistic mentioned in a recorded meeting from months ago.
Outcome: Use Fenn's screen memory search to find the meeting moment, then transcribe the audio and search for the keyword to pinpoint the exact timestamp.
You want to use ChatGPT to summarize a confidential document but avoid uploading it to the cloud.
Outcome: Use Fenn's anonymizer to detect and remove sensitive data, then export the file for ChatGPT, keeping your private information safe.
Use Cases
- Find a specific slide from a past video call by searching a keyword from the presentation.
- Organize all screenshots of a project into an auto-updating smart folder.
- Rename hundreds of design files based on their visual content using AI.
- Extract invoice data from scanned PDFs into a CSV file for accounting.
- Recall a verbal instruction from a recorded meeting without scrubbing through audio.
- Search for a face seen in a video clip from months ago.
- Locate a specific Notion note from your local cache without internet.
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-08-30
Limitations
- Fenn is a privacy-focused AI search tool for Mac that processes everything locally and works offline.
- It requires Apple Silicon and is exclusive to the Mac platform, with no support for Windows or Linux.
- The tool relies on open-source models and optional local LLMs, which may not match the accuracy of cloud-based equivalents for complex queries.
- The free trial is limited, and paid plans start at $9/month, which could be a barrier for casual users.
- Indexing large libraries may consume significant disk space, and cloud sync or team collaboration features are not offered.
as of 2026-08-26
Verification history
We have re-verified Fenn 8 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Showing the 6 most recent of 8 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published Fenn tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Free
$0/mo
Ideal for
Casual users who want to try basic file indexing and search without AI features.
What this tier adds
Free entry point with limited search functionality and basic indexing, but no AI features.
Flex
$9/mo
Ideal for
Privacy-conscious power users who need full-featured local AI search, including semantic search, screen memory, and organizing tools.
What this tier adds
Adds all AI capabilities: semantic search, chat with files, face recognition, screen memory, and auto-organize, for $9/month billed annually.
Lifetime
$249 one-time
Ideal for
Long-term users who prefer a one-time payment over monthly fees and plan to use Fenn on a single Mac for years.
What this tier adds
One-time $249 payment for all Fenn features and lifetime access, but includes only 1 year of updates.
Teams
$999 one-time
Ideal for
Small teams or businesses that need Fenn on multiple Macs and want a one-time purchase with 6+ months free.
What this tier adds
One-time $999 payment for all Fenn features across multiple Macs, priced for teams.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Fenn's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Fenn's pricing at $9/month (billed annually) is positioned for privacy-focused Mac power users. It's more expensive than built-in Spotlight but far cheaper than enterprise cloud search tools. A $249 lifetime option offers a one-time cost for long-term users, while the $999 team tier is steep for small teams compared to collaboration tools like Notion or Dropbox Dash.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Fenn — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
For a typical Mac user, setup takes about 15 minutes to install and start indexing. Full indexing of a large library (e.g., 100GB) may take several hours. Integrating with LM Studio adds about 30 minutes for configuration.
Switching to or from Fenn
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From Dropbox Dash: Fenn offers a more private alternative with similar file search capabilities, but you'll need to manually index your local files and adjust to the Mac-only environment.
- →From Spotlight: Fenn provides deeper content search and AI-powered organization, but requires installation and a subscription for advanced features.
- ↗To Dropbox Dash: If you need cross-platform or cloud-based search, migrate by uploading your files to Dropbox and using Dash's index, but you'll lose Fenn's local privacy.
- ↗To Google Drive search: For teams, you can move to Google Drive's search if you prioritize collaboration over local privacy.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
Official links
Tools that pair well with Fenn
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Fenn, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Fenn vs Geologicai
These tools solve entirely different problems. GeologicAI is a specialized industrial platform for mining companies needing rapid, sensor-rich core analysis with sub-48-hour turnaround. Fenn is a personal productivity tool for Mac users who want privacy-first semantic search across all local files. Choose based on your role: if you're in critical minerals exploration, pick GeologicAI; if you're a creative or knowledge worker managing a messy local drive, go with Fenn.
Fenn vs Screenplayiq
These tools serve completely different needs. ScreenplayIQ is for film industry professionals who need data-driven script analysis and box office predictions, while Fenn is for privacy-conscious Mac users who want powerful offline search across their files. Pick the one that matches your core task; they don't compete.
Fenn vs Versatile
These tools serve such different domains that a direct comparison is unusual. Choose Versatile if you're a steel erector or GC needing real-time crane analytics to cut overtime; it's purpose-built for crane-intensive jobs. Pick Fenn if you're a Mac user wanting private, offline AI search across all your files, including recent support for Figma/Sketch and screen recordings. There's no overlap.
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AI-native handwriting note-taking for iPad & Mac with smart search, summarization, and lecture transcription.
Frequently Asked Questions
Best-of guides
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