A private notebook that reads with you.
Write in it, think in it, ask it anything you’ve kept. The assistant runs on your Mac, answers with the page it read, and sends nothing anywhere unless you tell it to.
macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon · No account · Prefer the stable release? Canto 0.10.3
Home, drawn from the app on example notes: a thought caught with ⌥Space lands in the Inbox while a meeting records on this Mac.
Writing comes first. The rest waits for you.
A calm page with a serif title, tables, math, diagrams and callouts a slash away. Opening a note never marks it edited, and a save that fails says so and keeps your words.
Ask, and see the page it read.
Ask beside any note. The answer cites its passages, and a citation opens the note at the line it used. Free, unlimited, on your Mac.
A report you can audit, claim by claim.PRO
Deep research reads the web and your notes and writes in your language. The Audit lens shows what each claim rests on, and what still needs a source.
Here is everything that can leave. Itemised.
Canto keeps one list of every feature that sends something off your Mac, each with a real switch, in Settings › Memory & privacy. The same list writes this page and the license agreement.
Your vault is encrypted on disk. Your notes train nothing. The free app has no account.
Small things, done carefully.
Go anywhere, find by meaning, run anything.
Links, and notes similar in meaning, smooth at 5,000.
Four palettes, light and dark. All of them with Pro.
Up to 3 Macs, encrypted with a key only they have.
One note, one page, its sources listed.
Picked by your chip and memory, Small Mac mode on 8 GB. Or bring Ollama, LM Studio or your own key.
Loved by researchers, writers, and developers.
“I was looking for a long time alternative form notion, I have tried many apps and its always a pain of selecting between ai workflows or just local editing, and most of the UI did feel off when you come from notion. Everthing finally clicked with Canto !! You will love using it endlessly!!”
“The way it cites everything gives me real confidence—when I’m evaluating technical decisions or keeping up with Vision Pro development, I need to know the output is grounded and not hallucinated.”
“The app design/interface is super cool. It allows me to jot down my ideas. Also if the content is too large and when I come back and just use the AI, I get to know the just, so not losing my context with regards to what I have already done. All in all it is a good productivity enhancer.”
“Canto will warn you if your local model came up with an unsubstantiated claim, and help you fix those errors, or find a real source to back up any thing that was trained into the model.”
Support, ideas and workflows from the community on Discord and r/CantoApp.
What’s new, release by release.
- No more swaps. A chat on a model server that isn't running (Ollama closed, LM Studio quit) no longer loads a model built into Canto in…
- The model chip shows a small amber dot, and the picker says "Not running", when a chat's server isn't answering. A chat whose server…
- Ollama Cloud without the Ollama app: add your key from ollama.com in Settings › Models › Cloud, which now opens with Plans you already…
- "Last used" follows your latest chat's model, and an answer on battery from a faster model says "instead of …, on battery".
- Ask can read every note and file you point it at. When a question is about a whole folder, a tag or everything a chat reads ("go through…
- Start it from "Read every file first?" above the message field (Just ask sends your message as it is), the row under an answer that read…
- The plan says it all first: how many notes, files and pages, what it will skip and why (a scanned PDF while Read scanned PDFs is off, a…
- While it reads you can keep chatting. The card shows each file's claims and checked quotes, the chat's row in the sidebar shows a ring…
- Follow-ups you can read. The research card lists each whole follow-up with Ask, Research instead, Add to the queue and Remove. Asked ones…
- Run all asks every open follow-up one after another, in a queue above the message field. Stop now or after the current one, skip or…
- Whole chat as a research note. One report from every research run and follow-up in a chat, with the questions it asked. The save sheet…
- Follow-ups search for your question. Since beta 3 they searched for Canto's own wrapper text and found unrelated pages.
Free for everything you write. Pay once for the heavy lifting.
The whole notebook, offline and encrypted. No account, no limits on AI.
Download free1.0 beta- Unlimited AI on your Mac: ask with citations, quick research, rewrite, summarise
- Any local model, Ollama, LM Studio, or your own API key
- Dictation
- Image descriptions, made on this Mac
- Agent edits to one note at a time, with approve and diff
- Canvas and graphs
- Version history, backups and export
- 3 published pages
The heavy lifting on one Mac, and every Pro feature we add later.
Everything in Free, plus
- Deep research reports with the evidence ledger
- Meetings: a transcript (You and Others) and a summary note, made on this Mac
- Agent edits across many notes, and MCP write tools
- All palettes
- 50 published pages
- Every future Pro feature, for life
Everything in Pro on up to 3 Macs, kept in sync.
Everything in Pro · 1 Mac, plus
- Sync between your Macs through iCloud, encrypted with your vault key before it leaves the Mac
- Move a seat from one Mac to another in Your Macs
One-time purchases, not subscriptions. Every Pro license includes every new Pro feature, for life. Pay by card or PayPal.
Never behind a paywall: encryption, backups, Markdown export, version history, security updates, and your own models and servers. Already have Pro? Every license is now for life, at no cost; licenses bought before 1.0 also cover 3 Macs. Upgrades and the pricing FAQ
Frequently asked
Is the download a beta?
Yes: Canto 1.0 is in beta, and the download is the newest beta. Once installed, it keeps itself up to date with newer betas. The first time it opens, it updates your notes database and saves a copy from just before, so keep a backup of your own too. If you would rather wait, Canto 0.10.3 is the stable release.
Which Mac do I need?
A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 14 or later. Canto suggests a model that fits your Mac’s memory; bigger Macs can run bigger models.
Does Canto work offline?
Yes. Your notes, search and the AI all run on your Mac. You only need the internet for things that are online by nature, such as web sources you allow in research or publishing a page.
Which AI models can I use?
Canto downloads and runs open models on your Mac. You can also connect Ollama or LM Studio, or bring your own API key for a cloud model if you choose to.
What is free, and what is Pro?
Free is the whole notebook with unlimited on-device AI, dictation, image descriptions, Canvas, graphs, history, backups, export and 3 published pages. Pro adds deep research reports, meetings, agent edits across many notes, all palettes, 50 published pages, and sync between Macs with Pro · 3 Macs.
Is Pro a subscription?
No. Pro is a one-time purchase that includes every Pro feature we release later, for life. Bug fixes and security updates are free for everyone.
I bought Canto before 1.0. What changes for me?
You bought Canto with lifetime updates, and that stays true: your license now covers 3 Macs and every new Pro feature, for life, at no cost. Update to Canto 1.0 and it moves your Mac over by itself.
More in the Canto guide and the pricing FAQ.
Write it down. Ask it later.
macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon · No account