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. Your own domain with Pro.
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.
- GLM 5.3 answers cleanly. GLM 5.3 and GLM 5.3 Flash on Ollama Cloud can't turn thinking off, so with Think off they wrote their reasoning…
- What leaves this Mac. While Ollama Cloud models are on, listing them asks Ollama for each model's settings; only the model's name is…
- A research note is only the note. If a model writes working notes before a research note, Canto keeps only the note and says so on the…
- Think on stays on. In a chat with Think on, every step of an answer thinks, including the recovery steps that used to turn it off; those…
- One renderer for the chat and the note. Charts, callouts, toggles and tables a model writes look the same in the chat and in the note…
- Charts always draw. A chart now draws when the model wrote its caption as %% title: above it, left out its fence, or wrote loose JSON…
- Charts with captions. Charts, diagrams and the new figures share one frame in chats, notes, published pages and PDFs: the caption sits…
- Charts while they're written. A chart the model is still writing shows "Drawing the chart…" instead of its raw text, and a long answer…
- One Canto in the Dock. Opening Settings › Models added a second Canto icon to the Dock that kept bouncing until you quit, and clicking it…
- No error when quitting with Quick capture open. Quitting could log "Object has been destroyed" on the way out.
- Memory is read without starting a process. Canto used to start three small programs every second, for as long as it ran, to read the…
- Linked folders stay quiet. With a folder linked in Folders on this Mac, Canto's search re-indexed every file in it every 3 minutes, even…
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, with 12 months of new Pro features you keep.
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 and your own domain
- 12 months of new Pro features, yours to keep
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. Pay by card or PayPal.
Never behind a paywall: encryption, backups, Markdown export, version history, security updates, and your own models and servers. Bought Canto before 1.0? Your license now covers 3 Macs and every new Pro feature, for life, at no cost. Renewals, 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 with your own domain, and sync between Macs with Pro · 3 Macs.
Is Pro a subscription?
No. Pro is a one-time purchase that includes the Pro features released in the 12 months after you buy, yours to keep. Updates and security fixes stay free for everyone; a renewal is optional and only adds newer Pro features.
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