u/heliosarun

Quick confession before the pitch: I'm the developer, so this is honest self-promo, and I'll keep it real.

Here's the thing that broke me. A thought shows up mid-task, a fix I'll forget by lunch, a name, the one good line for an email. I go to save it, and opening Notes or messaging myself on Slack takes just long enough that by the time the window is up I've lost both the thought and my place in the actual work. Multiply that by a dozen times a day and it's death by a thousand context switches.

So I built Jot. Press Option+Space from any app, type the thought, hit Command+Return, done. It lands in a searchable local log and the window disappears, dropping you back exactly where you were. No app to find, no place lost, no train of thought derailed. Search it all later, or export to Markdown.

It runs fully offline, requests zero permissions (no Accessibility, mic, or screen recording), has no account or login, and keeps your notes in a plain text file you own. Nothing leaves your Mac, so there's nothing to leak.

On purpose, it doesn't sync, do folders, rich text, or AI. Just fast capture, search, and export.

Pricing: one-time $4.99, or $2.49 with code LAUNCH2026 (limited availability).

Available for lifetime free once purchased, works on up to 3 Macs, free updates.

Here is the website: https://jot.arunbrahma.com

Real question for this crowd: how many thoughts do you reckon you lose in a day just because capturing them means leaving what you're doing? Curious whether it's just me.

I'm the developer, so this is honest self-promo.

Problem: a thought lands while I'm mid-task (a code review, a call), and opening a notes app means losing my place, so I lose the thought instead.

What Jot does: press Option+Space from any app, type, hit Command+Return, and it's saved to a searchable local log. You're back to work without really leaving. Search it later, or export to Markdown.

Compare: unlike Apple Notes, capturing never means switching apps or syncing to iCloud, and your notes stay in a plain local file with no account. Unlike Drafts (great app, but its full Mac features need a subscription), Jot only does capture, search, and export, for a one-time price.

A few more things:

• Permission-free: no Accessibility, mic, or screen-recording prompts.
• Fully offline, notes in a plain file you own.
• About 650 KB, native Swift, notarized, macOS 14+.
• No sync, folders, rich text, or AI, on purpose.

Pricing: normally $4.99, or $2.49 with code LAUNCH2026 (only limited availability).

One-time, no subscription, up to 3 Macs, free updates.

Website: https://jot.arunbrahma.com.

I'm Arun, an independent dev: portfolio https://arunbrahma.com, email contact@arunbrahma.com.

Changelog: v1.0, first public release.

AI disclaimer: [Human Validated]

Feedback welcome, especially: is Option+Space a good default, or does it clash with something you use? I'll be in the comments.

I open a new tab maybe 200 times a day, and at some point I realized every single one was low-key stressing me out before I'd even done anything. The default page, Momentum, all of them: grids of tiny icons, "good morning Arun," a news feed I never asked for, some quote about hustle. I just wanted to look at something nice for two seconds and get on with it.

So I built Nook Tab. It's a new tab page that mostly just... shuts up.

You open a tab and it's a full-screen nature photo (a new one each day), a clock, the weather, and a search bar. That's the whole front. Everything else stays hidden until you go looking for it.

The part I'm secretly proud of: there's a Pomodoro built in, and it syncs across every tab you have open. Start a focus session in one, and every other tab dims and shows the same countdown. Close a tab, open a fresh one, timer's still going. That bit took me embarrassingly long to get right and it's the thing people go "oh, that's cool" at.

Also in there: sticky notes you can drag around, and 7 ambient sound loops (rain, ocean, a crackling fireplace, and for reasons I can't explain, a Hungarian train ride I got weirdly attached to).

The boring-but-it-matters stuff: free, no account, no sign-up, no tracking, no analytics. I wrote it in plain HTML/CSS/JS with no framework so it loads instantly. Open source if you want to dig through it.

It's brand new and has like 7 users, half of which are probably just me on different laptops. So please tear it apart: what's missing, what's annoying, what would actually make you keep it past day one?

Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nook-tab/loogeapnnikphlehifdfmmceaeidbhnd

I used SuperWhisper for a while and liked it. But the audio still goes to a server somewhere, and I didn't want to rent a utility indefinitely. Wispr Flow is the same deal.

So I built Purr. It's free, MIT-licensed, and everything runs on your Mac's Apple Neural Engine. No account, no subscription, no telemetry. After the first model download (~450 MB) it works fully offline.

The basic flow: hold Right Option, speak, release. Words appear in whatever text field has focus - Slack, Notes, a terminal, a browser input, anywhere.

Three things I put real time into that most dictation apps don't do well:

Smart Typing - words appear live as you speak, not all dumped at once when you release the key. Each phrase lands as its own undoable chunk, so Cmd+Z still works the way you'd expect, and autocorrect doesn't go haywire. Uses Parakeet TDT v2 on the ANE, which is why it's Apple Silicon only. Swap to WhisperKit in settings if you need a language other than English (~100 languages, though it's batch so words land on release).

Voice Edit - select some text, hold the voice-edit hotkey, and say "change X to Y", "delete that last sentence", "capitalize", or just speak what you want instead. A parser handles the common command patterns; anything else replaces the selection wholesale. Works in any Accessibility-supported text field (most native macOS apps) and falls back to paste elsewhere.

Meeting Mode - captures your mic and your Mac's system audio together, so the whole call gets transcribed, not just your side. Speaker diarization runs locally (FluidAudio on ANE). Transcripts save as Markdown. Can also generate a sidecar summary with TL;DR, decisions, and action items using Apple's on-device model on macOS 26, or Gemma 3 4B locally on older systems.

Also has a custom dictionary (teach it your proper nouns and acronyms), filler word trimming, and in-speech commands like "new paragraph", "comma", "scratch that".

GitHub: https://github.com/iamarunbrahma/purr
Website: https://purr.arunbrahma.com