Open source
$0Free, MIT licenseThe full app with no account; the only download besides the ~20 MB app is the 865 MB model, fetched once. Official source 1 ↗
Reviewed tool profile
DigUp
Free, open-source Mac menu bar app that finds photos, PDF pages, video and audio moments, and code by describing what's in them, fully on-device.
Sources checked
- Pricing
- Free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tier or account. Support is optional through a buy-me-a-coffee link. Official source 1 ↗
- Available as
- macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon (tested on macOS 26), installed from the DMG on GitHub Releases or with Homebrew. Windows and Linux versions are announced but not yet available. · A command-line tool built from source can index, search and run the evals from the terminal. Official source 1 ↗ Official source 1 ↗
- Primary group
- Productivity
What it does
DigUp searches the files on your Mac by what's in them. You pick the folders, it reads the pictures, PDFs, documents, recordings and videos inside, and you describe what you're looking for in your own words; everything runs on the Mac with Google DeepMind's EmbeddingGemma 2.
Official source 1 ↗Features
- One search across photos, PDFs, audio and video. Every picture, PDF page, passage, video frame and 30 seconds of sound shares one vector space, so a text query can open a clip at the moment something appears, jump to the minute of a podcast, or show the matching PDF page with the words marked. Official source 1 ↗
- Exact words alongside meaning. A keyword index sits next to the vectors, so invoice numbers, error codes and names are matched as written in file names, document text and text inside screenshots, and exact matches get a ranking boost. Official source 1 ↗
- Cross-language search. A query in one language can find a note written in another, across the model's 100+ languages. Official source 1 ↗
- Optional code search. Turned on per folder, code search finds functions by what they do or by name with a code: prefix and opens results at the line in Zed, VS Code, Cursor, Xcode, Sublime Text, JetBrains IDEs and others. Code has its own index and skips git-ignored, vendored and generated files and anything that looks like a secret. Official source 1 ↗
- Keyboard-driven search panel. Shift-Command-Space opens the search panel from any app; results open at the page or moment, preview in Quick Look, reveal in Finder, or move to a bigger window with a picture grid and filters. Official source 1 ↗
- On-device and private. Nothing you index leaves the Mac. The app only goes online to download the model once and for a daily update check that can be turned off; there is no account and no telemetry, and it never changes, moves or uploads your files. Official source 1 ↗
- Incremental indexing. After the first pass, only new files are read, and a new file becomes searchable a second or two after it lands. Indexing pauses in Low Power Mode and can wait for a charger. Official source 1 ↗
Pricing & free limits
Billing details
There is nothing to buy; the developer accepts optional support through buy me a coffee. Official source 1 ↗
Free access & limits
The whole app is free, with no account and no paid tier. Official source 1 ↗
Best for & limitations
Find the moment in a podcast or recording where a topic comes up, and open it at that minute. Official source 1 ↗
Locate a clause in a long PDF, such as a lease, by describing it, and open the page with the words marked. Official source 1 ↗
Dig up an old screenshot of an error or a photo by describing what it shows. Official source 1 ↗
Find a function in your own projects by what it does when you can't remember its name. Official source 1 ↗
- Apple Silicon Macs only. Requires an Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later; Windows and Linux versions are not available yet. Official source 1 ↗
- Exact-word matching is weaker for Chinese, Japanese and Thai. Meaning search covers 100+ languages, but exact-word matching does not split languages written without spaces, and text inside screenshots is read by Apple's OCR, which knows about 25 languages. Evals cover only English, Bengali and Arabic. Official source 1 ↗
- Slow first index and a large model. The first pass can take an hour for a big Downloads folder, and the model is an 865 MB download. Official source 1 ↗
- Cloud-only iCloud files are skipped. DigUp never downloads iCloud files that exist only in the cloud, and it does not read code outside folders enabled for code search. Official source 1 ↗
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