Screenpipe

news

• 06/10 - we updated our license to keep screenpipe sustainable — more funding, more shipping, better product
• 05/29 - we released an alpha version of our AI PII model outperforming Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI models on computer recording data and running at 9ms on consumer device
• 05/14 - we joined YC S26

what is this?

screenpipe turns your computer into a personal AI that knows everything you've done. record. search. automate. all local, all private, all yours

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  screen + audio → local storage → ai   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

• remember everything - never forget what you saw, heard, or did
• run agents that work based on what you do - pipes are agents triggered by your work activity

• search with ai - find anything using natural language
• 100% local - your data never leaves your machine
• open source - inspect, modify, own

install

download the desktop app — all features, auto-updates

or run the CLI:

npx screenpipe record

then

claude mcp add screenpipe -- npx -y screenpipe-mcp@latest

then ask claude what did i see in the last 5 mins? or summarize today conversations or create a pipe that updates linear every time i work on task X

specs

• captures full accessibility tree, OCR as fallback, transcription, speakers, keyboard inputs, app switches
• 5-10% cpu usage
• 0.5-3gb ram
• ~20gb storage/month
• filters (window, app, chrome extensions, passwords, proprietary AI PII model)
• optional encryption at rest
• works offline

sdk

tauri, electron, swift sdk available today

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines, maintainers, and how to submit PRs. AI/vibe-coded PRs welcome!

Thanks to all contributors:

Translations

• 日本語 (Japanese)
• 简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
• Français (French)
• Español (Spanish)
• Português BR (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Deutsch (German)

Want to translate screenpipe into another language? See translated_readmes/.

About screenpipe

screenpipe is a source-available application that continuously captures your screen and audio, creating a searchable, AI-powered memory of everything you do on your computer. All data is stored locally on your device. It is the leading source-available alternative to Rewind.ai (now Limitless), Microsoft Recall, Granola, and Otter.ai. If you're looking for a rewind alternative, recall alternative, or a private local screen recorder with AI, screenpipe is the most popular option you can fully audit.

• Website: https://screenpi.pe
• Documentation: https://docs.screenpi.pe
• Discord: https://discord.gg/screenpipe
• License: Screenpipe Commercial License (source-available; personal, non-commercial use permitted, commercial use requires a license, see LICENSE.md)

Who screenpipe is for

• Knowledge workers who want to recall anything they've seen or heard on their computer
• Developers who want to give AI coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code, Cline, Continue) context about what they're working on
• Researchers who need to search through large volumes of screen-based information
• People with ADHD who frequently lose track of tabs, documents, and conversations
• Remote workers who want automatic meeting transcription and notes
• Teams & enterprises who want to deploy AI across their organization with deterministic data permissions and central config management (screenpi.pe/team)
• Anyone who wants a private, local-first alternative to cloud-based AI memory tools

Platform support

Minimum requirements: 8 GB RAM recommended. ~5–10 GB disk space per month. CPU usage typically 5–10% on modern hardware thanks to event-driven capture.

Core features

Event-driven screen capture

Instead of recording every second, screenpipe listens for meaningful events — app switches, clicks, typing pauses, scrolling — and captures a screenshot only when something actually changes. Each capture pairs a screenshot with the accessibility tree (the structured text the OS already knows about: buttons, labels, text fields). If accessibility data isn't available (e.g. remote desktops, games), it falls back to OCR. This gives you maximum data quality with minimal CPU and storage — no more processing thousands of identical frames.

Audio transcription

Captures system audio (what you hear) and microphone input (what you say). Real-time speech-to-text using Whisper (Large-V3-Turbo) running locally on your device, or Deepgram for cloud transcription. Speaker identification and diarization. Works with any audio source — Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, or any other application.

On macOS 14.4+, you can exclude specific apps from system-audio capture by listing their bundle IDs in ~/.screenpipe/audio-exclusions.json. Enable Experimental CoreAudio System Audio in Settings → Recording first; the picker UI only appears once that flag is on.

{ "excluded_apps": [{ "bundle_id": "com.spotify.client", "name": "Spotify" }] }

The exclusion list hot-reloads — edits to the file and excluded apps launching/quitting are picked up on the engine's existing 500 ms tap-rebuild loop without restarting screenpipe. Override the file path with SCREENPIPE_AUDIO_EXCLUSIONS_PATH for testing. Note: this requires the "System Audio Recording Only" TCC permission in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording.

AI-powered search

Natural language search across accessibility-first screen text, OCR fallback text, and audio transcriptions. Filter by application name, window title, browser URL, date range. Full-text keyword search (SQLite FTS5) under the hood. Returns screenshots and audio clips alongside text results.

Timeline view

Visual timeline of your entire screen history. Scroll through your day like a DVR. Click any moment to see the full screenshot and extracted text. Play back audio from any time period.

Plugin system (Pipes)

Pipes are scheduled AI agents defined as markdown files. Each pipe is a pipe.md with a prompt and schedule — screenpipe runs an AI coding agent (like pi or claude-code) that queries your screen data, calls APIs, writes files, and takes actions. Built-in pipes include:

• meeting-summary: Summarizes the meeting that just ended and patches the note back onto the meeting record
• day-recap: Today's accomplishments, key moments, and unfinished work
• standup-update: What you did, what's next, and any blockers
• time-breakdown: Where your time went, by app, project, and category
• ai-prompt-journal: Captures every prompt you send to AI tools, saved to Obsidian or local markdown
• video-export: Create a video of your recent screen activity

Developers can create pipes by writing a markdown file in ~/.screenpipe/pipes/.

Pipe data permissions

Each pipe supports YAML frontmatter fields that give admins deterministic, OS-level control over what data AI agents can access:

• App & window filtering: allow-apps, deny-apps, deny-windows (glob patterns)
• Content type control: restrict to ocr, audio, input, or accessibility
• Time & day restrictions: e.g. time-range: 09:00-18:00, days: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri
• Endpoint gating: allow-raw-sql: false, allow-frames: false

Enforced at three layers — skill gating (AI never learns denied endpoints), agent interception (blocked before execution), and server middleware (per-pipe cryptographic tokens). Not prompt-based. Deterministic.

MCP server (Model Context Protocol)

screenpipe runs as an MCP server, allowing AI assistants to query your screen history:

• Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code (Cline, Continue), and any MCP-compatible client
• AI assistants can search your screen history, get recent context, and access meeting transcriptions
• Zero configuration: claude mcp add screenpipe -- npx -y screenpipe-mcp@latest

Developer API

Full REST API running on localhost (default port 3030). Endpoints for searching screen content, audio, frames. Raw SQL access to the underlying SQLite database. JavaScript/TypeScript SDK available.

Privacy and security

• 100% local by default: All data stored on your device in a local SQLite database. Nothing sent to external servers.
• **Source-a

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