Chauncy - Search by Meaning. Local-First. For Readers, Writers, and Researchers.<br>A local-first tool for readers, writers, and researchers<br>For people who remember the point, not the filename.

Chauncy is a local-first tool for the writing, research, and reading you want to keep working with. Bring in the documents you already have, add new material as you find it, and search by meaning across all of it.

Ask in plain English. Inspect the source. Follow the connections.

Buy Chauncy for Windows - $99 See how it works<br>No account Your files stay local No tracking No autonomous actions

Workspace Add Settings Engine ready<br>Chauncy surfaces evidence. You do the thinking.<br>Search input<br>natural camouflage<br>How Zebra Stripes Confuse Predators The high-contrast pattern disrupts motion detection in biting flies and disorients group predators when zebras gather in herds.<br>The word "camouflage" does not appear in this article.

Search input<br>advice about handling difficult conversations<br>Email from Dan, 2018-03-14 ...the trick isn't winning the argument. It's making sure they walk out still wanting to talk to you next month...<br>No words in common with the query. Chauncy matched the topic.

Connected material<br>Chauncy surfaces evidence. You do the thinking.<br>Open a source, compare related material, add your interpretation, and keep the trail attached to the documents.

Open a source, compare related material, add your interpretation, and keep the trail attached to the documents.

The real product<br>Windows workspace, ready to search.<br>Chauncy runs as a desktop app on your machine. Here is the workspace after material is in the library.

Fit check<br>Who Chauncy is for — and who it is not.

Built for<br>Researchers, writers, consultants, and analysts with large personal archives<br>People who remember the point of a document, not the filename<br>Anyone who wants meaning-based search without building a knowledge graph by hand<br>Users who want local-first storage and optional bring-your-own AI

Not built for<br>HIPAA, attorney-client privilege, or other compliance-regulated environments<br>Teams that need multi-user sharing or cloud sync today<br>People looking for an autonomous agent that acts on their behalf<br>Mac users at launch — join the waitlist

How it fits<br>Different job than notes apps, desktop search, or chatbots.

vs note / PKM tools<br>Obsidian-style tools ask you to tag, backlink, and maintain structure. Chauncy infers connections from meaning so the work is reading and writing, not gardening a graph.

vs desktop search<br>Spotlight and Everything match keywords and filenames. Chauncy matches meaning — a query can surface a document that shares no words with your search.

vs uploading to a chatbot<br>Chat tools need re-upload theater and live in the cloud. Chauncy indexes a local archive once, searches offline, and only sends excerpts if you turn AI on.

Private and safe by architecture.<br>Chauncy is not a runaway agent.

It does not browse the web for you, operate accounts, send email, buy things, delete files, or chain together background actions. Chauncy is a tool for working with material you've chosen to keep.

Local first<br>Your documents, search index, embeddings, and annotations live on your machine.

Optional AI<br>AI synthesis is optional. You choose whether to use it, which provider, and when excerpts leave your machine.

Human judgment<br>Chauncy can surface connections. It does not decide what is true, important, or ready to publish.

No system to maintain<br>The structure is in the meaning. You don't build it.

Other tools require you to do the organizing yourself — tagging, backlinking, sticking to naming conventions, keeping the system tidy for years before the connections become useful. Chauncy reads what you've already written and infers the structure itself. The work you put in is the reading and the writing. The connections follow.

Workflow<br>A practice that compounds.<br>Start with what you have. Add what you read. Chauncy becomes more useful as your collection grows.

01 Curate<br>Decide what's worth keeping. Add PDFs, email, Markdown, Word, PowerPoint, HTML, web URLs, and notes — files already on your machine, or new material as you encounter it.

02 Ask<br>Use plain English to search by meaning, not just filename, folder, or exact keyword.

03 Inspect<br>Open the source, check the surrounding context, and see related material beside it.

04 Interpret<br>Add your annotations, draw your conclusions, and keep the reasoning trail attached to the sources.

What you can bring in<br>Multiple paths in. One library out.

Files and folders<br>Point Chauncy at individual files or whole folder trees. PDFs, Word, PowerPoint, Markdown, HTML, and plain text — recursively, if you want.

Email<br>Forward selected messages to a dedicated folder, drop saved emails into a watch folder, or ingest directly from an IMAP mailbox you configure.

Web pages<br>Paste a URL and Chauncy fetches and indexes the page. A browser extension for one-click capture is in development.

Voice input<br>Dictate search...