For Mac,
with a small iPhone companion
⌃⌥Space to write
⌘R to record
A private Mac app for ideas, meetings, videos and documents. Press a shortcut, type or record, and it lands in Inbox. File it in a project when you’re ready. Everything stays on your Mac unless you send it.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14.2 or later · about 635 MB
An illustration with invented notes. Try it: write something, add #album, save. It stays in this tab.An illustration of the Mac app, with invented notes.
Today
Earlier this week
Today · 34 min · Transcript ready
Transcribed on this Mac · Whisper
Notes during this meeting
Transcript
[00:12:04] Speaker 1: If we move to the lighter stock, the spine loses about two millimetres.
[00:12:19] Me: Two millimetres is the difference between a title you can read and one you can’t.
[00:12:31] Speaker 1: Then the title sits on the cover instead. I can send a folded proof by Friday.
[00:12:47] Me: Send it. I want to hold it before we commit.
Today · Saved
The lighter stock loses two millimetres, so the spine can’t carry the type. Hold a proof before Friday’s decision.
Today · Saved
Leave more room for the vocal. Not sure which project this belongs to yet, and it doesn’t need to be sorted today.
Bindery Notes · 18 min · Transcript ready
Key findings · AI draft
“Drop twenty grams and a three-hundred-page book loses about two millimetres of spine.”
Lines 41–43 · exact quote matched
Possible application · Move the title to the cover if the reprint goes lighter.
Tuesday · 3 min · Transcript ready
Recorded on iPhone · Transcribed on this Mac
Transcript
[00:00:08] The second chorus shouldn’t lift. Keep it where the verse left it and let the words do it.
[00:01:32] Try the piano from the first demo. The out-of-tune one.
Your context, in its place.
Select an item to read or export.
Today · Saved
The original is always there to read.
Calls, voice notes, videos and documents stay in Margin as whole sources you can read and search. A note you write during a call keeps its moment, and links back to it.
12:04
If we move to the lighter stock, the spine loses about two millimetres.
12:19
Two millimetres is the difference between a title you can read and one you can’t.
Title off the spine. Ask for a folded proof.
Written during this call · 12:34
Then the title sits on the cover instead. I can send a folded proof by Friday.
12:47
Send it. I want to hold it before we commit.
⌘R starts and stops. It never starts by itself.
Margin keeps your microphone and the call’s audio on separate channels, then transcribes on this Mac with a speech model that ships inside the app. That model is most of the 635 MB, and it means there’s nothing else to install. macOS shows its recording indicator the whole time.
Choosing a project yourself always wins. Two matching tags stay in Inbox.
New captures land in Inbox, so you never have to decide where a thought goes while you’re having it. Drag it to a project later, or type the project’s hashtag as you write and it files itself. Margin matches names on your Mac, without AI.
Ask for a folded proof #small-press
Small press
Agents can read your sources. They can’t change them.
When you choose, copy a source as Markdown or as a brief for an agent, with its exact quotes. Claude Code and other MCP clients can read your library through a read-only connection you control in Settings.
AI research is optional and always a separate click. On a video, it sends that one public transcript to a provider you’ve set up yourself. Margin doesn’t include one. Every finding is checked against its own quote before you see it.
Lines 41–43 · exact quote matched
“Drop twenty grams and a three-hundred-page book loses about two millimetres of spine.”
iOS 17 or later.
Needs Margin on a Mac.
Margin for iPhone opens to a blank page and a Record button. Save a thought or a recording, with or without a connection. Pair once through a folder you choose in iCloud Drive. Your Mac picks everything up and does the transcribing when it’s awake with Margin open.
In preparation. The iPhone beta isn’t on TestFlight yet. When it is, the install link will be on the iPhone page, at this same address.
Available on TestFlight. Scan the code or open the iPhone page.
Scan with your iPhone, or open
margin.maxwellyoung.info/ios
No account. No analytics, crash reporting or telemetry.
Your library lives in ~/Calls on this Mac. Nothing below happens unless you set it up or start it, apart from the update check.
| What | What’s sent | When |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription | Nothing, by default. You can choose your own server instead. | Only if you choose that route |
| Video import | The link, to YouTube, to fetch captions or audio | When you paste a link |
| AI research | Public video transcripts and quotes, to the provider you set up. Not your notes or meetings. | When you ask, once it’s set up |
| iPhone | Project names and recent sources; the full library only if you turn that on. Saved in the iCloud Drive folder you choose | Each sync, once you pair |
| Agents | The sources an agent asks for, to the agent you connected | When it reads them. Disconnect in Settings. |
| Update check | Margin’s version and your macOS version, to GitHub | About once a day |
Other hand-offs, like sending a prompt to T3 Code, run only when you press them.
Signed and notarized. Installed copies update themselves.
Margin 1.2 (38). Apple Silicon only, macOS 14.2 or later, about 635 MB. Not for Intel Macs.