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Show HN: DoubleMemory – more efficient local-first read-it-later app (doublememory.com)

162 points by randomor ↗ HN
DoubleMemory started as an experiment to see if I can somehow automatically save all double cmd + c, as I often do instinctively, so I don't need extensions to save links and text into an app, and avoiding flooding the capture history as regular clipboard managers does.

My motivation was not to create a read-it-later app, yet it evolved into this unique yet cohesive form of a read-it-later + bookmarking organizer + clipboard manager + card based note-taking app over the last 6 months. It also launches from the menu bar with a shortcut and navigates with keyboard shortcuts. My favorite part is instead of rendering a list of article titles, everything is rendered as pretty preview cards in a translucent Pinterest-like mood board. It also has a nifty iOS app, that will allow you to swipe with your thumbs between articles just like on iOS Safari...

Now that Pocket is closing, this is after Instapaper going back to indie and Omnivore and UpNext and numerous others closing over the years. All of these are cloud-hosted services, which got me reflecting: maybe this local-first architecture would be well positioned to build in this space.

Here is my not-so-scientific comparison:

## Domain

$10 vs $1M = 100,000x difference.

## Server running cost

No servers other than what's running by iCloud vs $1M per year = 1mX difference

## Platforms

Apple only (mac + iphone + ipad) vs Multi platforms (windows, linux, android also supported) = 20X maintenance cost difference

## Capturing

No browser extensions required v.s. maintain all extensions for various browsers and extension stores = 5x difference

## Architecture

App receives the link, Apple generates the rich preview cards for thousands of different types of links, app caches these preview cards. vs. Someone write some custom code for each link type or with Open Graph, one designer created one generic card that works for all links. = 100x cost difference.

I know, Apple is coming for clipboards with more restrictions, which is basically a shared global state on Mac systems, DoubleMemory does also support other ways to capture: drag-n-drop to app/menubar icon/app icon, right click->Services menu, or Share sheet. We will add more auto-importers.

Also vibe coded some importers for Pocket, Omnivore and ReadWise here: https://doublememory.com/posts/tools

Everything in the app is free with no limits. Capturing is really step 0. You giving us a chance to save your content, doesn't mean you are getting any values out of it (ain't that the typical story of read-it-later apps? save-it and never-read-it). the eventual goal is to easily retrieve these content, and eventually consuming them. I hope to eventually launch paid features that aligns with these value generating workflows.

App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/doublememory/id6737529034

Let me know what you think...

52 comments

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randomor
I'll be available here if you have questions.
loremm
would love support for linux, even if it required hacks or was not as seamless
randomor
I’d love to do that one day. Right now trying to find out if it’s interesting enough for 1% of Apple users to turn their heads.
mkbkn
Count me in too, for Linux, Android etc.

Also, would like a one-time lifetime pricing if that makes sense.

kstrauser
That looks pretty neat! I haven't played around with it yet, but here's some preliminary feedback:

* "⌘ + C + C", to me, means "press cmd-C, then press C". It look me a minute to release it means "press cmd-C twice".

* Thank you for using iCloud sync!

* Your privacy policy says "The developer does not collect any data from this app.". Thank you!

* The pricing feels high to me. I'm mentally comparing it to PastePal (clipboard manager, one-time $15 payment) plus GoodLinks (bookmarks manager, $5 per year to buy upgrades, but you can use it forever for free). I know it's not an exact comparison, but as someone who might really like your app, that's how I personally think of it.

alkh
Agree with with everything, if there was a way to use something besides icloud that would be very appreciated. I have nothing against it but the more options there are, the better.
randomor
True. More options and more controls always better, just need to balance priorities. What specific sync options are you thinking?
alkh
Oops, missed your reply. I think something that most people use, like Google Drive or Dropbox? I personally try to diversify software-wise as much as possible, even though I only have Apple hardware
randomor
Thanks for these feedback. I'll take note.

About the pricing, I just realized my introduction pricing has expired last night. I just created one again for $9.99 for the first year. However, I'm definitely exploring pricing, but as I mentioned right now the sub is simply a way for me to gather signal for interests, no features are behind paywalls, you only benefit of subbing right now is lock-in the early price and remove the sub button. I'll be working on real value generating features in the future.

Long term, I'm hoping to implement fair and incremental upgrades, it just takes more setup.... My current pricing is kinda anchored with ReadWise & Paste, which are 200% more than what I charge. I'm also guessing many people are looking for a lifetime purchase, I'll definitely work on that at some point, people who've subscribed will be able to redeem it directly with me once that's available.

kebokyo
What kind of “value-generating” features are you thinking of?

One big comment I want to give on that front is, if you decide to try any generative AI features, please please please make them *completely opt-in* and integrate with *local models* (either completely or as an alternative to cloud models like GPT / Claude / etc). If I can use your software happily without being bombarded with ads for AI features and can use those AI features how I want to instead of how would best make you money, I would appreciate that so much.

randomor
You got it. Yes, AI will be a good piece of the puzzle. Local models is exactly what I prefer, if you haven't notice, that's a big principle of this app. I'm really hoping Apple can step in and offer a local model so I don't have to download one big blob. Supporting Ollama sounds cool but I feel like that's a big barrier for many... BYOK also nice, but at that point why not just build a MCP interface instead of building another flavor of AI chat? Otherwise I'm thinking about embedding all items so it's easier to: auto-generate tags, cluster by topics etc...
asadm
as initial step, just do some “rag” / vector db thing ie. no llm. see chrome’s embedded model and how it works.
kstrauser
That makes a lot of sense. And I’m not saying your current pricing is wrong. I’m just some rando. What do I know?

I’d definitely prefer a lifetime purchase, or even an option to pay to unlock new features for the next year and then keep those features forever, like GoodLinks does. I’m a huge fan of that pricing model.

randomor
Of course, I appreciate your perspective and am constantly collecting data points. I'll get to the pricing model experiments. Now that Apple is opening up third party payment, maybe I'll finally looking into third party subscription SDKs...
linsomniac
I tried it last night and was ready to drop $20 to buy it, but a subscription is a hard sell for me (and this may just be me personally, but I thought I'd give feedback). Subscriptions feel like baggage, instead of getting a thing I get a chore. Something I have to manage, decide if I want to keep using every year, remember to cancel if I'm not, remember to cancel BEFORE it charges again. Also (not saying this is you, but) the places that make unsubscribing hard kind of poison subscriptions for everyone.

I'd be happier with a "buy version 1.x", and then if you decide to do features that justify a version 2.x buy the upgrade at that time, assuming the upgrades are worth it to me. That's my preferred way to support ongoing development.

That said, there is the non-pro version and that's probably what I should do, and see if it "sticks" enough to buy.

mdonahoe
Copycopy?
randomor
Is that a nickname? :D

Yes the magic command is copy twice within 5 seconds. It can be cmd + C via keyboard or context menu copy, anything updates your clipboard twice with identical content will be triggering it. You can always disable it conflicts with other workflows or apps.

steezeburger
This is really cool. I self host a bookmark manager that has extensions and bookmarklets for mobile, but I really love your idea of cmd + c twice. How does it work on iOS? Or is the app just for viewing the bookmarks?

I use ClipMenu to save clipboard history and will often copy a bunch of things one right after the other, and can use other shortcuts to easily select whole lines or expressions in my editor, so time between copy could be as little as 750ms I'd bet. Is the timeout configurable?

randomor
iOS doesn't have this clipboard magic of course, just relies on the regular share sheet. The most interesting part other than the waterfall layout is the swiping reader view, here is 30s video: https://x.com/randomor/status/1910111028865818664

Yes it's configurable, between 1-10s, defaulted to 5s.

G1N
This is a really cool app! I wish you would also put your pricing information on the website (as far as I can tell the only way to discover this without downloading the app is by looking at the in-app purchases section on the App Store listing, apologies if I missed it on the website)
randomor
I'll take note, i'll add a pricing section and Q&A section soon. Thanks for the feedback. If you are a student, feel free to ping for a promo code.
jonator
Does it have an MCP server?
randomor
definitely want to get there soon, right now the most requested related features are apple shortcuts. Hopefully with the growing MCP ecosystem it will be a sweet MCP setup as we don't need a server or a node process.
allenu
Looks like a really interesting idea here! Congrats on shipping. I just downloaded it to play around with. The screenshots are well done and make the app feel like something exciting to try out.

I would work on trying to simplifying the landing page copy, though. The "Stress-Free Bookmarking, Read-it-later, and Clipboard..." text is super long and most people aren't going to read the entire thing. I would try to emphasize what the benefit is to the user somehow. Something like "Save everything easily". That's terrible copy, too, but you get the idea. The "Super Memory Activated" and "doublememory.com" made me think at first that this is improving my computer's memory usage.

After skimming the page, I kind of got the idea about what the product does, but I think you can make it even simpler to grok right away what it does with a few tweaks. Best of luck!

Edit: one thing I noticed is I can do shift-cmd-spacebar to bring it up, but the search text field doesn't automatically get focus. That's a little bit of friction. If I do cmd-F to search, it toggles the filter UI, which was unexpected. I wanted to cmd-F to move the focus into the search to start typing.

randomor
That's gold. Thank you! Yes the refocusing can be unreliable. Currently the more reliable way is press tab to refocus. I'll work on the landing page, as that hasn't been updated for months and it's slightly outdated and didn't even highlight the now available iOS app.
randomor
The refocusing issue is now fixed in next build. I previously spent many hours trying to fix it but O3 just one shotted it.... :D Thanks so much for the suggestion!
awaseem
Wow I was just building something like this haha. This seems awesome, is it free? I can’t tell from the site
randomor
it's free as long as you don't get distracted by the subscribe button, no feature limitations, just a bit of distractions.
hnhn34
Same! I guess HNers have the same tendency to hoard bookmarks so we all ran into the same pain points.
randomor
Many of us certainly do share these pain points, most people will lament of a closing read-it-later tool and think "if only it's open source" so they can self-host a tool that likes pocket or omnivore, thinking that's the final form of this category. Nothing wrong with that, that's a tried and proven paradigm and comes with no additional transition cost.

Because i started this not intending to build a read-it-later tool, we are working on different foundations with building blocks... we'll see where this digression will take me...

asadm
would be cool if you offered a one-time fee (like $30). many people including me are tired of subscription
randomor
noted. thanks for providing another data point!
KempyKolibri
Yeah, same here I’m afraid. Could be a “me” thing, but I was going to download until I saw it was a subscription model.
voxgen
Please consider also describing the business model on the website, even if hidden away on a FAQ. I've so much subscription fatigue now, I just don't try things out if needing a subscription is an inevitability. I'm happy to pay for good products, just not happy to be forced to pay a fixed rate for continued access even if my usage dwindles.

If you are thinking of adding a one-off-donation-style purchase method, consider giving annual reminders to renew it. At least in my case, I'm not unwilling to pay repeatedly if development continues, just unwilling to make an upfront ongoing commitment.

Jotalea
I believe this is so useful it should be implemented in macOS itself. Maybe not the same way as here, but having a keybind to "save stuff for later" is really useful.

But I'm not gonna lie, I was a little bit disappointed when I saw it was exclusive to Apple systems. I guess I'll have to build it myself for using on Arch Linux (and Android). Well, at the end of the day Arch is a DIY OS ;)

randomor
i agree. Tim, waiting for your call here. you can find my number when you deposit the $10 i made this month.
stevelacy
Very nice looking app, installed. Would be interesting if this integrated with Raycast.

I would suggest hiding the main window from the dock/switcher as when the window is closed it still presents the app title. Potentially NSApplication.setActivationPolicy(.accessory)

randomor
good eye, i'll try play with that setting. Raycast does already have bookmarking features, but when if enough people make this request, i'll look into it. Or maybe expose some MCP interface so it can interact with this.
randomor
Just explored that setting, realized we do expose that setting, you can hide the dock icon. Once it's hidden, it won't preserve the title when closing the app.
mnming
With pocket sunsetting, I have been searching for alternatives lately. After a few rounds of search, I can't convince myself to use specialized bookmarks tool over Notion / Obsidian. I wonder what other people feel?
JimDabell
I’ve tried using Notion for this and I really can’t stand it. There’s a long-standing bug in Notion where if you paste a link in, the focus gets captured by the bookmark and cannot be moved by keyboard. You have to switch to the mouse to click away from the bookmark before you can continue typing. That alone is a show-stopper for me. What kind of document editor forces you to use the mouse?

Beyond that, I don’t think there’s any way of conveniently pasting in a URL as a bookmark. Is the only option to paste the link, then arrow down to “Bookmark” in the popup menu that appears and hit enter? There’s no option to just default to bookmark?

randomor
Notion and Obsidian are great, I use them weekly too. But I don't think bookmarking should live in an text editor. It can still work, just like Apple Notes can also for people with limited needs, but it doesn't do: quick search/filter/ordering, rich previews (these cards are not DoubleMemory cards imo), immersive reader, archive/notes, keyboard navigation... Pocket also don't have these, so Notion/Obsidian may not be much a downgrade, if your needs are simple, it's totally respectable way to organize your content, especially if your workflow is already centered around these.
raydenvm
Beautiful one! I have been a fan of hotkeys since childhood. How did you decide to choose "Cmd + C" twice? Were there other competing options that might be quicker and not in conflict with other hotkeys?
randomor
well, it's not me choosing it, i'm just tapping into the system clipboard. If you right click and copy something twice it will also be auto saved. I do this instinctively previously so one day I thought can I actually use this as a signal to REALLY remember something...
[dead] butz
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iJohnDoe
If I were to buy a MacBook, what are some must-have AI/LLM apps like this that are Mac only? Long time Mac user, but haven’t bought new hardware in a while. Looking for an excuse.
randomor
Except we don't have any AI features yet although that's definitely part of the plan. :D

I'd recommend asking in the r/macapps subreddit for my diverse answers. Here are two of my picks:

- Raycast has a really nice AI feature.

- Aura by Meng To is one of my favorite LLM chat tool with a special prompt builder: https://aurachat.io/

ekaesmem
Do you have plans to support an extension ecosystem, such as exporting content to Obsidian or other PKM apps?
randomor
I plan to add shortcuts support so hopefully that will allow people to integrate. And also as the foundation for the next-gen Siri and MCP support. But I’d love to hear your workflow to find out what you have in mind. Please email at hi@doublememory.com or find us on discord or social. Let’s jam!
woof
Nothing beats Maccy.app for clipboard management, but DoubleMemory does look great.

For me, DoubleMemory falls between the cracks: - bookmarks in multiple browsers on multiple devices - Maccy.app for clipboard management on MacOS - Bear.app for notes on MacOS, iOS and iPad

randomor
I’m actually not a clipboard manager user before. That’s why I wanted to avoid saving everything into its history. I wanted everything in DoubleMemory to be deliberately curated. That’s also why I’m hesitate to support other feed like features like email subscriptions or RSS feeds.

But yes Maccy is great, DM’s first version looks very much like a list of snippets on menu bar and then a list of snippets with a preview on the side, eventually evolved to its current form.

Thanks for trying and finding a spot for it in your workflow!