Is screen memory the same as screen recording?

No. Screen recording stores video or frames of your display. Screen memory can be built from text alone: Sharpy reads the text of the front window through macOS Accessibility and stores the words, never a picture. Some tools, such as Screenpipe, build it from frames and OCR instead.

How much disk does screen memory take?

Far less than video. Sharpy keeps one SQLite file in ~/Library/Application Support/Sharpy/ and stores words only, never images or video.

Can I delete parts of it?

Yes. In Sharpy you can pause capture, exclude apps, review what was kept, delete entries, or delete the whole database file to erase everything.

Does an AI read my whole history?

No. When you ask a question, Sharpy searches locally and sends only the relevant passages to a cloud model through its gateway. Providers may keep those prompts for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring. The database itself never leaves the Mac.

What is screen memory, and how does a Mac app remember your screen?

Screen memory is a searchable record of the text your computer showed you. How it is captured, what stays local, what a model sees, and how Sharpy does it.

You read something at eleven. By three you know it existed and nothing else: not the app, not the sender, not the words. Cmd+F only searches the window in front of you. Screen memory is the fix for that specific failure: a record of the text your computer showed you, searchable later, with a way back to the moment.

What gets captured

There are two ways to build it.

Frames. Record the screen as images or video, run OCR, index the words. This is what Rewind did and what Screenpipe does. You get pictures back, at the cost of disk and the fact that pictures of your screen exist on the machine.

Text. Ask macOS for the text of the front window through the Accessibility API, the same channel screen readers use, and store the words. This is what Sharpy does, several times a minute, for the app in front. No video, no screenshots, no keystrokes. What it keeps looks like a page of notes with a timestamp, app name, window title and URL, not a photo.

Text capture has one real limit: apps built on Electron, which includes many chat and AI desktop clients, expose their text less completely than native apps, so a passage can come back partial. Web pages in a browser usually read better than the same product’s desktop app.

What stays on the Mac

In Sharpy, everything captured goes into one SQLite file at ~/Library/Application Support/Sharpy/sharpy.sqlite. There is no cloud copy. Delete the file and the memory is gone.

Before a line is written, card numbers, CVVs, IBANs and access tokens are masked. Banking sites, password fields, login pages and incognito windows are never captured at all. You can pause capture, put any app on the ignore list, and open the Privacy page to see what was kept and remove it.

What a model sees

Storing is local. Understanding is not. When you press ⌥⌘A and ask “what did we agree with Alex last time?”, Sharpy searches the local file, opens the matching moments, and sends those passages, not the database, to a cloud model through Sharpy’s gateway. The answer comes back with citation chips; click one and the exact snapshot opens, so you can check the claim against the source. Numbers and quotes the model could not tie to a snapshot are underlined as unverified.

The same applies to the writing feature (tap Option in any text field, get a draft in your tone that knows the thread) and to background summaries that keep the memory organised. Relevant context travels; providers may keep it up to 30 days for abuse monitoring. Sharpy does not claim zero retention.

What you can do with it once it exists

Find. “Where did I see the invoice number for the Astana contract?” The answer opens the message.
Resume. “What was I doing before lunch?” The last few sessions, with the draft still open.
Write. Tap Option in a reply field. The draft knows what the thread decided and sounds like you.
Act. Hold Option, say “remind me tomorrow at nine to send the deck”, let go. Sharpy runs it in the background and pauses before anything that deletes, pays, posts publicly or sends in bulk.
Review. A chronicle of the day, wiki pages for people and projects, open promises, hours by app and project. All built from the captured text, all with citations.
Share with your agent. Claude Code and Cursor can search the same memory over MCP; see Give Claude Code a memory of your screen.

Who it is for

People whose work is spread across chats, documents and a browser, who explain the same context for the fifth time each week. Founders. Developers living in Claude Code, Telegram and Slack. Anyone who used Rewind until it stopped in December 2025.

Sharpy runs on macOS 14 or later, by invite, one Mac per account. Windows has a waitlist. Get early access.