Everything it does

Fully featured. Never cluttered.

Catchlight is small on the surface and deep underneath. Here’s everything it does, and, because we’ve nothing to hide, why we built each piece the way we did.

One Take

One thing. Everything.

One kind of thing that becomes whatever your thought needs.

The Take

Start writing and it’s a note. Add a checkbox and it’s a task. Add a time and it’s a reminder. All three at once if that’s the thought. You never pick a type up front.

For you

You capture the thought instead of losing it while you decide where it goes.

For us

It’s the whole thesis. Get this one thing right and we don’t need fifty features to paper over it.

Shape a Take in place

Add a checklist, a due time or a repeat right on the Take, in the timeline. No separate editor, no modes. Text and checkboxes interleave like a real page.

For you

Editing feels calm, and you never lose your place in the list.

For us

No modes is a craft signal you feel but rarely see elsewhere.

The Obie

Lift one Take to the top of every view as the single most important thing right now. Just one.

For you

The thing that actually matters stops drowning in the pile.

For us

One elevated thing is a small, ownable idea nobody else has named.

Capture

Before you’ve even unlocked.

A thought arrives when it arrives. Catch it before you’ve opened anything.

Lock Screen, before Face ID

Catch a thought from a locked phone. It lands in a blank editor, and you unlock once, to save it. Nothing to open first.

For you

The fastest thing an app can do is not make you open it. The thought is down before it is gone.

For us

The most concrete proof we’re more than another notes app.

Widgets, Action button, Control Centre

A tap from the Home Screen, Lock Screen, Action button or Control Centre starts a new Take or a new Obie.

For you

Capture is wherever your thumb already is.

For us

Quick capture is the battleground, and we win it.

Siri and Shortcuts

Ask Siri to make a Take or an Obie, or wire Catchlight into your own automations.

For you

Hands-free capture, and it fits the way you already work.

For us

Meeting people in their habits, not asking them to change.

Private by design

A fact, not a setting.

Privacy you can switch on isn’t privacy. This is built in.

No account, zero-knowledge

Everything is end-to-end encrypted on your device. No email, no sign-up, ever. We hold nothing we could read.

For you

Your notes are yours, not a row in someone’s database.

For us

It’s the promise the whole company stands on. Break it and there’s no reason for us to exist.

Your 12-word Privacy Phrase

Twelve ordinary words, made on your device, that encrypt everything. The only key, held only by you.

For you

Nobody can read your notes without it, and that includes us.

For us

The honest trade at the heart of real privacy, made into something you can hold.

Real, named encryption

Each Take is sealed with its own AES-256-GCM key, derived on your device with Apple’s CryptoKit. Encrypted at rest even before that.

For you

Encryption that means what you think it means.

For us

We name the exact stack because we’ve nothing to fudge. Precision is the proof.

Offline-first

Every feature works with no connection.

For you

Faster, calmer, and less of you leaving the building.

For us

On-device by default is what makes the privacy real.

Spotlight, off by default

iOS search and Siri see your Takes only if you choose, across four levels, starting at None.

For you

Convenience is a dial you control, not a default you have to discover.

For us

“You decide” over “we decided for you”, the whole ethic in one setting.

Yours to keep

No hostages.

The strongest test of a private app is what happens when you leave.

Sync through a folder you own

Encrypted files sync through your own iCloud Drive or Dropbox folder. We run no cloud of our own.

For you

Your data sits somewhere you already trust, and it survives us.

For us

If Considus vanished tomorrow, your Takes wouldn’t notice. A test we actually pass.

Export as plain Markdown

Export everything as Markdown any time. A hidden data block re-imports it perfectly, reminders and all. Export stays free even if you stop paying.

For you

Your writing is always yours to walk away with, whole.

For us

The proof we don’t need to trap you to keep you.

Never locked out

If your subscription lapses, your Takes stay readable and exportable. You just can’t create new ones until you’re back.

For you

A decade of thinking never sits behind a paywall.

For us

It costs us a little leverage and buys a lot of trust. Worth it.

And

Everything else it does.

The same care, all the way down.

Reminders that actually work

Time and place

Remind you at a time, or when you arrive at or leave a place. Real notifications, all-day too.

Recurring, your way

Hourly to yearly, plus weekday sets. Delete one occurrence without killing the series.

Snooze and follow-up

Snooze from the notification, and it re-nudges a few times, then lets it go.

Honest states

The timeline edge shows overdue or snoozed, quietly.

Find it and shape it

Your Dailies

Every Take in one timeline, in the order you had it.

Sequences

Filter to Notes, Tasks, Reminders or Important, and layer on Done or Expired.

Shot List and Storyboard

A Take as a reorderable checklist, or all your open tasks on one screen.

The Focus-ring

Act on a Take from a small radial of Marks around its Iris.

Search everything

Find any Take instantly, the search bar riding the keyboard.

Made with care

The Iris

A six-blade aperture on every Take that tells you what it is at a glance, gold for your Obie.

Light and Dark

A warm dark interface and a full light one, following your phone if you like.

Important

Flag as many Takes as you like, see your priorities at a glance, and filter to them.

Open source

The whole app, encryption included, public to read and verify under Apache-2.0.

We log nothing about your content

Diagnostics record events and timestamps only, never a word of your Takes. Read and export the whole log yourself.