Rewind AI

Rewind AI is a Mac application that records everything you see and hear on your computer, then makes that history searchable through an AI-powered interface. Built by Rewind AI Inc., the tool functions as a personal memory layer for your machine, letting you retrieve anything you worked on, read, or discussed without relying on manual note-taking. It is aimed at knowledge workers, executives, and anyone who frequently needs to recall past conversations, documents, or on-screen activity.

How Rewind AI works

Rewind AI continuously captures your screen and audio in the background. That footage is compressed and stored entirely on your local Mac rather than uploaded to external servers. When you need to find something, you type a natural language query into the search interface and the AI scans your recording history to surface relevant moments. Because the index lives on your device, searches can return results from browser sessions, video calls, documents, emails, and any other application that appears on screen. Meeting transcription is handled automatically for calls you participate in, generating a text record without requiring a separate bot to join the call.

Strengths

• Complete capture. Rewind AI records across all applications simultaneously. There is no need to decide in advance what to save, which removes the friction of manual logging.
• AI-powered search. Natural language queries let you ask questions like “what did we discuss about the Q2 budget last week” rather than needing to remember exact filenames or timestamps.
• Local storage by default. Recordings stay on your Mac. This is a meaningful privacy advantage for users handling sensitive client or business data, since the footage never leaves the device.
• Automatic meeting transcription. Call transcripts are created passively, without requiring the other participants to install anything or a third-party bot to join.
• Document search across applications. PDFs, spreadsheets, websites, and other documents that passed across your screen become part of the searchable record.

Limitations

• Mac only. Rewind AI does not currently support Windows or Linux. Users who split time across operating systems will have gaps in their history.
• Storage requirements. Continuous screen recording consumes disk space. Depending on your activity level and compression settings, this can add up on machines with limited internal storage.
• Privacy perception. While recordings are stored locally, some users report discomfort with the concept of a full screen-capture log, particularly in shared workspaces or when working with third-party confidential material.
• AI search accuracy depends on context. Search quality is only as good as what appeared on screen. If you discussed something verbally without any on-screen reference, or worked on a device other than your Mac, that content will not be indexed.
• No mobile or cross-device sync. Activity on your phone, tablet, or a second computer is not captured, which limits the completeness of the memory record for users who work across devices.

Who it is for

Rewind AI is best suited for professionals who spend most of their working hours on a single Mac and regularly need to retrieve past information quickly. Consultants and lawyers who sit through many meetings and need accurate recall, product managers tracking decisions across Slack threads and documents, and executives handling high meeting volumes are likely to get the most consistent value. It is less suited to teams looking for a shared or collaborative memory tool, or to users who work frequently across multiple devices or operating systems.

How it compares

Rewind AI occupies a distinct category compared to most productivity software because it captures passively rather than requiring you to save or organize anything. A tool like Todoist is built around intentional task management, where you define what matters and track it explicitly. Rewind AI inverts that model entirely: it captures everything and lets you decide what to retrieve later. The two tools address different problems and can coexist, with Todoist handling forward-looking task structure and Rewind AI providing a backward-looking activity record.

For users focused on written work, Grammarly works at the point of creation, assisting with clarity and correctness in real time. Rewind AI does not interact with your writing process; it records it. If your primary need is writing quality rather than activity recall, Grammarly is the more targeted choice. If you need to retrieve what you wrote or read weeks ago without having saved it deliberately, Rewind AI fills a gap that writing assistants do not address.

Rewind AI is free to get started, with a Pro plan at $19 per month for additional features and extended history.