Memtrove User Guide

Memtrove indexes the files and browser bookmarks on your Mac so you can find them by name, by content, or by meaning — and so Claude can find them for you. The index stays on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded.

Requirements: macOS 12 or later on a Mac with Apple silicon (M-series chip).

Install

Download Memtrove_x.y.z_aarch64.dmg, open it, and drag Memtrove into Applications.

Open Memtrove. The first time, a short setup walks you through three steps:

Step	What it does	Can I skip it?
Allow access to your files	Turn on Memtrove under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access	Yes, but protected folders such as Documents, Desktop and Downloads will be skipped, and macOS may keep asking for permission
Semantic search	Downloads a local model of about 130 MB that then runs fully offline (you can switch to the Enhanced model later)	Yes. Download it later in Settings → Semantic search model. Without it you can still search by file name and text
Connect Claude	Adds Memtrove to Claude Desktop's configuration (you see the file first, nothing changes until you confirm, and the original is backed up)	Yes. Do it later in Settings → Connect Claude

Searching

Press ⌥Space anywhere to bring up Memtrove, then just type.
Results combine file-name, full-text and semantic matches.
You can include time and place in plain words: "contracts from last month", "invoices in Downloads".
↵ opens a result, ⌘↵ shows it in Finder. The preview on the right shows the outline first; click a heading to read that section. Similar files at the bottom finds files with related content.
With the Enhanced model, search works across languages: ask in English about a Chinese document, or the other way round. With the Standard model, search works best in the language the document is written in.

The label on each result shows how far indexing has got: newly added files may only have their name indexed (Name) at first; full text (Text) and meaning (Semantic) follow shortly.

Other tabs

Timeline: files created or changed recently — today, or the last 7, 30 or 90 days.
Status: progress for each indexed folder and bookmark file, the embedding model, and dead or duplicate bookmarks (click "N duplicate groups" to see every copy).
Folders: what Memtrove indexes. By default your entire home folder (except ~/Library, apps, photo libraries and so on). You can pick individual folders instead, or add folders on external drives.
Settings: language, license, open at login, semantic search model, Claude, bookmark page fetching, sensitive folders, resource usage, semantic model (Enhanced or Standard), and updates.

Semantic model

Standard (e5-small, the default): about 130 MB and indexes quickly. Searching across languages doesn't work well.
Enhanced (bge-m3): best results, including searching across Chinese and English. About 600 MB, and indexing is several times slower.

When you choose Enhanced in Settings → Semantic model, Memtrove explains what will happen and waits for you to confirm. It then downloads the model and rebuilds the semantic index in the background — you can follow the progress there and on the Status tab. Until the rebuild finishes, search keeps using the current model.

The Enhanced model uses about 1.6 GB of memory while indexing (memory is released after 5 minutes of inactivity). On Macs with 8 GB of memory, Memtrove suggests staying with Standard.

Language

Memtrove follows your Mac's preferred language (Chinese or English). To change it, use Settings → Language.

Sensitive folders

Mark folders that hold contracts, medical records and the like as sensitive folders. Their files still show up in search, but:

Structure only: the preview and Claude only see section headings.
Nothing: neither the preview nor Claude can see any content.

Using Memtrove with Claude

Once connected (restart Claude Desktop for it to take effect), just ask Claude — for example, "Find last month's contract with Acme and summarize the payment terms." Claude can search, read (outline first, then individual sections as needed), find similar files, look at the timeline, check status, and tag files. Everything is read-only: Memtrove never changes or deletes your files.

To use it in Claude Code, copy the claude mcp add … command from Settings → Connect Claude and run it in Terminal.

Note: whatever Claude reads is sent to Anthropic for processing, under Anthropic's terms. For folders you don't want Claude to see, set them as sensitive folders with Nothing, or remove them from the indexed folders.

Open at login

With Settings → Open at login on, the indexing service runs in the background after you log in, so new files are indexed as they appear. The first time, macOS may ask you to allow Memtrove under System Settings → General → Login Items. When it's off, the service only runs while Memtrove or Claude is using it.

License and trial

All features are available for 14 days after installing.
A license is a one-time purchase: Memtrove is yours to keep, with one year of updates included. After that year it keeps working; versions released later need an updates renewal (each renewal adds another year).
When the trial has ended and there's no license, the index is still kept up to date, but the app only searches by file name. Full-text and semantic search, the preview and Claude are paused, and come back as soon as you activate a license.
Enter the key from your purchase email in Settings → License and click Activate (this needs an internet connection once). After that, Memtrove works offline too.
Moving to a new Mac: click Deactivate on this Mac on the old one, then activate on the new one.

Updates

Go to Settings → Updates → Check for updates. If a new version was released after your updates period ended, Memtrove tells you before installing it. You can always keep using the version you have.

Resource usage

The first index of your whole home folder takes a while (tens to hundreds of thousands of files: from a few minutes to an hour or two). After that, only changed files are processed.
Resource usage can be Fast, Balanced or Eco. Indexing slows down automatically when your Mac is busy or on battery.
The background service uses about 80 MB of memory when idle, and about 500 MB while the semantic model is loaded. The model is released after 5 minutes of inactivity.

Uninstall

Turn off Open at login in Settings. If you connected Claude, remove the memtrove entry from Claude Desktop's configuration.
Quit Memtrove and move it from Applications to the Trash.
To delete its data (index, settings, logs, license state), remove ~/Library/Application Support/Memtrove and ~/Library/Application Support/app.memtrove.desktop.

Troubleshooting

A file doesn't show up? On the Status tab, check that its folder is indexed and fully processed, and make sure Memtrove has Full Disk Access. By default Memtrove skips: hidden folders at the top of your home folder, dependency folders such as node_modules, build output and tool environments inside projects (such as .build, .conda, or dist next to a package.json), system files such as .DS_Store, minified scripts, .env files and private keys, and very large files.

macOS keeps asking "Memtrove would like to access…"? Turning on Full Disk Access fixes this once and for all.

The semantic model download failed? Check your connection and retry in Settings → Semantic search model. Downloads resume where they left off, and the files are verified.