Private AI assistant for your documents, on your Mac Your documents, answered.
Nothing leaves your Mac.
Folio reads the folders you point it at and answers with the page, sheet or slide it found the answer on. The language model runs inside the app, so there is no account, no cloud, and nothing to send.
Version 1.0.0 for Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 11 or later. A 5 GB download, models included. Free.
What did we spend on travel in Q2, and which invoices make it up?
Travel in Q2 came to S$3,985.20 Q2-expenses.xlsxsheet Travel. Three invoices make it up:
- Flights to Kuala Lumpur, S$1,640.00 INV-0412.pdfp. 1
- Hotel, 3 nights, S$1,905.20 INV-0418.pdfp. 2
- Airport transfers, S$440.00 INV-0421.pdfp. 1
The Entitlement sheet lists no travel allowance for Q2, so nothing offsets this total.
A legal first pass, with the law decided by rules and not by the model.
Open a Singapore or Malaysia contract and Folio reports what is wrong with it, clause by clause: which party each term favours, the statute it falls short of, and the section quoted in full. The model never makes the legal judgment. It reads what a clause says, and rule packs written for each jurisdiction decide whether that is lawful.
4 findings
41 clauses read
- 12.1Notice period below the statutory minimum
Below benchmark, favours the company
- 9.2Annual leave below the s. 60E minimum
Statutory violation, favours the company
- 4.3Wages payable later than the 7th day
Statutory violation, favours the company
- 14Post-employment restraint
Drafting risk, favours the company
Clause 12.1
Either party may terminate this Agreement by giving the other two (2) weeks’ written notice.
Read by the model
notice_period_days = 14 “two (2) weeks’”
Decided by the rule
Notice of 14 days is shorter than the s.12(2) default scale of 56 days at 8 years of service, short by 42 days. Not unlawful on the face of the section, which applies the scale only “in the absence of such provision in writing”; the employee nonetheless has less protection than one whose contract is silent.
Employment Act 1955, s. 12(2)
Verified against the Act
“The length of such notice shall be the same for both employer and employee and shall be determined by a provision made in writing … or, in the absence of such provision in writing, shall not be less than— (a) four weeks’ notice if the employee has been so employed for less than two years … (c) eight weeks’ notice if he has been so employed for five years or more”
Fix this clause
Either party may terminate this Agreement by giving to the other not less than the period of notice prescribed by section 12(2) of the Employment Act 1955 according to the Employee’s length of service, being 56 days at the date of this Agreement. The length of such notice shall be the same for both the Employer and the Employee.
The rules decide the law
Four human-written rule packs, 85 rules across Singapore and Malaysia employment and commercial contracts, hold the statutory minimums and the drafting risks. Code compares; nothing is left to the model's opinion of the law.
The model only reads
Its one job is comprehension: the notice period is 14 days, the severance is a fixed RM 5,000. Every value it reports is paired with the words of the clause it came from.
Every quote is checked
28 Acts and regulations ship inside the app. Each statutory quote in a finding is verified against the bundled text before you see it; one that does not match is shown as unverified, never as law.
Fixes are re-checked
Tick the findings to fix and Folio rewrites those clauses, re-runs the rules that found each fault against the rewrite, and writes a revised .docx beside the untouched original.
This is a first pass, not legal advice. Each finding names the rule and the authority it rests on so that a lawyer can check it, and a shortfall the statute leaves arguable is reported as a benchmark, not declared a breach.
Turn the Wi-Fi off. Everything still works.
Indexing, chat, notes, meeting transcription, comparing versions and contract review all run on the model inside the app. Two things leave your Mac, and only these two: a web search you choose per message, and anonymous usage counts with no identifier.
No account
Nothing to sign in to and nothing to sync. Install it, open a folder, ask.
The model is inside the app
A 3 GB language model loads on your Mac and answers there. Your files are never uploaded.
Web only when you choose it
Pick Web for one message and that question goes to a search service. Nothing else about you goes with it.
Counts, never content
Which features get opened and for how long. No file name, no question, no device id.
Read the privacy page for the complete list of what those counts contain.
Six things it does, on one index.
Each feature reads the same local index and the same local model. Nothing is a separate product, and nothing is unlocked later.
Contracts
A first-pass review of Singapore and Malaysia contracts, employment and commercial. Rule packs decide what the law requires; the model only reads what a clause says; every statute quoted is checked against the bundled Act before it is shown. Tick the findings to fix and Folio writes a revised .docx beside the original, re-checking each rewrite against the rules that found the fault.
Library
Point Folio at a folder. PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Markdown, code and scanned pages are read and indexed on your Mac, and the folder is watched: an edited file is re-indexed, a deleted one is forgotten. A file that cannot be read is marked as failed and the rest of the folder carries on.
Chat
Ask across everything indexed. Docs answers from your files with a citation on every figure; Model answers from the model alone; Web searches the internet for that one message. If the documents do not say, Folio says so instead of guessing.
Notes
Plain Markdown files in a folder you own, so they outlive the app. The assistant summarises a note, tightens it, or turns it into a draft email.
Meetings
Record a meeting or import the audio. Folio transcribes it on your Mac, labels the speakers, and writes minutes with the decisions and action items. The transcript is searchable in Chat, cited by timestamp.
Compare
Two versions of a contract, proposal or budget. The differences are computed, clause by clause or row by row, never guessed. The model only says which ones matter, and explains one when you ask.
From a folder to a cited answer.
Step 1 of 3
Pick a folder
Any folder on your Mac: a project, a client, a year of invoices. Folio needs read access and nothing else.
Step 2 of 3
Folio reads it
Each file is parsed, split into passages with its page, sheet or slide, and stored in a search index that lives in your Application Support folder.
Step 3 of 3
Ask, then check
Every answer carries the citations it was built from. Click one and the file opens at that page, so you can see for yourself.
Install it, open a folder, ask a question. That is the whole setup.
Apple Silicon, macOS 11 or later
M1 or newer. The model is built for Apple Silicon; an Intel Mac opens the window but the assistant never becomes ready.
A 5 GB download
The app, the indexer and three models in one disk image. Nothing is fetched after you drag it to Applications.
A slow first launch
Folio loads a 3 GB model into memory before it can answer. Expect a minute or two the first time, and seconds after that.
Questions
Which Macs can run Folio?+
A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or later) running macOS 11 or later. The language model is built for Apple Silicon, so on an Intel Mac the window opens but the assistant never becomes ready; Intel is not supported.
Why is the download so large?+
Because the models come with it. The 5 GB disk image holds the app, its document indexer, a 3 GB chat model, an embedding model for search, and the Whisper speech model for meetings. After you drag it to Applications there is nothing further to download and nothing to sign in to.
Does Folio need an internet connection?+
No. Indexing, chat, notes, meeting transcription, comparing versions and contract review all run on the model inside the app, and keep working with the network off. Two things leave your Mac, and only these two: a web search, when you pick Web for a message, and anonymous usage counts that carry no file name, no question and no identifier.
Why does the first launch take a while?+
Folio loads a 3 GB language model into memory before it can answer anything. The first launch after installing can take a minute or two on the loading screen; later launches are faster because macOS keeps the model file cached. It is not stuck.
Is it safe to open?+
Yes. Folio is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens like any other Mac app: drag it into Applications and double-click it.
What does it cost?+
Nothing. Folio 1.0 is free to download and use, with every feature included. There is no account, no subscription and nothing to unlock.
What file types can it read?+
PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Markdown, plain text and source code, plus scanned pages and images, which are read with your Mac's own text recognition. Answers cite the page, sheet or slide they came from. A file Folio cannot read is marked as failed and the rest of the folder carries on.
Where does my data live?+
In two folders you own. The search index, saved chats, meetings and contract reviews are in ~/Library/Application Support/Folio; your notes are plain Markdown files in ~/Documents/FolioNotes. Deleting those two folders removes everything Folio knows. There is no copy anywhere else.
Is the contract review legal advice?+
No. It is a first pass. Rule packs written for Singapore and Malaysia decide what the law requires; the model only reads what a clause says; and every statute quoted is checked against the bundled copy of the Act before it is shown. Each finding names the rule and the authority it rests on so that a lawyer can check it.
Is there a Windows version?+
Not yet. The app is built to run on Windows as well, but version 1.0 ships for Mac only.
Try it on a folder you would never upload.
Version 1.0.0 for Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 11 or later. A 5 GB download, models included. Free.