ZimeZumiYour thoughts, as free and colourful as your life
A vault of open HTML files:
images, PDFs, links and Markdown belong inside one note.
Text flows beside your image, and if you like, your own AI helps polish your sentences.
Arranged around your life, the way you need it.
Colour gives you orientation and makes your thinking visible.
Mac · iPhone · iPad
Notes as open HTML files
No account · no mandatory cloud · no built-in telemetry
New in 4.7: AI window, text beside images, Markdown block
Fourteen days in full · then the licence makes it the full version
Make it visible. Capture it fast. Pick it up later.
ZimeZumi was developed by a person with ADHD for people with ADHD. You do not need to build a perfect system before you can begin: a coloured heading, an image, a marked passage in a PDF. If you find your way through visual cues, a note can give you more than a filename.
It grew out of a gap between Apple Notes and Obsidian: keep getting started simple, while giving a personal knowledge collection more depth and visual orientation. HTML preserves the designed note; Markdown remains available for import and export.
A personal knowledge space, not a calendar, a CRM or a team tool. There is no built-in language model: the AI text actions use the Claude Code or Codex you already have, and MCP optionally connects your own AI client.
Notes feels too cluttered.
Past a certain point everything looks the same. Here every note gets colour, markers and a shape you recognise before you read it.
Obsidian feels too complex.
No plugin evening, no customising before anything works. You start with one note and decide later how much structure actually helps.
You want your data local.
A folder of HTML files that you choose yourself. No account, no mandatory cloud, no built-in telemetry.
Everything ZimeZumi does exists elsewhere too. The difference is the workflow the features are tuned to, not any single feature.
Images beside. Markdown inside. Your AI alongside.
Version 4.7 brings three new tools to the Mac. They turn a note into a page, let Markdown files stay what they are, and help you with the wording when you want them to.
The AI window.
Select text, choose an action: rephrase, shorten, expand, spelling and grammar or summarise. Or say in a line or two what you want. The window stays open while you work through a text paragraph by paragraph.
Mac only. Uses Claude Code or Codex with the plan you already have.
Text beside images.
An image on the left or right, the text flows beside it. Titles, paragraphs and images can be centred. A note starts to look like a page instead of a stack.
Markdown stays Markdown.
Drop a .md file into a note and it stays what it is: linked to the original, searchable, shown as source or as a clean reading view. If the file changes, one click brings in the new version.
Everything happens in your own folder.
No mandatory cloud, no account. Core features work with locally available files, including offline. iCloud Drive, the AI text actions and an AI client via MCP are optional connections with their own data boundaries.
Small signals. Instantly more overview.
A familiar folder tree, your own colours for life areas, folders and notes, pins for what matters and visible write protection. One coloured dot is enough to recognise a note.
And you decide the colours of the app itself: background, text, headings, accents and the note tree can be set separately in the Colour Lab.
The padlock makes a note read-only. It stays as it is until you unlock it again.
A word. A topic. A colour.
Search titles, note text and tags. Pick a topic from the index or the marker colour you remember and combine both with the search term. Open it with ⌘P.
New in 4.7: your AI now finds things precisely, too. Through MCP a connected AI client gets the matching sections of your notes instead of whole files, with heading and location. Archive folders stay out of it.
One everyday life. Many thoughts. One place.
What is in it is in the index.
Not a promise, a list. Five of 88 entries. The full overview is in the A–Z index.
Your knowledge comes with you.
The same HTML vault with its own mobile interface: a library with the INBOX, reading notes and editing them deliberately, pinned items with their location, and the sidebar alongside your content on iPad. On iPhone and iPad, share photos, links and other attachments from other apps to ZimeZumi. They arrive directly in your INBOX.
Full board editing, AI text actions and MCP belong to the Mac. On iPhone, boards remain reading views.
Your thinking space needs no mandatory cloud.
Your vault is a folder of open HTML files. Locally available content works offline. iCloud Drive, the AI text actions and an AI client via MCP are optional connections with their own data boundaries.
Good to know.
Questions that usually come up before trying it.
Do I need an account?
Local use needs no ZimeZumi account and there is no mandatory ZimeZumi cloud. File services and AI clients may require accounts of their own.
Does everything work the same on every device?
No. Mac, iPhone and iPad use the same vault structure but have different features. Full board editing, the AI text actions and MCP belong to the Mac; on iPad you can edit supported boards with pen, shapes and text; on iPhone boards remain reading views.
Can I share a note with its attachments?
On the Mac, export notes as PDF, HTML or Markdown to share them with others. HTML export can embed local images and attachments from a text note. PDF is a reading version, not a package of every original attachment. Check the export file before sharing it. ZimeZumi does not offer collaborative note editing.
Does the padlock encrypt my note?
No. The padlock means write protection against editing and deletion inside ZimeZumi. Device protection, backups and encryption are the job of your operating system and file services.
Is AI built in?
ZimeZumi has no language model of its own. On the Mac, the AI text actions use Claude Code or Codex if you have one of them installed and signed in with your Claude or ChatGPT account. Then only the selected text and your instruction go to your account's provider, nothing to us. Every change appears as a draft first. Separately, an AI client you set up yourself can search and read your vault through the local MCP server. With a cloud model, requested content may be sent to that provider. A local MCP server does not make the model local.
Does the AI feature cost extra?
Not from us. The actions run on the Claude or ChatGPT plan you already have and count towards its usage limits. You do not need an API key. Without Claude Code or Codex the feature simply stays off, and everything else works as usual.
Hold on to it.
A thought in the INBOX. An image beside the idea. A passage you can return to. Start with whatever you want to keep today.
ZimeZumi is a personal knowledge space, not a medical application. The ADHD experience shapes the design; no therapeutic benefit is claimed.