macOS · local-first · one-time purchase
Point Coii Ref at the folders you already keep images and video in. It indexes them where they sit, gives you one line of search across all of them, and puts them on infinite canvases. No library to import into, no upload, no account.
30 days free, no card · then $19 USD once · macOS 11+, Apple Silicon & Intel
Studio references — Lighting board
2 layers · grid snap
62% · fit
Files never move
Indexed where they are
No account
Nothing to sign up for
No server of ours
There isn't one
$19 USD once
Updates included, forever
How it works
There is no import step, no cloud sync to wait for and no second app to install. Coii Ref is one process reading files that are already there.
Register the folders you already keep references in. Coii Ref walks them, reads dimensions, EXIF and colour, and writes thumbnails and canvas-resolution proxies beside your files. Images and video both.
One typed string drives the grid, the saved views and the autocompleter. Every filter you type comes back as a chip you can delete, and a word it doesn't recognise is just free text — the grid never stops returning rows.
Drop anything onto an infinite canvas, from any folder at once. A canvas is a plain JSON file in your own folders, so it diffs, it syncs with whatever you already sync with, and it outlives this app.
The query line
The same string drives the grid, the saved views and the autocompleter, and one registry is the source for both the parser and the suggestions — so the box can never offer you a filter the parser has never heard of.
Nothing you type is a hard failure. An unknown key becomes free text, a bad value becomes a chip marked invalid with a message beside it, and the results keep coming either way.
Search
type:video ext:movjust the clipstag:any:portrait,studioeither tagrating:>=4 -is:favouritegood, not yet starredhas:notes no:tagswritten up, unfiledFeatures
Forty thousand images across six drives, a folder someone else keeps renaming, a board you need to open again in two years — the awkward cases are the ones that shaped this.
Nothing is copied into a library of its own and nothing is renamed. The database, the thumbnails and the proxies all sit inside the folder you pointed at — so a workspace is portable, whatever backs that folder up backs all of it up, and moving it somewhere else moves the whole thing.
type:image rating:>=4 tag:any:portrait,studio -is:favourite. AND across keys, OR inside a comma list, and no parentheses — on purpose, because grouping is what makes a query impossible to autocomplete and impossible to draw as chips.
A smart view stores the text of a search and nothing else, and re-parses it every time you open it. Rename a tag and the view follows; there is no membership list to repair, because there is no membership list.
Something.coii-canvas, JSON, pretty-printed, sitting in your own folder. Version-control a board, hand one to somebody, or open one on a Mac that has never seen your library.
The watcher turns filesystem events into the smallest re-scan that makes the database true again — renames, moves, deletions, a volume that came back. It keeps running after the trial ends, because a library that quietly lies is worse than one that asks you to pay.
One importer, and it carries across the part that is not already in your files: ratings, tags, notes and canvases, matched by relative path rather than by id. Your originals are neither moved nor rewritten — everything under a folder is indexable on its own, so an import only has to add what a folder cannot hold.
What it sends
“Private” is easy to write on a page, so here is the complete list instead — every connection the app can make, and the one row that says what it never does.
01
When you press Activate
Lemon Squeezy receives your licence key, and a device label when you activate. At most three times per device — one check, one activation, and one more if you ever deactivate.
02
While the trial is running
A HEAD request to cloudflare.com, read for its Date header only, so a wound-back system clock cannot buy free days. It carries no identifier. Offline is not an error — the trial then runs on your own clock.
03
Whenever the app is open
The interface is a page served from 127.0.0.1 and rendered inside the window. That traffic never reaches an interface that could carry it off the machine.
04
Everything else
Nothing. No analytics, no crash reporting, no usage statistics, no advertising identifiers, and no update check — the app has no in-app updater, so it contacts no release server.
Once you are licensed there is nothing left on that list at all: opening the app with the network off does everything it does with the network on.
Read the privacy policyEvery decode is delegated to tools macOS already ships, the window is a WebKit view, and your licence is mirrored in the login keychain. Each of those is a rewrite on another platform rather than a build flag — so rather than put a row on this page that would quietly mean “the same app with its best parts missing”, there is no such row.
Apple Silicon and Intel are two separate builds for the same reason: each is compiled and tested on its own machine, and a cross-compiled half is a half nobody ran a test on.
Pricing
Thirty days with every feature unlocked, no card and no account. Then $19 USD, once.
Personal licence
$19USD once
Not a subscription. Nothing renews.
You can buy from inside the app at any point in the trial.
Secure checkout via Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record. Cards and more, tax handled, invoice included.
Lost your key? Lemon Squeezy’s My Orders mails it to you again — sign in with the address that bought, no email to us required.
Questions
coii-db.sqlite and its journal, plus coii-thumbnails/, coii-proxies/, coii-backups/ and your canvases. All of it sits inside the workspace folder rather than in a hidden Library directory, which is what makes a workspace portable: whatever backs that folder up backs the whole thing up, and moving the folder moves the workspace with it.Something.coii-canvas, JSON, pretty-printed because these live in your folders and often under version control. That means they diff, they sync through whatever you already sync with, and they outlive this app.Point the app at one folder tonight and see the whole thing on a canvas before you decide anything.