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, searches all of them from one line, 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
No import step, no cloud sync to wait for, no second app to install. Coii Ref reads files that are already there.
Register the folders you already keep references in. Coii Ref 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. Each filter becomes a chip you can delete, and a word it does not recognise is 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: 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, so the box never offers a filter the search cannot run.
Nothing you type is a hard failure. An unknown key becomes free text, a bad value becomes a chip marked invalid, 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 shaped this.
Nothing is copied into a library of its own and nothing is renamed. The database, the thumbnails and the proxies sit inside the folder you pointed at, so whatever backs that folder up backs all of it up, and moving it moves the workspace.
type:image rating:>=4 tag:any:portrait,studio -is:favourite. AND across keys, OR inside a comma list, and no parentheses — grouping is what makes a query impossible to autocomplete or 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.
Something.coii-canvas, JSON, pretty-printed, 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.
One importer. It carries across what 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.
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. At most three calls per device: one check, one activation, and one more if you ever deactivate.
02
At launch
A HEAD request to cloudflare.com (or www.apple.com if that fails), read for its Date header only, so a wound-back clock cannot buy free trial days. It carries no identifier. Offline is not an error.
03
Whenever the app is open
The interface talks to the app over the local loopback only. That traffic never reaches an interface that could carry it off the machine.
04
Everything else
Usage statistics are optional and off by default. If you opt in, PostHog receives feature events, app version and coarse performance data, never your content. You can turn this off in Settings. No automatic crash reporting.
Your files, thumbnails, tags and canvases are never among the bytes sent. Opening the app with the network off does everything it does with the network on.
Read the privacy policyThe app builds for Windows and Linux, but only the macOS builds are signed, tested and released. A platform is offered here the day it is, and not before.
Apple Silicon and Intel are two native builds rather than one universal binary, so each download is only the half your Mac runs.
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.
Checkout by Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record. Tax handled, invoice included.
Lost your key? Lemon Squeezy’s order lookup mails it to the address that bought. No email to us required.
Questions
coii- folders for thumbnails, proxies and backups. That is what makes a workspace portable — back up the folder and you have backed up everything. Two small things live outside it: the trial and licence record, mirrored in your login keychain so reinstalling cannot reset the trial, and a list of recent workspaces in Application Support.Something.coii-canvas, pretty-printed JSON, in your own folder. It diffs, it syncs through whatever you already sync with, and it outlives this app.Point the app at one folder tonight and see the whole thing on a canvas before you decide anything.