How Curator works

The whole app rests on three ideas. Once you have them, everything else follows.

The three ideas

1. Your files stay where they are. Curator points at a folder or a bucket and reads the files in place. It does not move, copy, or rename anything unless you ask it to.
2. Curator builds a private index on your Mac. As it reads your files, it records what is in them. This index is what powers fast search and grounded answers, and it lives on your machine.
3. The thinking happens locally. When you search, chat, or organize, the AI work runs on your Mac through Ollama. Nothing is uploaded to do it.

How it flows

In practice, using Curator looks like this.

1. You point Curator at a storage source, a folder or a bucket.

2. Curator scans the source and processes the files, reading their contents and building its index in the background.

3. You search by meaning, chat with your files, or let Curator organize them. All of it runs locally.

Steps 1 and 2 run automatically. Step 3 is where you spend most of your time.

Your privacy

Because the index and the AI both stay on your Mac, your files and your questions never leave your Mac. The only network call Curator makes for AI is to Ollama running locally, or to one you point it at on your own network.

Privacy Exactly what stays local and what, if anything, leaves your Mac.