Scrub back to anything you saw.
Rewind is Earlyn's timeline of your screen: it keeps a picture and the text of every moment your screen changes, so you can scroll back through your day and find anything you saw on your Mac.
Updated Read as Markdown
How Earlyn captures a moment
Earlyn looks at your main display about once a second with Apple's ScreenCaptureKit. It does not record video: a frame is kept only when the text on screen actually changed, so a still screen stores nothing and an ordinary busy hour keeps about 160 moments.
- Text first. Earlyn reads the window's text through the macOS Accessibility interface, which gives the exact words. When an app exposes none, it reads the picture with Apple's on-device text recognition (Vision).
- Then the picture. The frame goes into a five-minute HEVC video segment made by the Mac's hardware encoder. Finished segments are sealed with AES-GCM; only the segment being written is open.
- Duplicates are dropped. A window whose text did not change since the last look is not stored again.
What you can do on the timeline
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Move through the day | Drag the strip, scroll, pinch to zoom, or ← → |
| Play it back | Space |
| Find a word | ⌘F; matches are marked on the timeline and highlighted on the picture |
| Copy the text of a moment | ⌘T opens text mode; click a line to copy it |
| Ask about part of the day | Select a stretch (drag, ⇧-drag or [ ]) and ask; the answer only uses that window |
| See what changed | “Compare from here” shows the text that changed between two moments |
| Keep a moment | Pin it so it outlives your history window, or add a note |
| Save the screen right now | “Remember this” (⇧⌥M) keeps a full-resolution picture with a note |
What Rewind never keeps
- Apps you exclude are removed from the capture itself, not hidden afterwards.
- Private and incognito browser windows are skipped; capture pauses while one is in front.
- Password fields are never read, including web forms that only look like normal text fields.
- A moment whose text contains a secret (API keys, tokens, card numbers that pass the Luhn check, private keys) is not stored.
- Window titles or websites you list in Settings → Privacy are dropped.
More on how the data is protected: privacy and security.
Questions
- Does Earlyn record a video of my screen?
- No. It keeps one picture each time the text on screen changes, plus that text. Moments are stored in short encrypted video files only because that is the most compact way to keep many still pictures.
- How far back can I rewind?
- The free plan keeps 7 days. Pro keeps 90 days. You can shorten the window, set a shorter one per app, or pin moments you want to keep longer.
- Does it work with more than one display?
- Yes, as an option (Settings → General). Other displays are looked at less often, every three seconds or more, and Rewind shows a display picker when more than one has pictures.
- How much space does a day take?
- About 9 MB for a busy hour at the default resolution. The measurements are on the storage research page.
Read next
- Feature · Ask and ChatAsk and ChatAsk is Earlyn's search and question box: type a word or a question in plain language and Earlyn answers from your own screen and meeting history, showing the moments it used.
- Privacy and securityPrivacy and securityEarlyn keeps everything it records on your Mac: the database is encrypted with SQLCipher, screen pictures are sealed with AES-GCM, the keys stay in your keychain, and the app makes no network request unless you start one.
- Research · September 2026How much disk screen memory takesAt Earlyn's default 2,560-pixel capture, a busy hour of screen memory takes about 9 MB, which is around 160 stored moments at roughly 52 KB of picture and 4.5 KB of text each, and a still screen stores nothing.