A native macOS research workspace.
Literature, technical documents, reading notes, citations — and your next decision.
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Papyrus Papers is a local-first macOS workspace that connects literature, technical documents, reading notes, citations, and your next decision. One native Mac app instead of a folder, a browser tab, a PDF reader, a knowledge base, and a reference manager.
- Import once, keep context. PDFs, DOIs, arXiv IDs, BibTeX, RIS, Zotero / Better-BibTeX exports, and recursive folders all flow through one dialog. Joint enrichment from Crossref, OpenAlex, embedded XMP, and arXiv-ID extraction. Per-field provenance and a conflict picker when sources disagree.
- Read and think in one place. Native PDFKit reader paired with Markdown notes that understand LaTeX. Full-text search across titles, authors, abstracts, notes, highlights, and the PDF body.
- Decide what to read next. Build your own Smart Collections from any combination of tags, journals, year ranges, BibTeX type, favorites, and PDF status. The reading queue and a Needs-Metadata-Attention surface turn a pile of PDFs into a queue you can act on.
- Three shapes for one library. Smart Collections (saved queries), Projects (working sets that span the library), and Folders (classic hierarchy). A paper can sit in many projects without being moved or duplicated.
- Export the way you came in. Copy citation in 8 styles — APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Harvard, Vancouver, BibTeX, RIS. Markdown snapshots per paper or project. Full project export bundles preserve folder hierarchy.
Local-first by design. Your library, notes, PDFs, indexes, and backups stay on your Mac unless you explicitly export, share, or sync them.
Network requests only happen when you use a feature that needs them: metadata lookup (Crossref, OpenAlex), WebDAV sync, or Apple's on-device Foundation Models for background metadata synthesis. No Papyrus account. No analytics. No telemetry SDKs.
Full policy: Privacy.
- macOS 15.6 (Sequoia) or later
- Apple Silicon (arm64) and Intel (x86_64) — universal binary, ~38 MB
The full project is open under the MIT License. Source is at github.com/zendax673/Papyrus.
git clone https://github.com/zendax673/Papyrus.git
cd Papyrus
open Papyrus.xcodeprojRequires Xcode 16+. Self-builds skip the App Store sandbox and won't include the paid signing key.
- Bug reports and feature requests: Issues
- Private: zdfu189@gmail.com
Released under the MIT License.