Getting started

Requirements

• macOS 14.2 or later.
• Apple Silicon (M-series). The on-device speech model runs on the Neural Engine, so an Apple Silicon Mac is required.
• A few gigabytes of free disk space for the speech model, which downloads once during setup.

Install

1. Download the latest Everpaper.dmg from the Releases page.
2. Open the DMG and drag Everpaper onto the Applications folder shortcut.
3. Open Everpaper from Applications.

Everpaper keeps itself up to date, and you can trigger a check yourself from the Colophon under The Apparatus → Check for updates.

First-time setup

The first time you open Everpaper, it opens a first-run setup that walks you through a few short steps. A Step n of N counter sits in the top-right, and you can step back at any time with the chevron. Permission steps are optional and can be skipped with Skip — I'll set this up later; only the on-device model step has to finish before you continue.

1. Welcome

A quick tour of what Everpaper is: a Day Journal woven from periodic screen capture, on-device meeting recording, and a design that keeps your data on this Mac. Press Get Started.

2. Set up the Day Journal

The Day Journal periodically captures your screen and reads it with on-device OCR to weave a private narrative of your day. Screenshots never leave your Mac.

This step asks for the Screen & System Audio Recording permission. Press Enable Day Journal, then toggle the app on in the System Settings pane that opens (a fresh install shows Everpaper; if you updated in place from Hindsight, the toggle still reads Hindsight — see the note below). The same grant also covers meeting recording later, so you only grant it once. See Granting Screen Recording below if the status doesn't update right away.

The microphone is not required for journaling — you can skip the next step and the Day Journal still works.

3. Microphone access (optional)

The microphone is only used for meeting capture. Grant it now if you plan to record meetings, or skip it and enable it later from the Colophon.

4. Prepare on-device models

Everpaper downloads and optimizes the speech model on this Mac so meetings can be transcribed locally — audio never leaves your machine. You'll see a progress bar while the model downloads and warms up. This is the one step you can't skip: Continue stays disabled until the model reports Speech model is ready.

This download happens once. If a future launch already has the model cached, the step finishes instantly. If setup stalls (for example, on a slow network), use Retry.

5. Three moves, one rehearsal

Before you finish, Everpaper has you rehearse the three ways you move through your book:

• Turn — the left and right arrows move between days.
• The Index — ⌘K goes anywhere: days, minutes, settings.
• The Ribbon — the red mark always brings you back to today.

Press ⌘K once when prompted to summon the Index, then press Return to finish.

6. Ready

Press Open Everpaper and you're in. You'll land on today's page in your Day Journal.

Granting Screen Recording on recent macOS

The Day Journal and meeting recording both rely on the Screen & System Audio Recording permission. On recent macOS, granting it has one quirk worth knowing.

The entry macOS shows in this list follows the app's filename on disk: a fresh install is named Everpaper, while an in-place update from Hindsight keeps the existing Hindsight filename (auto-updates never rename the app on disk). The steps below are identical either way — just read "Everpaper" as "Hindsight" if you updated in place.

1. In the setup step, press Enable Day Journal (or Open System Settings). This adds Everpaper to the list and opens System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording.
2. Toggle Everpaper on. On recent macOS there's no confirmation dialog — flipping the toggle is the grant.
3. Relaunch Everpaper. macOS only applies this permission when the app starts, so the status may keep reading Not granted until you quit and reopen. Setup will prompt you to relaunch if it notices the grant hasn't taken effect yet.

If the entry doesn't respond, remove it from the list and re-add /Applications/Everpaper.app (or /Applications/Hindsight.app if you updated in place) with the + button, then relaunch.

You can revisit any of this later. Screen Recording, microphone, and calendar access can all be re-checked and changed from the Colophon (open the Index with ⌘K → Colophon).