Grape for engineers Keep the calc, the sketch and the reason. Find all three when the design changes.
Hand calcs, site walks, datasheets and the reason you picked that part, in a local library you can sketch in, search by meaning and open offline on site.
Free to start. Works offline on site. The library stays on your own disk.
Drawing canvas
Draw the part words cannot carry.
Some of a project file of calcs and test results is not sentences. Put a design change on an infinite canvas inside the note, right next to the writing that explains it.
Diagrams without a second app
Boxes and arrows are two clicks away instead of a context switch.
Sketch, then explain underneath
The caption you write is what makes the drawing findable later.
Draw with a pencil in hand
Rough it out on the phone, tidy it up at the desk.
Semantic search
Find it by meaning, not by memory.
Describe a design change the way you remember it and the right note comes back. No naming convention to keep up with across a project file of calcs and test results, and no scrolling through site walks and design reviews you filed months ago.
No naming convention to keep up
Your filing can be a mess. Search reads what the note is about.
Best match first
Results are ranked by how close they are to what you described.
Folders and tags when you want them
Structure helps, it is just no longer the only way back to a note.
Voice recording and transcription
Say it out loud. Keep it in writing.
Record site walks and design reviews straight into a note and Grape turns them into text you can search, quote and question, usually before you are back at your desk. On Pro it also says who said what.
Capture on the move
Talk into your phone on the walk back and read it at your desk.
Transcript and notes together
Your own scribbles sit above the transcript, in the same note.
Searchable the moment it lands
An hour of audio becomes text you can find six months later.
Handwriting notes
Write it by hand. Ask it like text.
Write site walks and design reviews by hand on pages of ruled paper and Grape reads the words off the page on the device itself, so a page of a project file of calcs and test results in your own hand turns up in search like any typed note and the agent can quote it.
Paper that behaves like paper
Pen, highlighter, eraser, shapes and text boxes on pages that stack the way a notebook does.
Your handwriting, searchable
The words are read off the page on the device itself, and nothing leaves it to do so.
The agent reads your pages
Ask what the lecture said on Tuesday and the answer comes from the ink.
Write on the slides
Import a PDF and annotate it page by page, then export the lot back out as one.
Page forty is a tap away
A navigator shows the whole notebook as thumbnails, with a page added or removed from there.
Open the notebook at the desk
The pages sync like any note and open in the desktop app, where you can add to them.
AI agent
Ask your notes. Get an answer.
Ask a project file of calcs and test results a question in plain language and get the answer with the note it came from, so out on site you are reading your own words instead of hunting for them. The agent can file, tag and tidy while it is in there.
Summaries from your own words
A week of meeting notes becomes three bullet points you can send on.
Tidying stops being your job
Ask it to file the loose notes into folders and add the tags you already use.
Web search in the same chat
When the answer is not in your notes, it can look it up and write it in.
Web clipper for Chrome
Clip the page. Keep it as a note.
A page worth keeping goes into Grape as a note, with the images and the source line, filed next to a project file of calcs and test results. Ask it questions later the way you would ask anything else you wrote.
1Clip it where you are reading
2It is filed before you switch windows
Three ways to take a page
The readable article, only the part you highlighted, or just the title and the link.
Filed before it lands
Pick the folder and the tags in the panel, or set a default once and never see it again.
The pictures come too
Grape downloads every image into the note, so it reads offline and after the page is gone.
Graph view
See the whole library at once.
See every note you have written about a design change and the ones you forgot were connected. Most engineers find a theme running through a project file of calcs and test results that they never filed as one.
Connections you did not plan
Two notes from different months turn out to be about the same thing.
Links do the work
Link note to note as you write and the map fills itself in.
Where your attention went
Note stats show what you have actually been writing about.
Locked notes
Lock a note. Nobody else can read it, not even us.
A locked note is encrypted on your device with a password only you know. It syncs like any other note, but what reaches our servers is a sealed block of text: no AI reads it, no search indexes it, and we could not open it if we were asked to. On every plan.
Sealed before it leaves
The note is encrypted on your laptop or phone with AES-256 and a key stretched from your password. The password never leaves the device.
A recovery key, once
Grape cannot reset a locked notes password, because it never has it. You get a recovery key when you set it, and that is the one other way in.
One password, every locked note
Type it once and every locked note opens until Grape locks them again: after a few minutes, when the phone goes to the background, or when you say so.
In the field
What that looks like for engineers
Three points in a project where the app earns its place.
Site visit
Talk through what you see, put the photos in the same note, and leave with the punch list written.
Design review
Record the review and keep the decision, the sketch and the reasons for it in one note.
Testing
Log every run with its setup and readings, then ask which change moved the number.
Full spec
The Rest of the Spec Sheet
Everything listed here is in the current release. Nothing is a roadmap item.
Bring your own AI, or use ours
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio and more.
Work with no wifi and no worry
Your notes live in a database on your device. You choose where the file sits.
Your prompts, one keystroke away
Save the instructions you use constantly and run them on any note.
Pick up where you left off
Notes, drawings, decks, tags, chats and settings stay in step across devices.
Keep the sketch in the note it belongs to
An infinite canvas inside the note for diagrams, wireframes and rough thinking.
Answers that need the web, in the same chat
Grape can search the internet and drop what it finds into the note.
Keep the PDF next to your notes on it
Drop PDFs into a note and write alongside. Search and the AI read what they say.
A daily backup you never have to remember
Made automatically on the device you use and kept for thirty days.
Connect a note to the notes around it
Link note to note, then see the whole web in graph view.
Find things in three keystrokes
Nested folders, drag and drop, hashtags with autocomplete and pinned notes.
Move in from your old app in one go
Import Apple Notes, Evernote, or a folder of Markdown, with the structure intact.
Write without fighting the editor
Tables, checklists, images, files and slash commands for the rest.
Own the file, not a subscription to your own words
No lock in. The database is yours, on disk, from day one.
Tested against
The Lab Notebook, the Chatbot and Grape
A notebook keeps the readings and loses them on a shelf. A chatbot answers from the internet. Grape answers from your own calcs, tests and drawings, with the note it found it in.
| A notes app | A chat assistant | Grape | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keeps every note in one place | |||
| Answers a question from your own notes | Only what you paste in | ||
| Points back to the note the answer came from | |||
| Records and transcribes, by speaker | Audio only, no text | ||
| Turns a note into flashcards, a quiz or a deck | If you paste it in | ||
| Works offline | |||
| A file on your disk you can take anywhere | Export, if the app allows it | ||
| Free to start |
Bench and site
Desktop at the Bench, Phone on Site
Mac, Windows and Linux for the calcs and the write up. iPhone, iPad and Android for the walk round, the photos and the pencil.
Mac, Windows and Linux
The full workspace
Sidebar, editor, chat, drawing canvas and search in one window. This is where the long work happens: writing up, cleaning up and asking bigger questions of everything you have collected.
Keyboard shortcuts for everything you do often
A local database you can point wherever you like
A Chrome extension that clips pages straight into it
iPhone and Android
Capture in ten seconds
Open the app, talk or type, done. Recording, chat and search sit one tap from the note list, so the thought gets saved while you still have it.
Record and transcribe on the move
Grape in the share sheet, for pages and files from other apps
The same notes you left open on your desk
Install it on everything you write on. Free, and no account needed.
Get the apps Cost
A Free Plan With No Expiry
Notes, sketches, recording and export cost nothing. The paid plans add the AI and sync, or bring your own key.
- Unlimited notes, folders and tags
- Rich editor and drawing canvas
- Voice recording
- Flashcards and quizzes by hand
- Locked notes, end-to-end encrypted
- A local database you own
- Everything in Free
- Cross device sync
- Share folders and notes
- 10 GB of attachment storage
- Daily backups and history on device
- Grape AI not included
- Everything in Sync
- Grape AI built in, no keys
- AI chat, agent, memory and web search
- Voice transcription
- 50 GB of attachment storage
- Best AI model not included
- Everything in Plus
- Grape AI on the best model
- Twice the AI allowance of Plus
- Speaker identification
- AI images generated in the chat
- 100 GB of attachment storage
| Notes, on every plan | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited notes, folders and tags | ||||
| Voice recording | ||||
| Sync, backups and support | ||||
| Cross device sync | ||||
| Share folders and notes | ||||
| Attachment storage | 10 GB | 50 GB | 100 GB | |
| AI, widgets and themes | ||||
| Grape AI built in, no keys to manage | ||||
| AI chat about your notes | ||||
| Voice transcription | ||||
| Grape AI on the best model | ||||
| AI images generated in the chat |
- Everything in Free
- Cross device sync through your Dropbox or Google Drive
- Bring your own AI keys
- AI chat, agent, memory and web search
- Voice transcription
- AI flashcards, quizzes and mind maps
- Sharing and live typing not included
- Grape AI not included
You write a lot and do not want to pay
Free. Unlimited notes, folders, tags, recording and drawing, plus flashcards and quizzes you write yourself, with no account and no trial clock.
You want your notes on every device, and no AI
Sync. Notes and attachments stay in step between your laptop and your phone, folders can be shared with the people you work with, and each device keeps its own backups and version history, for less than a coffee a month.
You want the AI to just work on every device
Plus. Grape AI is included, so there are no keys to manage, and sync keeps your laptop and phone in step.
You lean on the AI every day
Pro. The best Grape AI model with twice the allowance, plus speaker identification, Brainrot videos, routines, live typing and the pictures Grape draws for your decks and chats.
You already pay for an AI provider
Lifetime. One payment and your own keys for AI chat, the agent, search, transcription, memory, flashcards, quizzes, mind maps, slide decks, mini apps, infographics and AI images, plus the widgets and the themes. Your devices sync through your own Dropbox or Google Drive, and sharing and Grape AI stay with Plus and Pro.
Every plan keeps your notes in a local database on your own device. Stop paying and your writing stays exactly where it is.
Procedure
Six Steps, About Ten Minutes
No workspace to design first. Install, drop in a datasheet, record the next site walk and ask what it said.
- 01
Download and open it
No account, no setup wizard, no workspace to design first. Choose where your notes live and start typing. - 02
Bring your old notes across
Import from Apple Notes or Evernote, point Grape at a folder of Markdown files, or drag in the PDFs you keep reopening. - 03
Put everything in one place
Type, paste, record, attach, clip a page from Chrome or share one from your phone. Folders and tags are there when you want them and out of the way when you do not. - 04
Ask instead of scrolling
Open the agent and ask a question about your own notes. The answer comes back with the note it came from. - 05
Turn notes into the thing you needed
A summary, a deck of flashcards, a quiz, a mind map, or a clean export to send to somebody else. - 06
Put it on your other devices
Turn on sync and the same library shows up on your phone, while each device keeps its own daily backup.
Questions
What Engineers Ask Before Installing
Drawings, datasheets and working offline first. Where something is not in the app yet, the answer says so.
Reference
Short Guides to the Setup
Installing, adding PDFs, scanning drawings, turning on the AI, syncing and backups.
5 min read
Free, Sync, Plus, Pro or Lifetime
What each plan includes and which one fits how you work.
Read the guide
2 min read
Install Grape on iPhone, iPad and Android
Where to get the mobile app on each platform, and what the first open looks like.
Read the guide
2 min read
Install Grape on Windows, Mac and Linux
Which build to pick for your computer, what the first launch looks like, and how updates arrive.
Read the guide
Reading
Longer Pieces on Notes and the App
On keeping a working record, AI that reads your own files, and how Grape gets built.
October 14, 2026
The Best Obsidian Alternatives in 2026
Ten apps to move an Obsidian vault to, picked by why you want to leave, and what each one does to your links and properties.
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September 24, 2026
The Best Evernote Alternatives in 2026
Seven apps to move your Evernote notes to, compared on price, platforms, offline use, AI and what happens to an .enex file.
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September 18, 2026
The Best AI Note Taking App for Mac
Five tests to run on any Mac notes app in an afternoon: search by meaning, ask across notes, record a call, keep the notes local.
Read the post
Revisions
Every Revision by Email
One short message when something ships. Nothing else.
Find all three when the design changes.
Hand calcs, site walks, datasheets and the reason you picked that part, in a local library you can sketch in, search by meaning and open offline on site.
macOS
Windows
Linux
iPhone
Android