A mini app is a small app that lives inside a note: a todo list with due dates, a habit tracker for the week, a quiz about the note, a focus timer. You say what it should do and the AI writes it. It sits in the note as a card, opens when you click or tap the card, looks like the rest of Grape and remembers what you put in it.
Making or changing a mini app takes the AI, so it is part of the Pro and Lifetime plans. Opening one and using it works on every plan.
On desktop
Type / on an empty line and choose Mini app, or choose Mini app at the end of Apps in the toolbar. That puts a card in the note, saying Mini app and Describe an app to make, and nothing opens yet. Click the card to open its dialog.
Say what the app should do in the box, or click one of the examples under it to fill the box: A todo list with due dates, A habit tracker for this week, A quiz about this note or A focus timer with breaks. Then click Make it, or press Command or Control with Enter.
On mobile
Put the cursor where the app should go, open Apps on the toolbar above the keyboard and tap the last button, Mini app. A card goes into the note, saying Mini app and Describe an app to make. Tap it to open its sheet, then write what the app should do or tap one of the examples, and tap Make it.
What to ask for
Something small and clear works best: what the app shows, what you do in it and what it should remember. The AI reads the note along with your words, so an app can be about the note, and A quiz about this note asks you about what the note says. For cards and questions you want to write or edit one by one, the study tools fit better, see Turn a note into flashcards and Quiz yourself on a note.
While it is made
The dialog or the sheet says Making your mini app..., the step it is on (planning the app, choosing the look, laying out the screen, wiring up the buttons) and a bar that fills as it goes. It usually takes under a minute. You do not have to wait for it. Close it and keep working: the card in the note says Making your mini app... until the app is ready, and Grape tells you when it is, see Get notified when the AI is done. Cancel stops it.
Using it
When it is ready, the app takes the place of the box, in the dialog on desktop and in the sheet on your phone, and it works like any small app: add things, tick them off, start the timer. Everything you put in it is saved with the note as you go, the items, the scores and the settings, so it is all still there the next time you open the card. The card takes the app's own name, with Mini app under it.
On your phone the app scrolls and drags inside the sheet, so the sheet itself moves only by its handle and its title row.
How apps look
A mini app looks like a part of Grape rather than a web page. Every app runs with Grape's own buttons, boxes, checkboxes, switches, menus, tabs, lists, tables and dialogs, and the AI builds it from them. It paints in your theme and accent color, light or dark, and when you change either one while the app is open, the app changes with it.
Changing it with AI
Click the pencil at the top of the app, Change with AI, or tap it on your phone. A box opens at the bottom of the app: say what should change and choose Update app. The AI rewrites the app and keeps everything it saved, so the things you already put in it are still there afterwards.
When something goes wrong
If the app runs into an error, a bar at the bottom says The app ran into a problem, with what went wrong. Fix it hands the error to the AI, which rewrites the app to get past it and keeps what it saved. Restart app, the circular arrow at the top, reloads the app from what it saved, which also helps when it looks stuck.
When the AI cannot make an app, the dialog or the sheet says why. If the app got too long for the AI to finish, ask for something smaller; if the AI did not send back an app, say it another way. With no chat model switched on, turn one on in Settings under Models.
What an app can and cannot do
A mini app is one page that runs inside Grape, offline. It loads nothing from the internet, so it works without a connection, and it runs in a sandbox: it cannot reach your other notes, your account or anything else on your device, only what it saved itself. Links in it open in your browser.
An app can be up to about 400 KB, and it can save up to 1 MB in up to 2,000 values, which is room for a long list or years of ticked habits. An app that tries to save more than that is stopped, and Grape says so.
Where it syncs
What an app saved belongs to its note, so it goes wherever the note goes: to your other devices with sync, through Grape Cloud on Pro and Sync or through Dropbox or Google Drive on Lifetime, into your backups, and to the people you share the note with.
While an app is open it checks for changes from your other devices about every 20 seconds, so a task you tick on your phone shows up in the app open on your computer.
If you use the app on two devices before they sync, both changes are kept, value by value. When the same value was changed on both, the later change wins.
Notes with an app in them
- A note that holds a mini app cannot be locked, like a note with flashcards, because the app lives outside the note text.
- Version history shows the app as its card, and in a shared note an app someone added or took out is named Mini app. The versions keep the note rather than what the app saved, so going back to an older version leaves the app's data as it is.
- The connection for ChatGPT and Claude sees a mini app as a placeholder and keeps it in place when it rewrites the note.
Which plans
Opening a mini app and using it works on every plan, so an app made on Pro keeps working on Free or Sync. Making one or changing it takes the AI, and unlike flashcards there is no way to write one by hand. That comes with Pro and Lifetime: Grape AI on Pro, with no keys to manage, and your own API key on Lifetime, see Set up AI. On Grape AI the app is written by a stronger model than the chat's, since a page that has to work and look right needs one, and each app you make or change counts on its own Mini apps bar in your usage. With your own key it is written by the chat model you picked in the chat, see Add your own AI models; a provider's larger models write noticeably better apps than its small ones.
On Free and Sync, choosing Mini app shows what Pro adds instead of putting a card in, and an app that is already in a note opens without the pencil and without Fix it.