[[vs/openhistory]]
Minne and OpenHistory — which one is for you?
OpenHistory and Minne agree on the things most memory apps get wrong. Both are free and MIT-licensed. Both run on macOS 14 and later. Both learn what you work on through the Accessibility APIs — window names, document context, visible text — and both refuse screenshots, audio and keystrokes on principle. Both keep everything in a local folder and hand it to an AI agent over MCP. If you are choosing between them, you have already made the important decision.
What is left is the shape of the memory. OpenHistory builds a timeline: your day grouped into work episodes, with hourly and daily recaps. Minne builds a wiki: one page per person, project and topic, distilled from the same kind of captures — and then writes from it wherever you type.
A timeline answers "what did I do on Tuesday?" A wiki answers "where does the Oslo move stand?" Which question you ask more often is the whole comparison.
What OpenHistory does well
From OpenHistory's own site and repository, checked at the date in the footer:
- An automatic work timeline. Foreground activity you have permitted — apps, window names, document context, browser domains, clicks, visible interface text — becomes a private timeline of your day, with concise summaries of completed work and decisions.
- Recaps by the hour and by the day. The product's centre is the recap: a readable account of what happened, produced without you writing it.
- Apple's on-device model. On macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence, summaries can run on Apple's own model without any cloud provider. OpenAI, Anthropic and Kimi are available with your own API keys; nothing is sent by default, and automatic summaries can be switched off entirely.
- The same privacy posture as Minne. No screenshots, no audio, no camera or microphone, password fields and private browser windows excluded. Raw activity, summaries and settings live in a permission-restricted local directory as JSONL files.
- An MCP server for agents, so a local AI agent can query the history, and redacted projections of the activity for external tools.
- Open source. MIT-licensed, built with Electron and React on top of a Swift layer for the Accessibility work.
Where Minne differs
- The memory is a wiki, not a log. OpenHistory stores episodes in time order. Minne's agent distils captures into pages — Ingrid Berg, Oslo move, retry logic — each citing the raw captures it came from, and keeps them current as the work moves. You read the page, not the day.
- It writes where you type. Tap right-Option in any text field and Minne drafts the reply, the update or the answer from the memory and the text on screen, in your tone, and inserts it when you say so. OpenHistory's site describes no drafting; it is a memory you consult, not one that writes.
- Plain markdown, in a folder you own.
~/Minneopens in Obsidian as it stands, and aSCHEMA.mdyou edit tells the agent what is worth keeping. OpenHistory's data is JSONL in a protected directory — designed to be queried, not read like notes. The folder is the product. - More ways to bring a model. Both accept OpenAI and Anthropic keys. Minne also signs in with a Claude or ChatGPT subscription, and runs against Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible server on your own machine. OpenHistory's fully-local path is Apple's on-device model, which needs macOS 26; Minne's works on macOS 14.
- Native, small. A Swift menu-bar app with a compiled sidecar for the agent, rather than an Electron app. The trade-off is Mac only, forever.
Side by side
| Minne | OpenHistory | |
|---|---|---|
| Captures | Focused window text via Accessibility | Permitted foreground activity via Accessibility |
| Never captures | Screenshots, audio, password fields, private windows | Screenshots, audio, camera, mic, passwords, private windows, keystrokes |
| Memory shape | A wiki: pages per person, project, topic | A timeline: episodes, hourly and daily recaps |
| Stored as | Markdown files in ~/Minne | JSONL in a permission-restricted local directory |
| Writes into your apps | Yes — right-Option in any text field | No |
| Local model | Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible server, macOS 14+ | Apple on-device model, macOS 26+ |
| Cloud model | Anthropic, OpenAI — key or subscription | OpenAI, Anthropic, Kimi — your keys |
| Agent access | Read-only MCP server over stdio | Authenticated MCP server |
| Price and license | Free, MIT | Free, MIT |
Choose OpenHistory if…
- You want a timeline — the shape of your day, with recaps you can scroll.
- You are on macOS 26 and want summaries on Apple's own model, no keys at all.
- You want a memory to consult and do not need it to write anything.
Choose Minne if…
- You ask your memory questions about things — people, projects, decisions — more often than about days.
- You want the answer written into the reply you are typing, not looked up.
- You want the memory as markdown you can open, edit and carry, and you want a local model without waiting for macOS 26.
Two open-source apps arriving at the same privacy stance is good news for anyone choosing either. For the recorder-shaped alternatives they both reject, see a Screenpipe alternative that doesn't record all day; for the nearest product to Minne's drafting side, see Minne and Goldfish. What any of them should be measured against starts at what is a personal AI memory?.
Product facts on this page were checked against each product's own published material on 2026-09-11. Something outdated? Say so and it will be fixed.
Free, open source, and yours to read. macOS 14 and later.