Hey Indie Hackers,
Iโve been building Collate, a free offline AI workspace for macOS. It runs entirely on-device (no uploads, no limits) and helps you read, highlight, summarize, chat with, and truly understand your PDFs.
We just launched v1.7 with some big upgrades:
โจ Whatโs new
Share as links โ instantly share summaries, highlights, or even a single message with citations.
Faster summaries โ snappier performance across big PDFs.
Progress tracking โ see how much of the doc youโve covered as you ask questions.
Suggested questions โ guided exploration so you donโt miss key parts.
Mark as done โ tidy up your reading list.
Clickable citations โ answers link straight to the source in the PDF.
๐ Still here from v1.5:
Chat with multiple PDFs at once.
Merge PDFs into a single file.
Persistent chat history per document.
Smart citations + auto-highlights in the PDF.
๐ Why Iโm building this
I believe AI should be private, personal, and unlimited. By running locally, Collate gives anyone instant insights without paywalls or cloud lock-in. Itโs a small step toward my bigger vision: creating a personal AI workspace where you can orchestrate agents and automate your workflows โ without giving up control.
๐ฌ Would love your thoughts
Which formats should I add next (DOCX, websites)?
What would make Collate indispensable for your workflow?
If youโve tried it, whatโs missing or rough around the edges?
๐ Check it out here: collate.one
๐ Weโre also live on Product Hunt today โ upvotes much appreciated ๐
Thanks for all the inspiration and support โ excited to keep building in public!