Rewind AI alternative: full recall or browser search?
A Rewind AI alternative for Mac should match where you need to search. A screen recorder can search across apps, audio, and meetings; Safari history can find sites you visited; a browser memory can search page text without recording the rest of your desktop. Those are different jobs, with different privacy and disk costs.
What happened to Rewind AI?
The original Rewind app stopped capturing screen and audio on December 19, 2025, after Meta acquired its parent company, Limitless. Limitless disabled Rewind capture through an app update, which removed the ongoing screen-history search that made Rewind useful. 9to5Mac's December 2025 report quotes Limitless's announcement and gives the cutoff date.
The rewind.ai domain now belongs to a different product. Its current owners say it's an unaffiliated site with AI tools, not the Mac app; Rewind.ai's 2026 clarification explains the name collision. So a page ranking for “Rewind AI” may be about a separate service.
Which Rewind AI alternative gives you the recall you need?
Start by choosing the capture boundary. If the missing thing could have been in any app, you need desktop-wide capture. If it was a web page, browser history or page-text search is a smaller record to keep.
| Option | What it captures | Where data lives | Documented storage | Price and license | Mac support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rewind | Screen and audio capture ended Dec 19, 2025 (9to5Mac, 2025). | Rewind capture is disabled; post-shutdown data status is not established by this report (9to5Mac, 2025). | No current storage estimate; app stopped capturing (9to5Mac, 2025). | Discontinued; no new app download (Rewind.ai, 2026), checked October 2026. | Mac app discontinued (9to5Mac, 2025). |
| Screenpipe | Screen text and screenshots, with OCR fallback, plus system and microphone audio (Screenpipe docs, 2026, Screenpipe About, 2026). | Local SQLite by default; selected cloud features can send data off-device (Screenpipe docs, 2026). | Its current pricing page says about 30 GB/month; its About page says 5–10 GB/month. Both say retention is configurable (Screenpipe pricing, checked October 2026, Screenpipe About, checked October 2026). | Free tier; full personal history is $21/month or $250/year. Source code is free for personal, non-commercial use; commercial use needs a paid license (Screenpipe pricing, checked October 2026, Screenpipe license, checked October 2026). | macOS 13+; Intel and Apple Silicon listed (Screenpipe pricing, checked October 2026, Screenpipe About, checked October 2026). |
| Safari history | Sites you visited; it does not describe screen or audio capture (Apple Safari User Guide, macOS 27, checked October 2026). | Safari browsing history; Apple says it can be kept across devices with iCloud (Apple Safari User Guide, macOS 27, checked October 2026). | History can be kept for up to one year; no disk-size figure in the guide (Apple Safari User Guide, macOS 27, checked October 2026). | No separate price listed in Apple's Safari guide (checked October 2026; Apple Safari User Guide). | Safari User Guide for macOS 27 (Apple, checked October 2026). |
| Spotlight | Indexed files and app content such as documents, email, messages, photos, and notes (Apple Spotlight Support, 2026). | Apple describes its index as local and private on the device (Apple Spotlight Support, 2026). | No index-size estimate in Apple's support guide (checked October 2026; Apple Spotlight Support). | No separate price listed in Apple's macOS 27 guide (checked October 2026; Apple Mac User Guide). | Spotlight is documented in the macOS 27 Mac User Guide (Apple, checked October 2026). |
| Octoweb page memory | Text from pages visited in Octoweb; first 6,000 characters per page and the latest 2,000 pages (Octoweb 0.15 release notes). | A local JSON file; nothing leaves the machine (Octoweb 0.15 release notes). | Up to 2,000 pages × 6,000 indexed characters each; no disk-size figure on record (Octoweb 0.15 release notes). | Free and open source under Apache 2.0 (Octoweb, checked October 2026). | macOS 13+ (Octoweb, checked October 2026). |
Screenpipe is the closest match if you want broad, ongoing recall. Safari history and Spotlight are already available for narrower searches. Octoweb page memory is narrower still: it searches page text from inside its own browser, not everything visible on your Mac.
Does Screenpipe replace Rewind on a Mac?
For screen-and-audio recall, yes: Screenpipe documents capture from desktop apps, screenshot history, spoken audio, and search over both. It reads accessibility text when available and uses OCR when an app doesn't expose that text; audio can include system sound and microphone input. Screenpipe's 2026 search documentation and About page describe the capture and local query model.
It stores captured content in a local SQLite database by default. “Local by default” is a setting boundary, not a guarantee that every feature is offline: Screenpipe lists optional cloud AI, transcription, sync, connectors, and remote workflows. Leave those off if you need captured material and queries to stay on the Mac. Its docs also let you exclude or include named windows.
Budget disk before leaving capture on all day. Screenpipe's pricing page, checked October 2026 lists about 30 GB per month with configurable retention, while its About page, checked October 2026 says approximately 5–10 GB per month. Those published estimates conflict, and both depend on activity. Measure a representative week on your Mac and set a retention window before treating either number as your own forecast.
Is Screenpipe free? The current app has a free tier for recent history; the vendor says it keeps seven days. Full personal history is listed at $21 monthly or $250 annually. The source code has a separate Screenpipe Commercial License, checked October 2026: personal, non-commercial use is free, but commercial use requires a paid license. That distinction matters if “open source” is part of your buying rule. Prices and terms checked October 2026.
Can Safari history or Spotlight cover the gap?
They can recover a subset of what Rewind did. Safari searches the list of sites you visited; Apple says it can retain history for up to a year. It doesn't promise a searchable replay of every other app or audio stream.
On macOS 27, open History → Show All History in Safari, then type a word in the Search field. Apple's Safari User Guide for macOS 27, checked October 2026 documents that path and retention. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see how to search Safari history.
Spotlight is useful when you saved the thing or copied its text. On macOS 27, press ⌘Space and search; Apple's macOS 27 Spotlight guide, checked October 2026 says it finds “your apps, files, emails, messages, and more,” and Apple's Spotlight support article lists documents and notes among the indexed content. Its index stays on the Mac, but it's not a general-purpose recorder of screens you viewed.
When is browser-only page memory enough?
If the missing detail was in a web page you opened, searching the page text may be enough without collecting your screen, microphone, or other apps.
Octoweb's page memory searches text from visited pages when you start a palette query with /. It indexes the first 6,000 characters of each page and keeps the latest 2,000 pages in a local JSON file. Private tabs and error pages aren't indexed, and nothing leaves the machine. The 0.15 release notes document those limits.
A remembered article or product page can match; a phrase spoken in a call, a message in a desktop app, or a page you never opened in Octoweb cannot. I build Octoweb, so weigh that limitation and the comparison fairly: its page memory isn't a replacement for full desktop recording. There's also no documented storage estimate for the JSON index.
Which option should you choose?
Use the narrowest option that covers where you expect the missing information to be:
- Pick Screenpipe for recall across apps, screen text, and audio. First measure disk use and decide what may leave the Mac if you enable cloud features.
- Pick Safari history when your target is a site you visited in Safari and a one-year maximum history window is enough.
- Pick Spotlight when you likely saved the note, file, or copied text.
- Pick Octoweb page memory when the target is text from pages you visited in Octoweb and you want its documented local page index.
If you're unsure which category covers your real searches, start with Safari history and Spotlight for a week. If you still need facts from other apps or conversations, then evaluate screen-wide capture against its storage estimate and local-only settings.
The Octoweb privacy page explains what the browser stores locally.
Octoweb is free and open source, for macOS.
Install it →