Opening your first folder
MindMax works on folders. Each one you open becomes a knowledge base — the documents and notes inside are what the assistant reads, and what it produces lands back there. Nothing is imported or copied.
The first launch
You do not have to choose anything on the first launch. MindMax creates a knowledge base called
My Knowledge Base in a MindMax folder in your home directory and opens it. Inside is a
Getting Started folder: a Start here page, a Guides folder with short guides to the
features you will use first, and a Sample folder — a PDF, a short book by Seneca, a diagram, a page of notes and a
canvas — so there is something to try the AI on straight away. It is a real knowledge base, not a demo: keep your notes there, or delete
the samples. Deleted samples do not come back.
The window opens on a start page with one input box and three suggestions — Read, Think, Write.
Type what you want, or @ a document to point at it.
Before the AI can answer
The AI needs either a MindMax account or an API key of your own. Until one is set up, a card above the input box — on the start page and in the chat panel — says so and offers both: Sign in (the free plan includes weekly credits), or Use my own key — see using your own API key. Reading, highlighting, writing and searching work without either.
Opening a folder you already have
File → Open Knowledge Base…, or Open an existing folder at the bottom of the start page. Any folder works, including an Obsidian vault.
A folder MindMax has not seen before asks once whether to enable MindMax there. Enabling adds a
hidden .mindmax folder and touches none of your files.
The file tree shows what is actually on disk. Rename a file in Finder or Explorer and it changes here; delete it there and it is gone here. There is no separate library to keep in sync.
If you already keep notes in Obsidian, open the vault itself. Nothing is converted. See opening an Obsidian vault.
What MindMax writes into the folder
Everything is an ordinary file in the folder you opened:
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Notes you write | Markdown files, wherever you put them |
Daily notes — including thoughts sent there from the voice capsule or /note | A daily-notes folder, one file per day |
| Translations | A translations folder that mirrors where the original sits |
| Finished work it hands you — drafts, collected notes, answers you save as a note | An artifacts folder, unless you choose another folder when saving |
| Highlights, comments and AI annotations | Inside the hidden .mindmax folder |
| Document history, memory and caches | Inside the hidden .mindmax folder |
Nothing is stored on a server. Uninstall MindMax and the folder stays readable; delete
.mindmax and your own files are untouched. Settings → Knowledge base lists exactly what was
added.
Reading the folder in
Notes are ready at once. PDFs, books and Office files are read in the background the first time the folder is opened, so the AI can search their text; you can work while it happens. Until a file has been read in, answers say how many files are not ready rather than claiming the folder has nothing on the subject. After that, only changed files are read again.
There is no index to build and nothing to configure. Scanned PDFs are the exception — they have no text until you recognise them.
The first ten minutes
- Open a document. Click one in the tree. PDFs, EPUBs and Office files open in place.
- Highlight something and comment on it. Select text, highlight it, add a remark.
- Ask a question about it. Something you know the answer to, so you can judge the response.
- Follow a citation. Click a citation mark in the answer. You should land on the exact passage, highlighted. This is the thing worth testing before you trust anything else.
- Search the folder. Search for a phrase you know is inside a PDF. You should land on the sentence, not just the file.
If step 4 or step 5 does not behave as described, see common issues.
More than one folder
You can switch between knowledge bases from the switcher or File → Open Recent, and open another in a new window. Each keeps its own annotations, history and translation memory. Memory comes in two levels: what the assistant learned about a project stays with that knowledge base, while general preferences — the language you write in, the tone you want — apply across all of them. Both are editable in Settings → Memory.