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What MindMax is

MindMax is a desktop application for macOS and Windows. You open a folder you already have — or the one it makes for you on first launch — and an AI assistant works with you on the files inside: PDFs, EPUB and Kindle books, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, images and Markdown notes.

The folder is the knowledge base. There is no import step, no conversion and no separate library. What the assistant produces — reading notes, translations, drafts — is written back into the same folder as ordinary files, and becomes material for the next question.

What you do in it​

  • Read. Open a paper or a book in place, highlight and comment on it, ask about a passage, a boxed chart or the whole folder, or pick a lens — guide, critique, study — and have the whole document annotated chapter by chapter. Reviewing someone else's draft? An AI review marks problems for its author, and the comments you keep go back as a Word file.
  • Think. Put a question or a book on a canvas and spread it out with AI Skills, each one a named thinking method, then cut what does not hold up.
  • Write. Write in a full-format editor with the AI at the cursor. Catch a thought by voice or typing from any app, and let quick notes fix the wording and file it under the right heading. Have a report or a book drafted from your own sources after you approve the outline.
  • Revise. Describe a change once, or comment where the text is wrong, and the edits come back grouped, each with its reason. A Word file is revised in place, as Word tracked changes. Export a Markdown draft to Word or PDF when it is done.

Two speeds, one assistant​

The same assistant works at your elbow — rewrite this sentence, explain this paragraph — or takes a whole job: annotate this book, translate these three hundred pages, draft this report from this folder. A long job shows you a plan or a glossary first, reports as each part finishes, and can be paused and resumed. How much you hand over is decided job by job.

Two rules that hold everywhere​

  1. What it says is checkable. Conclusions carry verbatim quotes that open the source at the passage, highlighted. A quote that cannot be matched to the text is never presented as one: in an answer it is flagged, and an annotation is sent back before it reaches you.
  2. What it changes is visible. Every AI edit to your text arrives as a marked change you accept or reject, and nothing is written until you do. Anything that was written can be rolled back from the document's history.
A citation opened: the quoted sentence in context, and highlighted on the page it came from.

What it runs on​

A MindMax subscription (with a free weekly allowance), or an API key you already pay for — including a model running on your own machine. With your own key every feature works the same way, and no account is needed.

What it is not​

  • Not a team workspace — one person, one folder, no shared editing.
  • Not a PDF editor — a PDF itself is never changed. Revising one puts the edited text into a Markdown copy beside it. Markdown and Word files are edited; ebooks and slides are read and annotated.
  • Not mobile — desktop only. The folder syncs with whatever you already use.

Where to go next​

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