Powered by Apple Intelligence • macOS 26.0+

Your AI Library & Research Assistant.
Private by Design.

Extract full reference lists from scientific papers & theses into clean BibTeX. Check grammar, organise your PDF library with Smart Folder, and compress files — all powered by on-device Apple Intelligence. Your data never leaves your Mac.

Download on the Mac App Store macOS 13.0+ (AI features: 26.0+)

No subscriptions • No uploads • No tracking • Your data stays on your Mac

🧠

Built for the AI Era

Powered by Apple's FoundationModels API, CleverGhost brings powerful on-device intelligence to your documents—completely private and offline.

💬

AI Chat

Ask questions about your documents. Get instant, context-aware answers powered by on-device AI. Works offline.

✍️

Grammar Check

Advanced grammar analysis with structured output. Select specific pages (1-5, 1,3,5) and get detailed corrections with explanations.

📚

Multi-Document Intelligence

Compare and synthesize information across multiple research papers. Cross-reference sources automatically.

🔬
Highlight

Full Reference Extraction

AI reads entire bibliographies from papers & theses. Extracts every reference with DOI/arXiv verification via CrossRef. Exports clean BibTeX instantly.

See how it works ↓
✉️

Cover Letter Generator

Generate professional academic cover letters for journal submissions. AI reads your abstract and creates tailored letters.

🔍

Smart Finder

Intelligent semantic search across your documents. Find concepts, not just keywords. Understands context.

🔒 On-Device by Default: All AI runs locally on your Mac using Apple's FoundationModels — your documents never leave your device. Gemini 2.5 Flash now available.

Available Now · Version 4.6.0

Supercharge with
Gemini 2.5 Flash

An optional cloud boost — bring your free Google AI Studio key and unlock a 1 million-token context window. Apple Intelligence stays the default. Your privacy philosophy, your choice.

AI Library Assistant — chat with your entire research library
🗂️

AI Library Assistant

Chat with your entire research library in natural language. Ask "Find all papers on transformers from 2022" or "Who published the most on this topic?" Gemini's million-token context scans hundreds of papers at once — your personal research librarian.

⚡

10× Larger Context — Full-Paper Analysis

Summaries that read the whole paper, not just the first 3 pages. Bibliography extraction in a single call. Q&A with conversation memory — ask follow-up questions naturally.

🆓

Free via Google AI Studio

Gemini 2.5 Flash has a generous free tier on Google AI Studio. Get your key in two clicks, paste it into CleverGhost — no subscription, no credit card required.

🍎
Apple Intelligence
Default · On-Device

Everything runs locally via Apple's FoundationModels API — zero network calls, zero data leaving your Mac. This remains the default for all users. No API key, no setup, completely private.

G
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Optional · Opt-In Only

You choose to enable it. Your text is sent to Google's API using your own key, governed by Google's terms. Switch back to Apple AI at any time — one tap in the panel header.

🔬 For Researchers & PhD Students

Full Reference Extraction
for Papers & Theses

Drop any scientific paper, thesis, or dissertation — CleverGhost reads the full bibliography and extracts every reference into clean, verified BibTeX in seconds.

👁️

Apple Vision OCR

Even scanned theses and papers with broken font encodings are no obstacle. CleverGhost uses Apple Vision (VNRecognizeTextRequest) for pixel-level text recognition — with accurate mode and language correction enabled — so every reference is captured regardless of the PDF's quality.

🌐

Multi-Source Verification

Hybrid mode cross-checks every extracted reference against six scholarly APIs in a fallback chain, filling in missing fields and confirming DOIs for maximum accuracy.

CrossRef arXiv OpenAlex Semantic Scholar HAL Google Books OpenLibrary
📋

One-Click BibTeX Export

Copy a complete .bib file to clipboard or save to disk. Ready to paste into LaTeX, Overleaf, Zotero, Mendeley, or BibDesk instantly.

How it works — four steps

1

Drop your PDF

Paper, thesis, or dissertation — any format accepted

2

Choose mode

Offline (pure AI), Online (API lookup), or Hybrid

3

AI extracts every reference

Parallel TaskGroup processing — entire thesis in seconds

4

Export & rename

BibTeX copied + files auto-renamed from metadata

📄 Supported document types

Journal Articles PhD Theses Master's Theses Conference Papers Preprints (arXiv) Book Chapters Technical Reports

📚 Citation styles supported

BibTeX / LaTeX APA MLA Chicago Harvard IEEE
✨ Smart Folder — New Feature

Your downloads,
automatically organised.

One folder. Local AI. Zero chaos. CleverGhost categorises every document — research papers, paychecks, medical reports, invoices, and more — and finds duplicates with an industrial-grade 4-tier pipeline, all on your Mac.

📂

AI Auto-Categorization

Instantly sorts documents into meaningful categories — Financial, Medical, Academic, Legal, and more — using on-device intelligence.

🕵️‍♂️

4-Tier Duplicate Detection

The most comprehensive pipeline on macOS

Level 1

RAG Semantic Match

Compares meaning, not bytes

Level 2

Hash Match

Exact byte-for-byte identity

Level 3

Content Fingerprint

Normalised text comparison

Level 4

Title Similarity

Fuzzy rename-resistant matching

🔒

100% on-device. No cloud indexing, no uploads. Your documents never leave your Mac.

Smart Folder Interface
👻 Available Now

BibGhost
Your Permanent Reference Library

A modern, intelligent reference manager built right into CleverGhost — inspired by BibDesk, powered by on-device AI. Extract once, keep forever.

🔬

Extract references

Drop a paper, run extraction

👻

Send to BibGhost

One click — saved locally forever

📚

Manage your library

Search, tag, export, cite

👻 BibGhost Library

3 references
Type
Cite Key
Title
Year
First Author
article
Baggio_2023_Homogeneo...
Homogeneous nucleation of dislocations as a pattern formation phenomenon
2023
R. Baggio
book
Anderson_2017_Theory
Theory of dislocations
2017
P. M. Anderson
article
Arbib_2024_Ericksen
Ericksen-Landau Modular Strain Energies for Reconstructive Phase Transformations
2024
E. Arbib
🗄️

Persistent Local Database

References saved forever in a private SwiftData store on your Mac. No cloud, no subscription, no sync required.

⌨️

Copy Cite Command

Right-click any row to instantly copy \cite{key}, full BibTeX record, minimal BibTeX, or RIS format.

🔍

Instant Search & Tags

Search across title, authors, abstract, and notes simultaneously. Colour labels for fast visual triage.

See BibGhost in action

Watch CleverGhost in Action

BibTeX extraction • Smart Library • Reference management

🏠 Personal Intelligence
✨ Available Now

Not Just for Researchers.
Your Private Life, Organized.

CleverGhost brings industrial-grade AI to your personal records. Manage your family's IDs, passports, utility bills, and medical files with the same intelligence used for research—all private and on-device.

AI answering questions about ID expiry
🛂

Passports & IDs

AI automatically extracts document numbers, expiry dates, and nationalities. Ask "Is any of my identification expiring in the next 12 months?" and get instant, tabulated answers from your whole library.

💡

Utility Bills & Finances

Draft enquiry emails to service providers, find account numbers instantly, or compare usage across vendors. Smart Library categorizes everything into clear folders automatically.

🏥

Private & Local

Sensitive medical records and legal contracts never leave your Mac. Our On-Device AI processes your most private data without ever talking to a server.

Personal categorization grid

Smart Sorting

AI deep metadata extraction

Deep Metadata

Document library overview

Document Library

Identification search results

Instant Retrieval

AI drafting a bill inquiry

AI Email Drafting

Three Powerful Workflows

Whether you're a researcher, student, or professional, CleverGhost adapts to your workflow.

1

🤖 AI Assistance Workflow

For researchers and students analyzing documents

💬 Chat with Your PDFs

  • 1. Drop your research paper or textbook into CleverGhost
  • 2. Ask questions in natural language: "What are the key findings?"
  • 3. Get instant, context-aware answers with citations
  • 4. Compare multiple papers simultaneously with Multi-Doc Intelligence

✍️ Grammar & Writing

  • 1. Select pages to check (e.g., "1-5" or "1,3,5")
  • 2. AI analyzes grammar (Specialized in Academic English US/UK)
  • 3. Detects subject-verb agreement, punctuation, and merged words
  • 4. Advanced extraction supports international document encodings

📚 Multi-Document Research

Drop multiple research papers and ask CleverGhost to synthesize findings across all documents. The AI identifies contributions from each paper and provides a comprehensive analysis with source attribution and contribution tracking.

✓ Cross-paper comparison ✓ Source tracking ✓ Synthesis
Multi-Document Analysis

Perfect for: Literature reviews, thesis research, studying, fact-checking, academic writing

2

📖 Research & Citation Workflow

For academics, PhD students & thesis writers — see full extraction details ↑

🔬

AI Extraction

Drop PDFs and let AI extract full bibliographic metadata — works with DOI and arXiv IDs, papers, theses, and chapters.

🌐

Hybrid Verification

Combine AI extraction with a 7-source fallback chain — CrossRef, arXiv, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, HAL, Google Books & OpenLibrary — for maximum accuracy.

📋

BibTeX Formatting

Clean, normalise, and format citations. APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE — all supported.

Step-by-Step Process:

1

Drag & Drop PDFs

Select multiple research papers or a whole thesis

2

Choose Extraction Mode

Hybrid, Online, or fully Offline

3

AI Extracts Metadata

Author, title, journal, year, DOI — all fields

4

Export BibTeX

Ready for LaTeX, Overleaf, Zotero, Mendeley

📝 Smart Renaming

Automatically rename files using extracted metadata: Smith_2024_DeepLearning.pdf

✉️ Cover Letters

Generate professional journal submission letters. AI reads your abstract and creates tailored content.

Perfect for: Building bibliographies, managing citations, thesis reference lists, academic publishing, literature organisation — exports BibTeX, APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE

3

🛠️ PDF Power Tools Workflow

For professionals managing documents

🗜️ Compression

Basic Mode

One-click presets: Screen, eBook, Printer, Prepress

Pro Mode

Custom DPI, image quality, color management, font optimization

📄 Page Management

Merge & Split

Combine multiple PDFs or extract specific pages

Rotate & Reorder

Drag-and-drop page manipulation

Security & Encryption

🔐 Password Protection
🔓 Unlock PDFs
💧 Watermarks
🔧

PDF Repair

🖼️

Rasterize Pages

📏

Resize to A4

Perfect for: Document preparation, file optimization, security, batch processing

Under the Hood

Built with cutting-edge technology

🧠

Apple FoundationModels

Leverages macOS 26.0 (Tahoe) on-device AI with structured output using @Generable structs. Temperature control, automatic retry logic, and smart context window management.

  • ✓ Zero network calls
  • ✓ Automatic text chunking
  • ✓ Session pre-warming for speed
�️

Apple Vision OCR

Next-generation text extraction powered by Apple's native Vision framework — lightning-fast and significantly more accurate, especially on scientific papers with complex layouts or garbled fonts.

  • ✓ Superior accuracy on complex layouts
  • ✓ Handles garbled & unusual fonts
  • ✓ Fully on-device, no cloud OCR

Requirements: macOS 13.0+ for basic features • macOS 26.0+ (Tahoe) for AI features • Apple Intelligence must be enabled

Privacy is not a feature.
It's a foundation.

CleverGhost was built from the ground up to respect your data. Your research, documents, and conversations never leave your Mac.

✓

On-Device AI

All processing is done locally using Apple Intelligence.

✓

No Data Collection

We don't track your usage or collect any personal information.

✓

Open Source Transparency

Our code is open for anyone to audit and verify.

�

Private & Secure

CleverGhost is built entirely with Apple-native frameworks. No third-party servers, no telemetry, no analytics. Your documents stay on your Mac — always.

Our Privacy Commitment Report an Issue

Need help?

Whether you've found a bug, have a feature request, or just need guidance, the CleverGhost community is here to help.

Common Questions

What does "Reset Database Engine" do? Will I lose my PDFs? ▾

Your PDF files are always safe — they are stored on disk and are never touched by a reset. What gets wiped is all the metadata the AI extracted: titles, authors, categories, tags, summaries, and the search index (RAG chunks). After a reset you will need to re-drop your PDFs into the Smart Library so CleverGhost can re-analyse them. We recommend exporting your BibGhost library to a .bib file first as a backup.

When should I use the Maintenance & Recovery tool? ▾

Only as a last resort — for example if the app shows a "database error" message, the Smart Library hangs indefinitely during ingestion, or the library fails to load after an update. For everyday slowness or a single stuck file, force-quitting and relaunching the app is usually enough.

🐛

Report an Issue

Found a bug or something isn't working as expected? Let us know on GitHub.

Ready to supercharge your PDF workflow?

Free, open source, and built for privacy.

Download on the Mac App Store