Screenpipe

Quick Answer

Screenpipe is an open-source, local-first tool that captures your screen and audio around the clock, extracts text through on-device OCR and transcription, and stores it in a local database you can search in plain language. The idea is to give AI agents a private, persistent memory of your own work, without depending on a cloud provider to hold that history.

What Screenpipe Is Best For

• Personal search over your own work history: “what did we discuss in standup yesterday” style queries
• Feeding long-term context to AI agents: connects to agent platforms and other apps, rather than staying siloed
• Privacy-conscious alternatives to cloud AI memory tools: local storage instead of an external server by default
• Reducing repeated context-setting: pulling up what you actually did instead of reconstructing it from memory

How It Works

Screenpipe watches for meaningful events (app switches, clicks, typing pauses, scrolling) and captures a screenshot only when something actually changes, rather than recording continuously at a fixed frame rate. On-device models perform OCR on captured frames and transcribe audio, and the results land in a local SQLite database you can query with natural language.

It’s built to connect into an agent ecosystem rather than work in isolation. It’s designed to plug into tools like OpenClaw and Hermes Agent, and a broader set of apps, so the captured history becomes usable context for AI agents rather than just a personal search tool.

Practical Use Cases

• Searching your own computer history in natural language
• Giving a coding or research agent access to what you were actually working on
• Building a private, local alternative to cloud-based “AI memory” products
• Reviewing what happened in a work session without manually taking notes

Privacy and Consent

Because Screenpipe can capture audio and screen content from calls or shared meetings, it can record other people, not just you. Recording other people without consent may violate local law or workplace policy depending on where you are and what you’re recording. Treat this the same way you would any other screen or call recording tool: get consent, check your jurisdiction’s rules, and follow your employer’s policy before using it in any shared context.

Honest Limitations

• Storage adds up: continuous capture uses real disk space over time (roughly 5 to 10GB per month)
• Local-first is not automatically risk-free: a compromised machine still exposes the local database
• Consent matters: capturing meetings or shared screens involves other people, not just you
• Setup is more technical than a consumer app: expect configuration, not a one-click install

Alternatives Worth Knowing

• OpenClaw and Hermes Agent, agent tools Screenpipe is built to connect with
• Mem, a different approach to AI-assisted personal memory
• Ollama and LM Studio, for running local models alongside Screenpipe’s captured context

For the broader privacy and access tradeoffs of local tools like this, see Local AI Explained.