From download to your first board in about five minutes.
1Install
Download Conocle.dmg and open it.
Drag Conocle into Applications, then open it from there.
First launch takes a few seconds while the app starts its search engine.
No account, no sign-up. The app opens on a small starter library so you can feel how it works before you have saved anything. Delete the samples whenever you like; they do not come back.
2Your first search
Click the search bar and type an idea, not a filename: desert fashion, flowers on a face, muted still life.
A vision model running on your Mac reads every image, so search works on what is in the picture, including things nobody tagged. If nothing matches, Conocle says so honestly instead of padding the page.
Find similar is the other way to search. Open any image and press it to see the closest matches from your own library, ranked by how alike they look. When nothing is genuinely close, it says so.
Videos count too. They appear in search by meaning, work with Find similar, and carry their own colour swatches. Videos saved before this arrived learn the first time you open them.
3Snip anything on screen
The fastest way in, and it works in any app: a PDF, a film still, a website, someone else's slide deck.
Press the snip shortcut, ⌘⇧7 unless you change it, or click the Conocle rings in your Mac's menu bar.
Drag over the part of the screen you want.
It lands in your library like any other save, and tags itself.
macOS asks for screen recording permission the first time. That is the permission that lets Conocle see the area you drag over; nothing is recorded and nothing is sent anywhere. Settings → Capture lets you record any combination you prefer.
4Install the capture extension
The extension is how the web gets into your library at full quality.
Pin Conocle to the toolbar if you like. The app must be open (or opened later) for saves to land.
5Save from anywhere
Right-click any image → "Save image to Conocle." You get the full-quality original, the real title, and a link back to the source.
Instagram: works from the feed or a post; carousels save whichever slide you are viewing. Videos save their cover image.
Midjourney: images upgrade to the full-resolution original automatically. For videos, open the video page, refresh once, then right-click and save.
Toolbar button saves the page you are on as a link card.
Or skip the browser: drag files straight into the app: images, video, SVG logos, transparent PNGs.
A whole page: right-click and save the page you are on as one tall scrolling image.
Bookmarks on X: bookmark a post and its images save themselves, credited to the author and linked back to the post.
You will know it worked: every save shows a short confirmation on the page itself.
6File it
Collections are how saves get organised, and one image can live in many. Open a collection and hit Add images for a side panel of your whole library: one click files, one click unfiles, and you can upload straight into the collection.
Import a whole folder: Create menu → Import a folder brings in everything at once, into a new collection named after the folder if you like. Keywords saved by tools like Lightroom or Bridge arrive as tags.
Tags: select images and press #, or use Auto-tag in an image's details; the vision model suggests concrete tags it can stand behind.
Trash keeps everything until you empty it (or set auto-empty in Settings → Data).
7Boards
Boards are a working canvas: drag images on, arrange, crop, annotate, connect with arrows.
Present takes the board full-screen for the room.
Export produces a PDF that drops into a pitch deck without redesign, attribution included.
Make one from any selection in the library, or from a whole collection in one click.
8Worth knowing
Everything is on your Mac. The library lives in ~/.conocle as real files, and Settings → Data has one-click Export as Zip.
Updates install themselves quietly; the next launch runs the new version. Your library is never touched by an update.
AI honesty: images that declare themselves AI-made are labelled automatically, and you can set the label yourself in any image's details.
9Found something broken?
Settings → About → Report an issue. Every report in the beta gets read by a human, and most get fixed within days. Your app will tell you when they are, in its What's New card.