Orientation
What VanX stores and how to think about importing, triaging, and retrieving.
Begin pathway ↗SUPPORT / PUBLICVANX 1.0 · macOS
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VanX support covers the macOS app. Include your VanX version, macOS version, Mac model, what you expected, what happened, and the smallest set of steps that reproduces it.
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Guided Academy
A chapter-based path through the VanX mental model and core workflows.
VanX Mental Model
VanX is a private capture and retrieval workspace. It stores copied or imported material, enriches it in the background, and helps you find useful context later.
Read guide ↗Main Navigation and Toolbar
The toolbar is where you import content, see background processing, open help, and reach settings. The left navigation chooses the larger work area.
Read guide ↗Engine Workspace and Power Workflows
A power workflow starts before import: create or choose the project notebook, drop the batch, bulk route the obvious files, and leave ambiguous items in Inbox for later review.
Read guide ↗Importing Files
Single-file, multi-file, folder targeting, persisted choices, and ingestion feedback.
Import Workflow Overview
Use single-file import for one-off material and multi-file import when a batch needs review. For batches, check the file list, choose a shared destination, then fix the exceptions before starting ingestion.
Read guide ↗Drop or Import Content
Use the import button or drag files into the window. If VanX is set to ask, dropping multiple files opens the review dialog before anything is committed.
Read guide ↗Review the File List
The file list shows each dropped item, its path, and its current destination. Review it before starting a large ingestion run.
Read guide ↗Bulk Categorization
Bulk actions let you send every file to Inbox or to a chosen notebook in one move. You can still override individual files afterward.
Read guide ↗Remember Import Behavior
When all items share one destination, Remember this behavior can make future drops skip the ask step and use that pattern.
Read guide ↗Confirm and Watch Processing
Import All starts ingestion. VanX may show a processing indicator while extraction, indexing, enrichment, and suggestions settle.
Read guide ↗Organizing Imported Content
Notebooks, bulk categorization, and notebook-aware imports.
Notes & Snippets
Capture quick thoughts and edit formatted notes alongside your research.
Lab
Explore, analyze, build research, and mark clips on the map in unified mode views.
Encrypting a workspace
Encryption turns the contents of one workspace into unreadable noise on disk. VanX seals each item with AES-256-GCM before writing it, using a key derived on this Mac that is never transmitted anywhere. Someone who copies your database file onto another machine gets nothing out of it.
Read guide ↗Lab
Workspace unifies Research, Review, and Brief Studio into a single command surface with seven sub-modes (Home, Research, Analyze, Compose, Compare, Timeline, Graph).
Read guide ↗Workspace Studio
Every workspace is its own labelled space with a colour, glyph, default landing view, and layout. Open the Studio from the workspace switcher ("Workspace settings…"), the gear on the Workspace home, or System settings.
Read guide ↗Mark on Map
Mark on Map allows you to pin and analyze captured clips, files, and snippets spatially on the visual map inside the Lab.
Read guide ↗Using Clipboard Capture
How history, selected items, and capture behavior work together.
Clipboard Capture
Clipboard capture keeps recently useful material available without requiring a manual file import. Use Inbox search and filters to narrow the saved material before opening a clip.
Read guide ↗Why is macOS asking about clipboard access?
macOS treats a paste you trigger differently from an app that reads the clipboard on its own. Because VanX is a clipboard manager, it needs to notice when you copy something even while another app is in front — so the system may occasionally let you know it is reading the pasteboard.
Read guide ↗Searching and Rediscovering
Inbox, Research, Notebooks Library, and the command palette.
Retrieval Overview
Start in Inbox when you remember the item, Research when you need to build an evidence trail, and Notebooks when you remember the project. Use the command palette when you only know where you want to go.
Read guide ↗Inbox Item List
The history list is where captured and imported items become inspectable. Select an item to open its details, preview content, share, delete, or use it in Brief Studio.
Read guide ↗Research
Research starts with on-device retrieval across this workspace. Ask a question, inspect the local evidence, and use Web Sources to add a bounded set of public-source candidates only after reviewing the exact outbound request.
Read guide ↗Notebooks Library
Notebooks are durable project containers. Use them to keep imports and selected Research sources grouped for repeated work.
Read guide ↗Understanding Suggestions
Why nudges appear, how to trust them, and when to override them.
Why Suggestions Appear
Suggestions and nudges are advisory. They are produced by local, secure on-device AI and pattern rules running entirely on your Mac — with zero cloud dependency — and appear when patterns or rules point to a likely next action or context worth reviewing.
Read guide ↗Accept, Ignore, or Override
Use bulk actions when several items clearly share a category. Use manual review when the suggestion involves ambiguous meaning, sensitive material, or mixed file types.
Read guide ↗How Suggestions Adapt
VanX adjusts suggestions from your feedback and configured terms — all on-device: what you accept, what you ignore, and the research terms you set tune the same local rules. No model is trained and nothing leaves your Mac. You can keep shaping those inputs without changing the original captured material.
Read guide ↗Performance and Memory
What happens during ingestion and how to keep large batches smooth.
Performance and Memory
Importing many files can temporarily use more memory because VanX may read metadata, extract text, queue enrichment, and index results before the batch fully settles.
Read guide ↗Ingestion Pipeline and Workload Queue
VanX processes ingestion as stages: accept files, group by destination, extract content, persist records, enrich metadata, index for retrieval, and let nudges evaluate the new context.
Read guide ↗Rust-Backed Processing
Because VanX uses Rust-backed ingestion, parsing is fast, large-batch throughput is predictable, and expensive work runs off the main Flutter thread to avoid UI jank.
Read guide ↗Keyboard Shortcuts
Searchable shortcut reference and power-user paths.
Appearance & Modes
Understand Basic vs Pro mode, customize themes, and unlock power tools.
Settings and Customization
Restart onboarding, tune defaults, and adjust system behavior.
Why Local-First, Private AI
VanX is local-first by design. Your clips, notes, and documents live in SQLite databases inside this Mac's Application Support folder — there is no account, no sync service, no telemetry, and no cloud AI.
Read guide ↗Restart Welcome and Tune Behavior
Settings is where persistent behavior belongs: onboarding state, appearance, import defaults, permissions, and deeper configuration.
Read guide ↗Import Defaults
External drop behavior controls whether VanX asks, imports to Inbox, or imports to the current folder when files are dropped.
Read guide ↗Research Profile
Research profile settings influence which terms are amplified or treated as noise. This shapes how VanX summarizes, clusters, and nudges.
Read guide ↗Brief Studio
Compose, review, and export briefs from captured material.
Troubleshooting Import Issues
Recover from slow imports, noisy suggestions, permissions, and heavy batches.
Troubleshooting Import Issues
If imports feel slow, wait for processing to settle, try a smaller batch, or route files into notebooks in stages.
Read guide ↗Clipboard Items Not Being Captured
If copied items are not showing up, open Settings → Capture and switch the Capture Method between Adaptive and Input-aware. Each restart rebuilds the capture pipeline from a clean baseline, which clears most stuck states.
Read guide ↗What Changed Recently
Sound feedback settings, tray options, appearance modes, and rebrand.
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VanX Academy / six pathways
Learn the system, not just the buttons.
Import Workflow
Single-file and multi-file import, with multi-file categorization as the hero flow.
Begin pathway ↗Retrieval Workflow
Inbox, Research, clipboard history, and notebooks as the retrieval layer.
Begin pathway ↗Suggestions and Nudges
Why suggestions appear and how to use them without giving up control.
Begin pathway ↗Settings and Performance
Onboarding, import defaults, shortcuts, memory, and background work.
Begin pathway ↗Engine Workspace Workflows
Power paths, technical ingestion details, and batch-first habits.
Begin pathway ↗Keyboard reference
Move at the speed of recall.
Command Palette
Open the fastest launcher for navigation and commands.
Research
Open local-first Research and optionally add reviewed public sources through Web Sources.
Notebooks Library
Open notebooks organization.
Inbox
Return to Inbox (captured and imported items).
Toggle Sidebar
Show or hide the list/sidebar area.
Open Settings
Adjust capture, import, appearance, and system behavior.
Import Content
Open the import flow from the app menu.
Undo
Undo supported destructive actions such as delete.
Refresh Workspace
Force a re-analysis of the workspace and refresh results.
Go to Lab
Open the unified Lab (Research, Review, and Brief Studio).
Support without access
Your vault is not a support channel.
There is no VanX account for us to inspect and no remote vault for us to enter. Diagnostics stay local unless you explicitly export and share them. You can review how data is handled in theprivacy policy.