Pin It

Pin it, so your AI can use it later.

Pin It is a local desktop pinboard for saving text, tables, code, links, and screenshots while you work. When something becomes useful again, you can copy it directly or bring it into an MCP-capable AI client.

Visit the website

What it does

• Pin the clipboard with Command+Shift+I.

• Pin a screen region with Command+Shift+O.

• Organize pins into multiple local boards.

• Save text, Markdown, code, HTML tables, links, and images.

• Search, reorder, edit, archive, and delete pins.

• Copy selected material as a deterministic Markdown packet.

• Read pins from MCP-capable clients through the bundled read-only server.

Related MCP server: local-mcp

Privacy

Pins and images stay on your computer. Pin It has no account system, cloud sync, telemetry, or remote pin storage.

Smart Titles are optional. If you enable them and configure an OpenAI API key, Pin It sends a capped excerpt of newly captured text to OpenAI after the pin is saved locally. Without a key, Pin It uses local fallback titles. Image pins are not sent for Smart Titles.

The API key is stored in macOS Keychain. On other supported Electron platforms, Pin It uses Electron's encrypted storage when it is available.

Requirements

• macOS for the complete capture experience

• Node.js 22 or newer

• npm

Run from source

git clone https://github.com/johnnyzhoujz/pin-it-public.git
cd pin-it-public
npm ci
npm run desktop

The renderer is also available on http://127.0.0.1:5173/ while the desktop development process is running.

To run the Electron shell against production-built renderer assets:

npm run desktop:prod

Local data

Pin data is stored under Electron's app-data directory. The directory still uses the project's former name so existing local data survives the rename:

~/Library/Application Support/Keep That/keeps.json
~/Library/Application Support/Keep That/images/

keeps.json stores relative image paths and pinit://pin/<id>/image placeholders rather than inline base64 payloads.

MCP

Pin It includes a read-only stdio MCP server. It can list and search pins, retrieve image pins, and generate deterministic packets.

Build and test the server:

npm run build:mcp
node dist-mcp/pinit-mcp.mjs --selftest

Example configuration for a repository checkout:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pin-it": {
      "command": "<absolute-path-to-node>",
      "args": ["<absolute-path-to-repo>/dist-mcp/pinit-mcp.mjs"],
      "env": {
        "PINIT_STORE_PATH": "~/Library/Application Support/Keep That/keeps.json"
      }
    }
  }
}

Example configuration for a locally packaged app:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pin-it": {
      "command": "/Applications/Pin It.app/Contents/MacOS/Pin It",
      "args": [
        "/Applications/Pin It.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar.unpacked/dist-mcp/pinit-mcp.mjs"
      ],
      "env": {
        "ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE": "1",
        "PINIT_STORE_PATH": "~/Library/Application Support/Keep That/keeps.json"
      }
    }
  }
}

The Settings panel shows the resolved configuration for the current app/session.

Smart Titles

Smart Titles are opt-in. Add an OpenAI API key in Settings, or provide it only to the development process:

OPENAI_API_KEY=... npm run desktop

Captured content is saved immediately with a local title before any provider request runs. Provider failures leave the local title unchanged, and a generated title never overwrites a title you edited manually.

Validate changes

Run the complete local check:

npm run check

Or run the steps separately:

npm run audit:prod
npm test
npm run build

Create a local macOS build

Create an unpacked development app:

npm run pack:mac

Create local .dmg and .zip artifacts:

npm run dist:mac

Generated artifacts are written to release/ and are excluded from Git. Unless you configure a valid Apple Developer ID identity and notarization, these builds are for local testing and are not equivalent to an official signed release.

Project layout

electron/   Electron main process, preload bridge, updater, and MCP entrypoint
src/        React renderer and local pinboard behavior
tests/      Node and Vitest regression coverage
site/       Static marketing site deployed to Vercel
build/      App icons and tracked brand resources
docs/       Product and engineering design notes

Contributing

Bug reports and focused pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before starting. Please report security issues according to SECURITY.md, not through a public issue.

License

Pin It is available under the MIT License.