Capture Inspiration In One Keystroke
See something good, press the shortcut, keep moving. Sites, screenshots, and files land in Mindly instantly.
For Designers
The Design Inspiration Library That Builds Itself
Screenshots, references, and links go in with one keystroke. Mindly tags and connects them into a searchable visual library, so the right reference surfaces the moment a brief lands.
What you get
Your Visual Library, Organized On Save
Screenshots, references, and inspiration go in with one keystroke and come back out the moment a project needs them.
References Tag Themselves
Every save is tagged and summarized automatically, so your library stays curated without curation work.
Find That Screenshot Again
Search your entire visual library by what things are about, not what you happened to name them.
Moodboards That Connect Themselves
Related references link up in the mind map, so a loose collection becomes a direction you can show.
Designer setups
Six Concrete Ways Designers Actually Use Mindly
Moodboard inbox
Capture references the moment you see them, without deciding which project they might belong to. Triage into project moodboards once a week, or leave them in the inbox and let AI surface them when relevant. The act of capture stays fast and the organization happens later when context is clearer.
Per-project moodboards
One bundle per active project: screenshots, links, type, color cues, photos taken specifically for the brief, and a few sentence rationale on each. The moodboard lives next to the project notes and the client brief in the same library, so the kickoff and the review conversations both have one place to start.
Inspiration map for personal aesthetic
Use the mind map periodically to spot recurring directions across what you save. The personal aesthetic that is forming across thousands of references becomes visible. For freelance designers and creative directors building a portfolio voice, this is the highest-leverage feature for clarifying the point of view.
Long-running reference library
Components, animation snippets, layout systems, design writing, type specimens, color theory references. The years-deep reference library that mid-career designers maintain stays searchable through AI tags. The component you remembered seeing on a Japanese e-commerce site three years ago is one query away.
Type, color, and layout specifically
AI tags surface the type pairing you saved in March when you need it in October. The color combination from a museum poster surfaces when you need a similar palette for a financial client. The grid layout from a magazine cluster surfaces when you start a publication project. Format-specific recall becomes routine.
Voice rationale next to the visual
Voice-memo your rationale on a reference as you save it. The "what I liked here was the way the type sits below the eyeline" context survives the months between capture and use. When you revisit the reference for a pitch, the rationale is there in your own voice rather than reconstructed from memory.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best moodboard and reference app for designers on Mac?
For designers who save references constantly across formats (screenshots, links, photos, type specimens, color samples) and want one Mac-native library that tags by visual theme and surfaces patterns across years of saves, Mindly is the closest fit. The advantages over Pinterest (too public, too algorithm-driven), Eagle (excellent visual library but no AI semantic search), and Are.na (great for shared discovery, less so for personal pattern recognition) are AI visual tagging, mind-map clustering, voice rationale, and on-device storage for client confidentiality.
How does Mindly compare to Pinterest, Eagle, or Are.na?
Pinterest is a public algorithmic feed. Useful for discovery, weaker for personal organization and confidentiality. Eagle is an excellent dedicated visual library app for Mac. It handles many formats well but does not do AI semantic tagging or voice rationale. Are.na is built for shared discovery and serendipitous browsing across other people's collections. Mindly sits in the gap as the personal AI-tagged reference library where your moodboards live next to your project notes, your design system snippets, and your voice rationale, with everything stored on your Mac.
Does Mindly integrate with Figma or Sketch?
Mindly does not directly integrate with Figma or Sketch as a plugin today. The intended pattern is that Figma and Sketch are the design execution tools, and Mindly is the personal reference and thinking layer next to them. Save screenshots from Figma, links to your prototypes, photos of physical references, and voice memos about design decisions into Mindly. Use Figma and Sketch for the actual design work. The two layers stack rather than overlap.
Is the library private enough for client pitches and NDA work?
Yes. Your library lives on your Mac in a Mindly directory. AI processing runs over encrypted channels and content is not retained on Mindly servers after the request completes. For most design confidentiality requirements (NDA-bound client material, pitch decks not yet sent, unreleased product designs, competitive intelligence about other studios) the on-device library plus no-retention AI is the right combination. For specific regulatory requirements or strict client agreements, check the privacy policy and your client contract before processing covered material through cloud AI.
Can I import my existing Pinterest boards, Eagle library, or Are.na channels?
Pinterest does not export easily; you can save individual pins or use third-party export tools. Eagle exports the library to a folder of images with metadata, which Mindly imports. Are.na exports channels as JSON or HTML, which Mindly handles. Once imported, every image gets a tagging pass from AI and joins the searchable library next to anything new you save. The years of reference saving you have done in other tools can come with you.
Go deeper
How Designers Build a Second Brain for Inspiration
The full playbook behind this page: the reasoning, the habits, and answers to the questions this page does not cover.
Read the guideLet Your Inspiration Organize Itself
Capture references, screenshots, and links in one keystroke. Mindly tags, files, and connects them for you. Free to start on macOS.