A quiet place for everything you keep.
Mecmua is a workspace for your notes, your reading and what you are learning. Pages, databases, canvases and dashboards, in one app that lives on your own computer.
Version 1.4.2 · Windows 10 and 11, and Macs with Apple silicon.
Yours, on your disk
Everything is one folder: a database file and your attachments. Back it up by copying it. Take it anywhere.
No account, no cloud
Nothing to sign up for and nothing sent away. Mecmua works offline, and your notes never leave your computer.
Fast, because it is local
Pages open at once, search runs on your machine, and nothing waits for a server on the other side of the world.
Write the way you think.
Everything in Mecmua is a page, and a page holds whatever you need: headings and lists, checklists, quotes, sub-pages, PDFs, drawings, and blocks side by side in columns.
- Type / for any block: pages, links, tables, boards, buttons, canvases, PDFs and more
- Drag blocks into place, or side by side in columns
- Arabic, Hebrew and other right-to-left text, right next to English
- Pages inside pages, as deep as your thinking goes
Any page can hold a database.
A reading list, your projects, a course: give a page columns and its rows become pages of their own. See them as a table, a board or a list, each with its own filters and sorting.
- Select, dates, numbers, ratings, progress, links between databases, formulas
- Several saved views of the same rows
- Study tracking: a mastery ladder and spaced reviews on any database
Pages that know each other.
Type [[ inside a line and name any page: the link shows the page’s current name and follows it if you rename it. Every page lists what links to it, and the Link map draws your whole workspace, or just the few steps around one page.
- Links inside text, between pages and database rows alike
- “Linked from” above every page, so nothing is a dead end
- The Link map: drag it, zoom it, click a dot to open the page
Room to think in pictures.
Some ideas do not fit in lines of text. Put a canvas on any page and you have a whiteboard without edges: boxes and arrows, sketches, sticky notes and pasted images, in a friendly hand-drawn style. Most note apps send you elsewhere for this. In Mecmua it sits on the page it belongs to.
- Mind maps, timelines, diagrams and plans, drawn freely
- A preview on the page, the whole window when you open it
- Saved with your notes on your computer; export it as PNG or SVG
Start each day in one place.
Today gathers your tasks, the day’s schedule, what is due for review and what you are in the middle of. Make dashboards of your own from widgets you arrange, or start from a template.
- Today, a weekly Schedule, and a News reader for the feeds you choose
- Widgets for tasks, the schedule, reviews, news, notes, and the ones extensions add
- Drag widgets around, make them wide or narrow, rename them
- Dashboards are pages too: duplicate them, save them as templates
The same Mecmua, in your pocket.
Your notes stay on your computer, and your phone opens them from there over Tailscale, a free private network between your own devices. Nothing goes through a cloud. Add it to the home screen and it opens like an app.
- Read, write, tick off tasks and review, wherever you are
- Mark up PDFs with a pen or a finger: highlight, underline, strike through, draw
- A phone-sized layout, and a timer and agent that carry on while you are away
And the small things that make it home.
Search everything
Titles and the text inside every page, forgiving about accents and spelling, a keystroke away.
Tabs and split panes
Keep a lesson open beside your notes, or three pages side by side, the way you would on a desk.
Themes you will like
Light and dark, plus Paper, Sand, Rose, Blue and Charcoal. Each page can have its own font and width.
Separate workspaces
Work, study and home in their own folders, switched in a second from the window or the tray.
On your phone, privately
With Tailscale, your phone opens Mecmua from your own computer, over your own private network. Here is how.
A trash that forgives
Deleted pages wait in the Trash and come back to exactly where they were, with everything in them.
Make it yours.
Add what your work needs: a PDF library that reads scans, a home for everything you learn by heart, a quiz maker, a dictionary for English, Arabic and Turkish, a study timer, an AI agent and a dhikr counter. Some are free, the rest you buy once and keep. Install in one click from inside Mecmua.
Library
A shelf of PDFs with a reader that marks up the file itself, searches every book, and reads scans on this computer.
Memorization
A dashboard for everything you learn by heart, with spaced reviews tuned per collection.
Quiz
Turn your notes or a PDF into a practice quiz, then have every wrong answer explained.
Word lookup
Look up a word in English, Arabic or Turkish without leaving the page, with where it comes from.
Focus
A quiet study timer with the methods people actually use, the same clock on your phone and your computer.
AI Agent
Talk to any AI agent from a page in Mecmua: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, or a model on your own computer.
Dhikr
A quiet dhikr counter that counts from any program, with a small counter floating in a corner of your screen.
In Ottoman times a mecmua was the notebook a reader kept for life: verses, notes from lessons, a recipe, a letter, all side by side in one binding.
Scholars carried theirs for decades and filled them with whatever was worth keeping. Mecmua is that notebook, for the way we read and learn now.
Questions
Is Mecmua really free?
Yes. The app is free, without limits, ads or an account. Some extensions are paid: you buy them once and they are yours, updates included.
Where are my notes kept?
In one folder on your computer: a SQLite database and the files you add. Mecmua shows you the folder from its tray menu. Back it up by copying it; restore it by putting it back.
Does it work offline?
Completely. Mecmua goes online only to check for updates, to show the extension Marketplace, and for what you ask of it, like a news feed or a word lookup.
Can I use it on my phone?
Mecmua runs on your computer, and your phone can open it through Tailscale, a free private network between your own devices. It works like an app on the home screen, and nothing passes through a cloud. The step-by-step guide is written for people who have never heard of Tailscale. A phone app of its own is planned.
Do I need an account to buy an extension?
No. Mecmua keeps the licence key on your computer and installs the extension for you. You also see the key after paying, and the order code on your receipt brings it back any time on Find a licence, together with anything else you bought with the same email.
How many computers can I use a licence on?
Up to three. The first time you use a key on a computer, Mecmua activates it there, which needs the internet once; after that it works offline. When it is online, Mecmua renews the activation about once a week; a computer that has not reached us for 60 days pauses its paid extensions until it is online again, and then they come back by themselves. To move a key, remove the licence in Mecmua on the old computer (that gives its place back, ready for another computer a week later), or, if you can no longer reach that computer, replace the key on Find a licence: you get a new key and the old one stops working. The same page replaces a key that has been shared by mistake.
Which systems does it run on?
Windows 10 and 11, and Macs with Apple silicon.
What if an extension is not for me?
Write to us within 30 days of buying it and you get your money back. See Refunds.
Your mecmua is waiting.
Download it, write your first page, and see what you keep.