Every reference you collect, in one place you own.
Save anything, organize it your way, and arrange it on an infinite canvas, connected on a graph that maps how it all relates. All on your machine, yours forever.
Organize and find.
Let refern suggest the tags, then find anything by keyword, color, or plain language. Your whole library, a few keystrokes away.
- Auto-tagging
- Search by meaning
- Hierarchical tags
- 14 search operators
- Find by similarity
- Color search
- Bulk rename
Downloads to date
Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Accounts, clouds, or trackers
Built for illustrators, concept artists, photographers, and art directors. Your files always stay on your machine.
Save everything you see.
From any site, in a click. The refern clipper drops it straight into your library, so nothing slips away. Grab one image or a whole page at once.
- Browser extension
- Right-click save
- Bulk save
- Drag & drop
- Screenshot
Other features you might love.
The story covers the highlights. Here are a few more that make refern the last reference tool you’ll set up.
Auto Tagger
Tag a whole library without doing it by hand. An on-device engine suggests tags, reads text in images, and describes them. Offline and opt-in.
Search by meaning
Describe what you want, like 'dramatic rim lighting', and refern surfaces it even when nothing's tagged.
Import from Eagle, PureRef & Allusion
Bring your old library across in one move. Eagle folders and tags, a PureRef board's images, and Allusion's colored, nested tags.
Keep your metadata
Reads embedded keywords, ratings, descriptions, and sources (EXIF, IPTC, XMP) as you add images.
Linked references
Crops, groups, and the canvases an image lives in all stay connected back to the source.
Edit in place
Crop and adjust brightness, contrast, and color without ever touching the original file.
Timed study
Full-screen study sessions for drawing from your own references, on your own clock.
Reference overlay
Pin any window on top, dial down its opacity, and click straight through it while you work.
Multiple windows
Pop any image or canvas out into its own window. Lay references side by side, spread them across monitors, and keep working in the main app.
Custom data folder
Keep a large library on a slow drive while its database, thumbnails, and backups live on a fast SSD. Your original images never move.
Recover from a backup
If a library's database is ever lost or corrupted, refern restores it in one click from an automatic backup or a refern export.
Pay once. Own it forever.
No subscription. No account. Your references live on your machine, and they stay yours.
- Pay once. No subscription.
- Free updates included.
- 3 devices · On Windows, macOS or Linux.
- Your files never leave your machine.
Free 30-day trial, no card. Try the whole app before you pay — no subscription, nothing to cancel.
refern is a godsend for me. I have libraries of photo references I purchase from reference photography studios, but that piles up really quickly when you start getting those 600+ action pose reference packs. After a certain point it becomes almost impossible to find what you want searching through countless folders. But the ways refern allows you to organize everything makes all my photos searchable or easily found otherwise, so I can actually make use of all the photos I have packed away.
Coming from Eagle or PureRef? See how refern compares: Eagle · PureRef
Questions, answered.
Everything you might want to know before you download.
Own your references. Forever.
$30 once. Free updates. Never a subscription. Your files never leave your machine.
Free 30-day trial, no card. Try the whole app before you pay — no subscription, nothing to cancel.
Built by a solo developer.