What's new.
Every release of refern — new features, improvements, and fixes. refern updates itself automatically, so you're always on the latest.
Latest: v1.1.0 · June 20, 2026 · Download
- v1.1.0Latest
Auto Tagger, Search by Meaning & Library Imports
- Added the Auto Tagger, a fully on-device engine that suggests tags, recognizes text inside your images, and can describe them, so you can label a large library without tagging everything by hand. It's completely offline and opt-in: open the Auto Tagger from the sidebar and download only the parts you want. Nothing runs or installs until you choose to
- Review suggestions in a fast, keyboard-driven game: accept or skip with the arrow keys, tweak recognized text, and undo with Ctrl/Cmd+Z. Run the tagger across your whole workspace or just selected folders, and watch live progress as it goes
- Added a Suggestions section to the metadata sidebar: see suggested tags and recognized text for the selected image (or a folder's combined tags), click a suggestion to apply it, or press Auto-fill to tag an item on the spot
- Added 'Search by meaning': describe what you're looking for in plain language (like 'a cozy reading nook' or 'a misty mountain at dawn') and refern surfaces matching images even when the words aren't in any tag, name, or note. Toggle it on in the search overlay
- Added 'Find similar by meaning' to the image right-click menu, alongside the existing visual-similarity and duplicate modes
- Added Import from PureRef: pull the images out of a PureRef board (.pur) and into your workspace from Settings > Import
- Added Import from Allusion: bring in an Allusion library from its exported backup file, recreating your folder structure and carrying across Allusion's colored, nested tags. Find it in Settings > Import
- Rebuilt Import from Eagle on a faster streaming pipeline: large libraries import using far less memory, with live progress and a cancel button, and a hung external or USB drive is now reported as an error instead of freezing the import
- Added horizontal and vertical flip for images: flip on the canvas (right-click or the selection panel) and in the image viewer, preview overlay, and timed study from the adjustments menu
- You can now collapse and reorder the metadata sidebar's sections: drag the handle to rearrange them and click a section header to collapse it. Your order and collapsed sections are remembered across sessions
- Set the minimum macOS version to 12. On older system webviews that can't run them, graph view and the canvas editor now show a friendly notice instead of crash-looping
- Fixed dragging an image into the app skipping the import staging area when it was already open over a folder. External drops now always go through staging instead of silently auto-importing
- Fixed a doubled progress card when dragging files into the app: importing and indexing now show in one card, with feedback while large or HEIC images are being read
- Stopped stray browser shortcuts from disrupting the app: Ctrl+P no longer opens a print dialog, and save-page, view-source, find, and download shortcuts are suppressed too
- Fixed search, folder picker, crop, graph, and import overlays collapsing or sizing incorrectly on older macOS
- Fixed more Linux rendering issues following the invisible-window fix: removed a GPU workaround that was itself causing trouble on some setups
- v1.0.2
Startup & Linux Window Hotfix
- Fixed the app failing to start when an older version left behind an empty profile file — refern now detects it and heals itself on the next launch with no data loss
- Fixed an invisible app window on some Linux setups (Wayland on Fedora/GNOME) by shipping an opaque window. The see-through window opacity feature is turned off on Linux to match
- Resolved a batch of under-the-hood reliability and performance findings — timer cleanup in effects, more stable list rendering, and fewer unnecessary re-renders
- v1.0.1
Canvas Find Similar & Fix
- Added 'Find similar' on canvas. Right-click an image (or press Ctrl/Cmd+F) to bloom a radial wheel of visually similar images, then click one to drop it onto the canvas right above the original and into its group
- Fixed graph view crashing the app on older macOS versions
- v1.0.0
1.0 Full Release
- refern is officially out of alpha. Welcome to 1.0
- Redesigned the home dashboard with a hero layout: a greeting, command-bar search, and quick-stat cards over a customizable per-workspace background (none, color, or image). What's new, the extension guide, and help now open in modals
- Rebuilt the onboarding experience with a new welcome flow, including dedicated import and browser-extension setup steps, plus an osu-style workspace selector wheel
- Added workspace icon customization: pick a colored letter, an emoji, or an image for your workspace, shown in the workspace switcher and the selector card
- Added a first-run 'Get started' checklist that walks you through importing, migrating from Eagle or refern v1, creating folders, tagging, color search, canvas, and the browser clipper
- On canvas, the selection editor now opens automatically the first time you select something so it's easier to find. Your show or hide choice still sticks once you set it
- You can now target your library root ('My library') everywhere you pick a folder: the move dialog, asset picker, import destination, and the canvas 'add to canvas' panel
- Added a 'remove all tags' option to the bulk and import metadata editors
- Large workspaces open quickly again. Removed a full database integrity scan that could stall multi-GB libraries on hard drives for over 20 minutes on every open. The deep check now runs in the background only when needed, and offers a one-click restore from backup if it ever finds a problem
- Improved 'Show subfolders' performance on large hard-drive-backed workspaces. Flattening a deep folder no longer slows down thumbnails and other reads, and the subfolder controls now respond instantly
- Fixed switching the tag mode (Add, Remove, or Replace) wiping a typed-but-unsaved note or other in-progress edits in the metadata editor
- Fixed the 'linked' and 'not linked' search filters missing one side of a linked pair
- Toned down the highlighted 'Unsorted' option in the import destination picker so it no longer stands out so brightly
- v0.5.1
Library Import & Subfolders
- Import your tags and metadata — refern now reads embedded keywords, ratings, descriptions, and source info (EXIF/IPTC/XMP) when you add images, so you keep your tags when moving from another app. Includes a Settings re-scan to backfill existing images
- Added Import from Eagle — bring an Eagle library's folders, tags, ratings, sources, notes, and images into refern from Settings > Import
- Added 'Show subfolders' — a per-folder toggle to flatten everything from nested folders into the grid and/or the in-folder search, with a depth control (1 / 2 / 3 / All levels)
- Added a setting to always animate GIFs in the grid or only play them on hover — hover-play keeps GIF-heavy folders fast, and grid GIFs now show a small badge. GIFs also play in graph view now
- Faster indexing and thumbnails on hard drives — refern now detects spinning disks and tunes itself so they no longer bog down, with an Auto / SSD / HDD option on the progress card
- The app now checks for updates periodically in the background, not just at startup
- New app icon, and the workspace switcher moved to the top of the navigator sidebar as an easy-to-find account-style row
- Fixed smart folder sorting — picking a sort other than the saved one is now respected
- Fixed smart folders and search showing group cards and unrelated members of a matching group instead of just the items that match
- Fixed the tag editor not creating a new tag whose name is part of an existing one — pressing Enter now creates 'log' even when 'geology' already exists
- Fixed new tags added from the browser clipper not showing on the saved image until a refresh
- Fixed deleting an image on a canvas sometimes trashing the original file in your library
- Blocked AVIF images from import (refern can't decode them yet) and fixed the clipper saving YouTube thumbnails as broken .jpg files
- Fixed the crash banner appearing after a successful update, and made update prompts reachable even from the crash screen
- Fixed a memory leak on the canvas, and idle canvas tabs no longer keep a CPU core spinning
- Fixed trash — the toolbar no longer disappears when you click an item, and the sidebar trash count now updates
- Fixed drag-and-drop reordering of tags in the tag hierarchy
- Fixed the metadata sidebar showing stale info after renaming a file in the preview overlay
- Graph view fixes: clicking empty space no longer deselects the focused image, clipper-saved images now show at full resolution without a reload, the embedded graph shows a loading state instead of collapsing and no longer re-renders when you change the subfolder setting, and long labels stay on one line
- Improved tooltips and screen-reader support — adjacent tooltips now open instantly as you move between them
- Clipper 3.2Extension
Right-Click Save & Per-Site Controls
- Right-click any image to save it to refern — 'Quick save' sends it to your last-used folder (shown in the menu), or 'Save to refern…' opens the folder picker
- Per-site disable — turn the clipper off on sites where you don't want it, or manage a full blacklist of domains. Settings persist across tabs and restarts
- Choose the hover button's size (small / medium / large) and which corner of the image it sits on
- Reworked the folder picker's save action into a clear 'Save to: <folder>' button so the active destination is unmistakable, and save toasts now show the destination folder name
- Warns before batch-saving many images at once, since that can trip a site's rate limits
- Fixed the hover button cluster disappearing when the cursor moved off the buttons but stayed over the image
- Fixed the settings panel clipping on short browser windows
- v0.4.3
Backups & Link Basket
- Added periodic workspace backups — automatic snapshots saved to disk with one-click recovery from Settings > Diagnostics, plus an NDJSON last-resort archive for full re-import
- Added cross-device safety for workspaces on cloud-sync folders (Drive, Dropbox, iCloud): warning on workspace creation and a blocking modal when the same workspace is opened from another device, to prevent SQLite corruption
- Added a workspace JSON archive recovery action on the workspace card — hover a workspace to rebuild it from its NDJSON archive if the SQLite file is lost
- Added a link basket — right-click any image, canvas, or folder to drop it into a corner panel, then commit the collected set as cross-references. Solves cross-folder linking that previously required a single multi-selection in one location
- Added right-click context menus to folders and canvases in the grid (rename, delete, favorite, link, show in graph view, reveal in file explorer, and more)
- Added 'Show in graph view' to folder and canvas right-click menus (was image-only before)
- Added a 'Create' call-to-action in empty directories and All Content so you can add folders, canvases, or images without going to the navigator sidebar
- Replaced the metadata sidebar's quick-action ellipsis with a visible File section (Rename, Move, Reveal in file explorer, Move to Trash) so the actions are discoverable at a glance
- Reworked the bulk metadata sidebar — added labels above each editable field so multi-value inputs stay identifiable when the placeholder collapses to 'Multiple values', and merged Grouping + Linking into one section so the sidebar no longer flickers in height as selection changes
- Major grid scrolling performance improvements — eliminated per-scroll re-renders so wide-column and group-heavy folders stay smooth, and shared drop-target subscriptions across all visible cells
- Smoother canvas pan and zoom — removed allocation churn in the camera controls hot path
- Made long settings rows wrap on narrow panels instead of overflowing
- Improved screen reader support for icon-only buttons across the app
- Fixed the graph view's 'limit reached' disclaimer overlapping with the control bar — moved to top-left on both the overlay and the full graph page
- Fixed graph overlay opening with the wrong focal node when triggered in quick succession from a right-click menu
- v0.4.2
Graph View
- Added graph view — visualize your workspace as an interactive map of folders, images, canvases, groups, and tags, with all the links between them
- Open the full graph from the navigator sidebar, see a focused view inline in the metadata sidebar's Connections tab, or pop it open from an image's right-click menu
- Drag nodes to reposition, click to select, double-click to open the item
- Customize node and edge colors per kind in graph settings
- Fixed sluggish scrolling in folders with many groups
- v0.4.1
Hotfix
- Fixed drag-and-drop in the search overlay leaking through to groups in the grid beneath the overlay
- Fixed poor performance when linking and grouping items
- Fixed trashing items then resyncing with disk causing duplicate items to appear
- Fixed groups in the grid showing as a blank solid color while searching
- Added a reorder group button to the group bottom sheet control area
- Fixed tag autocomplete missing existing tags when the query contained spaces or special characters (e.g. typing 'new tag' now finds the existing 'new-tag')
- Fixed workspaces failing to open after upgrading to 0.4.0 when they contained images cropped from a source that was later permanently deleted — affected workspaces auto-heal on the next launch with no data loss
- v0.4.0
Linked References & Image Grouping
- Added image grouping — select images in a folder and group them together into a fan card in the grid
- Added cross-grid linking — select items in any grid to link them together
- Adding images to canvases now creates a link between the image and the canvas automatically
- Added a 'Linked References' section in the metadata sidebar showing groups, cropped-from source, canvases the image is placed in, and manually linked items — click any entry to jump to it
- Added an image grouping carousel in the grid for groups with multiple members
- Added a per-folder caption preference — show file name, path, size, dimensions, or item count under each grid item
- Reworked the canvas 'Add image' flow into an inline page with drag-and-drop support
- Unified canvas layers into groups — every layer is now a group that can be nested, named, and optionally backgrounded. Cmd+G wraps the selection into a backgrounded group, Cmd+Shift+G ungroups
- Made canvas group backgrounds draggable — grab the group label to move the entire frame and its contents
- Added folder right-click actions: rename, delete, open source in browser, reveal file, add to canvas, favorite, show similar images, group/ungroup, link items, and preview in overlay
- Added canvas right-click actions: reveal file, group/ungroup
- Fixed orphaned files appearing as empty folders after the dedupe repair — a one-shot parent-orphan repair runs on workspace open and is also accessible in Settings > Diagnostics
- v0.3.10
Workspace Open Hotfix
- Fixed workspaces failing to open after upgrading to 0.3.9 when they contained pre-existing duplicate entries — the dedupe repair now completes correctly and affected workspaces auto-heal on the next launch with no data loss
- Update-available notifications now appear even when the app falls back to its top-level error screen, so a fix can be installed without manually restarting
- v0.3.9
Canvas Tools & Workspace Dedupe Repair
- Added freehand drawing, shapes (rectangle, ellipse, line, arrow, triangle, polygon, star, diamond), and color swatches to canvas. Pen has armed pen/eraser, pressure, Shift for straight lines
- Added canvas group backgrounds — toggleable frames behind group layers with configurable color, opacity, padding, corner radius, and label
- Added image filters (brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.) on canvas and in timed study
- Added non-destructive image cropping on canvas — inline crop frame with aspect ratio presets, Reset to natural size, and full undo. Works alongside the existing destructive crop in folders
- Reorganized canvas UI: layer panel moved to the left, selection sidebar moved into the canvas toggle, per-element lock + ancestor-of-selection highlight in the layer panel
- Canvas QOL: scroll-zooms by default, drops/pastes land at the mouse position, text and shape tools stay armed across multiple placements, larger initial text size and higher size cap, normalize selection size, entire bounding box is draggable, toast jump-to-canvas button after adding an image from a folder
- Added 'Launch on startup' option in settings
- Added a setting to toggle the navigator sidebar dropdown button between overlay and inline, plus a hover trigger delay before the sidebar pops out
- Made grid scrollbars always visible in directory, all content, and trash views, and improved scrollbar visibility overall
- Asset picker now auto-selects the current folder when picking covers and backgrounds
- Removed the similarity distance slider in similar images and raised the result cap
- Split the settings menu into focused submenus (Canvas, Grid, Import, Navigator, etc.) so options are easier to find
- Fixed duplicate file and folder entries created when the indexer was interrupted in v0.3.7+. Affected workspaces are automatically cleaned up on first launch — no data is lost; metadata is merged into the surviving entries
- Added a partial unique index on (workspace, kind, path, name) so any future regression that re-introduces this bug fails loudly instead of silently doubling your library
- Added Schema Maintenance section in Settings > Diagnostics showing migration history and the dedupe repair status for the open workspace
- Added a forensic dedupe audit log next to refern-db.sqlite so support can trace exactly which rows were collapsed if a question comes up
- Fixed large-workspace navigator sidebar tree flickering between skeleton states and slow load when switching from collapsed to docked
- Fixed rapidly dragging and dropping an image item leaving the drag ghost stuck on screen
- Fixed drag-drop and paste directly into canvas triggering a 'File changes detected' resync toast
- Fixed 'Reveal in Explorer' failing on SMB shares due to the Windows extended-length path prefix
- v0.3.8
Image Cropping, Grid Drag & Drop, and Extension Release
- Added image cropping with aspect ratio presets, save-as-new or replace modes, optional metadata transfer, and a 10-second undo on replace
- Added drag and drop from the grid to move items, add to canvases, or send to trash
- Released the refern clipper extension to the Chrome, Firefox, and Safari (pending) stores
- Reworked the refern clipper extension folder picker with the ability to create new folders inline
- Added a 'derived' search query to find cropped images
- Added a 'is:duplicate' search query to find visually identical images
- Added a context menu option to set an image as a folder cover or background when in folder page
- Added a 'scope to folder' context menu option to bring the active folder to the top of the directory tree
- Added indent adjustment and indent guide toggles in settings for directory tree
- Added more color options to the color label palette
- Added a 'include subfolder' option in timed study to include all images in subfolders
- Auto-focus the search field when opening the folder, canvas, and asset picker
- Added a access to the default context menu option to all custom context menus
- Grouped canvas items after folder items in grids
- Optimized workspace load time for large workspaces
- Improved navigator sidebar tree rendering performance on Linux
- Standardized font sizing in the refern clipper extension across different websites
- Fixed browser extension panel showing 'connect' state while the save button still worked
- Fixed grid sometimes only showing placeholders when dragging and dropping images into the app
- Fixed image flicker caused by fade-in re-triggering when moving items
- Fixed bulk extension imports incorrectly opening the pipeline card and breaking the import flow
- Fixed extension hover button briefly appearing in the top right of the page on first load
- Fixed folder sort order not being applied when inline search was active
- Fixed renaming a file from the metadata sidebar not updating the displayed name
- Fixed canvas occasionally failing to load
- v0.3.7
Streaming Indexing & Navigator Virtualization
- Reworked indexing pipeline using a streaming process to support workspaces with up to 10 million items
- Added workspace reconciliation during resync with disk
- Added virtualization to the navigator sidebar directory tree for improved performance
- Added error boundaries across app layers to prevent instant crashes
- Added a recovery tool to restore tags into existing items
- Added default context menu with window controls, refresh data, navigation, and panel toggles
- Updated the resync workspace button to offer 'Refresh Data' or 'Resync with Disk' options
- Added custom tree icons and an option to show covers and backgrounds for folders and canvases in the directory tree
- Added an option to show item counts by type on directory tree items in the navigator sidebar
- Added a 'Collapse all' button to My Library to collapse all folders
- Grouped folders together and display on top, separating them from other items in all grids
- Hidden expand buttons on empty folders in the directory tree
- Updated styling and added tooltips for truncated text on directory tree items
- Fixed displayed tags not updating automatically when modified in the tag manager
- Fixed arrow keys scrolling the background grid while in image preview
- Fixed duplicated 'Unsorted' folders being automatically created
- Fixed 'no content found' issue when loading into a workspace with an active inline search tag filter
- v0.3.6
Hotfix
- Fixed unable to index workspace that has 500k+ items
- v0.3.5
Hotfix
- Update check now runs before workspace load (no need to load into workspace to update)
- Fixed unable to search tags after update
- Fixed resync workspace when a file change detected gets rid of tags
- Fixed renaming files crashes the app
- Fixed fresh installs unable to get into the app because missing save.json
- Fixed unable to open tag filter menu after clear all in search overlay
- Fixed unable to close app in workspace selector screen
- Replaced eye icon with exclamation shield for NSFW indicator
- v0.3.4
Hotfix
- Changes merged into v0.3.5
- v0.3.3
SQLite Migration & Performance
- Migrated to SQLite database (automatic migration from JSON save files)
- Support workspaces of any size
- Instant workspace loading after indexing regardless of size
- Instant grid page loading with any number of items
- Significantly faster bulk editing
- Much faster image page keyboard navigation
- Horizontal and justify layout modes for all grids (configurable globally and locally)
- All grids in the workspace now respect global grid configurations
- Primary color placeholder while fast scrolling through grid before images load
- Fixed image thumbnail rotation not matching actual image rotation
- Fixed unable to delete color filter in filter bar when it is the only entry
- Fixed search bar overlapping with multi-select control bar
- Fixed Ctrl+A selection triggering when image preview overlay is open
- Fixed RAW image thumbnails missing
- Fixed staging image previews not respecting EXIF orientations
- v0.3.2
Performance, Tabs & Grid Preferences
- Faster workspace switching and first-time indexing
- Per-directory and per-workspace grid preferences (configurable in Settings)
- Pin tabs from the tab bar, close all tabs, and tab behavior modes (new tab, preview, hidden)
- Reveal in file explorer from grid right-click, image page, and metadata sidebar
- Browser zoom support (Ctrl + / -) and adjustable text size in settings
- Canvas: toggleable option to use scroll for zoom instead of pan
- Drag and drop from web now saves the source URL automatically
- Quick preview override toggle in the floating toolbar per directory and view
- Create new tags directly while building tag hierarchies and tag groups
- Append, overwrite, or delete tag modes in import overlay and bulk editor
- Tag macros now available in bulk select edit and staging metadata editor
- Tag creation forms now suggest pleasing random color combinations
- Image preview overlay now also opens the corresponding metadata sidebar
- Search: single space allowed after operators, floating toolbar always visible in search mode
- Clearer workspace path guidance in onboarding and the create-workspace flow
- Fixed dragging items inside the app triggering the drop overlay
- Fixed fail to copy images to clipboard that has its extension name changed from original
- Fixed shift-scroll and ctrl-scroll not working on Linux
- Fixed NSFW search filter only applies true on initial selection
- v0.3.1
Clipboard & Import Improvements
- Copy image to clipboard (right-click on image page, metadata sidebar, or directory)
- Theme follows system preference option
- Double-click in metadata sidebar to rename file
- More prominent back button in image page
- Shift+Click to multi-select first item in grid instead of triggering open action
- Option to change image page default open mode (full page or overlay)
- Fixed v1 import breaking on malformed data
- Fixed drag and drop images from web (e.g. from X) not being picked up
- Fixed renaming file format (e.g. webp to png) breaking thumbnail generation
- Fixed drag and dropping folder into another folder not applying folder preset
- Fixed moving nested folder then deleting parent folder causing moved folder content to also be deleted
- Fixed Linux app showing native window title bar
- Fixed ability to create new folder when previous folder at the same path was soft deleted