Frequently asked questions

Librium is a personal document library for your Mac. It keeps a catalog of the documents already on your Mac — bills, receipts, appliance manuals, recipes, tax papers, photos, your kids' artwork — so you can organize, preview, and search them in one place.

No. Librium works alongside Finder, and each does a different job. Finder manages your files: where they live, how your folders are arranged, copying, moving, and deleting. Librium manages what you know about your files: what they're for, how they relate to each other, and how to find them again. Your files and folders stay exactly as you arranged them. When you rename or move a file within your watched folders in Finder, Librium follows it and keeps its tags and collections attached.

No. Librium indexes your files in place. They stay exactly where they are, in the folders you already use, and Finder and every other app keep working with them as usual. Librium keeps its catalog (tags, collections, favorites, and so on) in its own index, separate from your files.

macOS Sequoia 15.7 or later.

From the Mac App Store.

Yes. Librium is free for 30 days, then a one-time $19.99 purchase unlocks it, with no subscription. Librium reminds you before the trial ends.

If the trial ends before you buy, nothing you created is deleted. Librium's features are locked until you buy, but your files are never affected, you can still back up your library, and automatic backups continue. Librium also doesn't remove missing documents from its index in the meantime.

Add watched folders. On a new installation, the welcome screen's Choose Folders… button lets you pick them. You can add or remove folders at any time in Settings > Folders with the + and − buttons. Librium indexes everything inside a watched folder, including its subfolders.

• Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, images, and most other files in your watched folders, including their subfolders.
• Certain types of files, such as installers, disk images, virtual machine files, and archives, are excluded by default. This can be edited in Settings > Folders > File Types.
• Folders you exclude are not indexed. Manage this in Settings > Folders > Excluded Folders.
• Librium does not index system folders and certain other folders, such as /Applications.

It's either missing or offline. A missing document's file was deleted, moved to the Trash, or moved outside your watched folders. An offline document is on a drive that's disconnected, or in a folder Librium no longer has permission to read; it comes back when the drive or permission does.

You can still see and change a grayed-out document's tags and collections. Anything that needs the file itself, like opening or previewing it, is unavailable until it's back.

Librium keeps a missing file in its index for 30 days. If the file is restored within that window, its tags and collections come back with it. You can change how long Librium waits under Settings > Advanced. Favorites and offline documents are never removed from the index automatically.

Choose Hide from Library (⌘⇧H). The document disappears from Librium's views and searches, but the file and its tags are untouched, and it's still visible in Finder. To bring it back, use Settings > Advanced > Manage Hidden Documents…

These actions change only Librium's index. Your files are never touched.

Both group documents, and a document can belong to any number of each. Collections work well for broad groupings ("Home," "Car," "Taxes 2025") and tags for descriptive labels ("warranty," "receipt," "kitchen"). Each has its own color, which you can change with Edit Collection… or Edit Tag…

Use Catalog > New Collection… or Catalog > New Tag…, or type a new name while assigning in the Inspector or with Assign Tags… (⌘⌥T). You can also drag documents onto a collection or tag in the sidebar.

Only the tag or collection is removed from Librium. The documents and files stay. If a saved search uses it, Librium warns you first.

Your own fields for any document, such as Warranty Expires on a dishwasher manual or Amount on a receipt. A field can hold text, a number, currency, a date, yes/no, a link, or a choice from a list. Create them with Catalog > New User Attribute…, fill them in from the Inspector, and search by their values.

Yes. Librium can search the contents of PDFs, images, text files, and other text-based documents. Other files, such as spreadsheets and presentations, are searched by name and metadata only.

Press ⌘F and type to filter the current view, or press Return for ranked results with snippets. Every word must match, in any order: "power bill august" finds a document containing all three.

Search results and saved searches only include documents you can actually open. Missing documents still appear, grayed, in the regular views.

A named set of rules, like a Finder Smart Folder, that stays up to date as documents change: for example, every PDF tagged "receipt" added in the last year. Build a search with the filter bar and choose Save Search…, or start from New Saved Search…

Inside a saved search, the search field and filter bar narrow it temporarily without changing it. Choose Update Search to keep the change.

Select it and press the Spacebar or ⌘Y to Peek. Press either again, or Esc, to close it.

A panel on the right (⌘I) showing a live preview, file information, and the document's collections, tags, and User Attributes. Switch to edit mode to change them.

A way to copy every file in a collection, tag, or saved search into a folder you choose, such as tax documents for your accountant or a year of receipts for a USB drive. Your originals stay where they are. Choose Copy Out… from the sidebar's context menu or the Catalog menu.

Turn on Include Librium metadata to save a file beside the copies that records their tags, collections, and User Attributes.

Everything that exists only in Librium: your tags, collections, and User Attributes, which documents belong to them, saved searches, your watched-folder list, and your settings. Librium does not back up your files.

By default, Librium makes automatic backups after the library changes and when you quit Librium. You can change where automatic backups are saved under Settings > Advanced > Automatic Backup.

Choose File > Back Up Metadata… to make a manual backup.

Choose File > Restore Metadata… (or double-click a .libriumbackup file) and follow the steps: choose what to restore, re-add your watched folders if needed, and let indexing finish. A report lists what was restored.

Yes, as long as your documents are also on the new Mac (copied over, on an external drive, or synced). The recommended way is to restore from a Librium backup: choose File > Back Up Metadata… on your old Mac, then File > Restore Metadata… on the new one.

During the restore, macOS requires you to select each watched folder again to give Librium access. Librium then matches your documents by their location, their name and size, or their content, so your tags and collections usually reattach on their own. If you both reorganized your folders and edited a file, you may need to match that one by hand.