The best Rewind alternatives for Mac in 2026

Rewind did one thing beautifully: you typed a word, and your Mac showed you the moment you had seen it. No app replaces it exactly, and some of what is sold as a “Rewind alternative” does something quite different. So before the list, the three questions that matter most:

• Where is your screen processed? On your Mac, or on someone’s server?
• What is kept? Pictures and text only, or also audio and what you type?
• Will it still be there next year? Who makes it, how it is paid for, and whether you can take your data with you.

The short list

App	Platform	What it keeps, per its maker	Where screen text is processed	Price (Oct 2026)	Status
DejaVu	Mac	Compressed pictures of your screen and their text. Never audio, never keystrokes	On your Mac	Free (3 days of memory); Pro $79 once, or $9/month, $59/year	Private beta, waitlist open
Screenpipe	Mac, Windows, Linux	Screenshots, screen text, audio (optional), keyboard input, app switches	On your computer by default; optional cloud features	Free tier; Basic $21/month or $250/year	Active; source-available commercial licence since June 2026
ScreenMemory	Mac	Screenshots and their text	On your Mac	Free tier; $29, or $39 lifetime	Active
TimeScroll	Mac	Snapshots and their text	On your Mac	Free (GPL-3.0)	Active (v2.0.0, October 2026)
Rewisp	Mac (macOS 15+)	Text only, no pictures	On your Mac; optional AI services for hard questions	Free (MIT)	Early (v0.32, August 2026)
ChatGPT Computer History	Mac (ChatGPT app)	Clicks, typing, shortcuts, app switches and on-screen text; no screenshots	Event files processed on OpenAI’s servers	Included in ChatGPT Pro, Business, Enterprise	Active since August 2026

Descriptions come from each maker’s own documentation (see sources). Prices change: check each link before buying.

DejaVu — a private screen memory, built natively for Mac

Full disclosure: we make DejaVu. It is the app we wanted after Rewind: it keeps a light, compressed memory of what was on your screen, reads its text on your Mac with Apple’s own text recognition, and lets you find any moment by typing a word (⇧⌘Space) or scrubbing a timeline.

• Private by design. No account, no cloud, no audio, and it never logs what you type. Password managers are never kept, nothing is kept while you type a password, and private browsing windows and video calls are skipped by default.
• Opens with Touch ID. Your memory is encrypted on your Mac and opens with your finger.
• Native. Written in Swift on ScreenCaptureKit, Vision and Apple’s hardware video encoder.
• Yours to keep. Pro buys once ($79) or by subscription; your memory stays usable without our servers, and Pro can export it in open formats.

Best for: people who want what Rewind did, on Mac only, with privacy as the first feature. Not for: meeting transcription (DejaVu has no audio) or Windows. Honest status: DejaVu is in private beta; join the waitlist to try it first.

Screenpipe — the most capable, for developers

Screenpipe is a cross-platform app built in Rust with Tauri. It keeps screenshots and the accessibility text of your screen, can transcribe your microphone and system audio, and also records keyboard input and app switches. It stores data locally by default, offers optional cloud features, and exposes everything through an SDK and an MCP server.

Best for: developers and teams on Mac, Windows or Linux who want a deep, scriptable record to feed AI agents. Worth knowing: since June 10, 2026 the core is under a source-available commercial licence (personal non-commercial use stays free); product analytics are on by default and can be turned off. Read our detailed DejaVu vs Screenpipe comparison.

ScreenMemory — simple and local

A Mac app that keeps a local screenshot history with on-device text recognition, sold for a one-time price through Gumroad. Its site says it goes online only for licence checks, and lists encrypted storage as planned.

Best for: people who want a simple, local, one-time-purchase screenshot history.

TimeScroll — free and open source

A free, GPL-licensed Mac app with a scrollable timeline of your screen. Snapshots and the search index stay in a folder you choose; text comes from Accessibility or text recognition. It is maintained by a small team, and its latest release is from October 2026.

Best for: people who prefer open source and are comfortable with a smaller project.

Rewisp — text only, on device

Rewisp reads your screen and keeps only the text, never the pictures, in a local database. Hard questions can optionally be sent to an AI service you choose. It is young (version 0.32) and needs macOS 15 and Apple silicon.

Best for: people who want the lightest possible footprint and accept an early-stage project.

ChatGPT Computer History — if you live in ChatGPT

OpenAI’s Computer History is not a screen memory in Rewind’s sense: it takes no screenshots. It logs interaction events from the apps you allow — clicks, typing, shortcuts, app switches — and the text they expose through Accessibility. Event files are processed on OpenAI’s servers to generate “memories”, which are saved on your Mac as Markdown files that OpenAI says are not encrypted. It requires ChatGPT Pro, Business or Enterprise. See DejaVu vs ChatGPT Computer History.

Best for: ChatGPT Pro subscribers who want their recent activity available inside ChatGPT.

Not quite Rewind, but worth knowing

• Dayflow turns your day into a timeline of what you worked on, with AI summaries. It is a work journal rather than exact search.
• Littlebird and Highlight AI are AI assistants that use your screen as context; Littlebird stores data in the cloud, and Highlight focuses on meetings.
• Microsoft Recall is the closest idea on Windows — but only on Copilot+ PCs. There is no Mac version. Read Microsoft Recall for Mac?
• Apple’s built-in tools — Live Text, Spotlight and Siri’s on-screen awareness — help with what is on screen now or in images you already saved, not with a history. Our guide How to find text you saw on your Mac shows what they can do.

How to choose

1. If privacy comes first, choose an app that processes your screen on your Mac and never keeps audio or keystrokes. Our privacy checklist helps you check any app in five minutes.
2. If you need audio and meetings, a screen memory is the wrong tool; look at dedicated meeting recorders, and tell the people you are recording.
3. If you need Windows or Linux too, Screenpipe is the most complete cross-platform option.
4. Whatever you choose, make sure you can export your data and that the app keeps working without its maker’s servers. That is the lesson Rewind left us.