For people who read a lot
Read anything. Keep what matters. Ask your own notes.
Renota sits next to whatever you are reading — a web page, a book in Zotero, a scanned page on your phone — and helps you understand it. Everything you save becomes one knowledge base you can ask questions to.
- 3 surfaces: browser, Zotero, Android
- 0 API keys stored on our servers
- 10 interface languages
Three apps, one knowledge base
Each app is useful on its own. Sign in once and the same clips, highlights and insights follow you across all three.
Renota for Chrome
Understand and rewrite anything you read on the web.
- Explain, analyze, challenge, translate, or connect a selection to what you already saved.
- Save a passage in one click; it becomes searchable context for every later question.
- Write the answer back into the editor, replacing or inserting it.
Renota for Zotero
Read whole books with an assistant that has read the same pages you have.
- Works inside the Zotero reader for EPUB, PDF and web snapshots.
- Spoiler protection: the model only ever sees text up to your reading position.
- Write explanations back as highlight comments or into your reading note.
Renota for Android
A floating ball that reads the screen and answers, in any app.
- Select a region on screen and get OCR plus an answer — including scanned PDFs.
- Runs offline Chinese OCR on the device; only the recognized text is sent to your model.
- The same actions and knowledge base as the desktop apps.
Built the way a reader would want it
No account required, no content sent to us, no lock-in.
Your key, your model
Connect OpenAI, DeepSeek, Anthropic, OpenRouter or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Requests go straight from your device to the provider — never through us.
Local-first by default
Clips, highlights and notes live in your browser, in Zotero's data folder, or in the app's database. Cloud sync is opt-in and can be switched off at any time.
Retrieval that works in Chinese
BM25 search with proper CJK tokenization, so saved passages are actually found when you ask about them — not just when you remember the exact words.
Shows its sources
Answers cite the clips and book passages they used, and every citation links back to the original text so you can check it.
How it works
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Capture
Select text on a web page, highlight a passage in Zotero, or frame a region on your phone. Renota saves it with its context and source.
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Ask
Pick an action — understand, analyze, challenge, translate, connect — or ask your own question. Your saved material is retrieved and cited automatically.
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Keep
Write the answer back where you were working, or save it as an insight. Either way it joins the same knowledge base.
Sync when you want it
Everything works on one device without an account. If you use more than one — browser at your desk, Zotero on a laptop, phone in hand — you can sign in with an email code and sync your knowledge base.
- Off by default: nothing is uploaded until you sign in.
- Only your clips, highlights and insights are synced. API keys never leave the device.
- Deletions sync too, so a deleted clip does not reappear on another device.
- Sign out at any time; the local copy stays where it is.
Questions people ask
Do I need an account?
No. Each app works without one. An account is only used for optional cloud sync between devices.
Is it free?
The apps are free and open source. You pay your model provider directly for API usage — the cost depends on which model you choose.
Where does my data go?
By default nowhere: clips and notes stay on your device and prompts go directly to the model provider you configured. If you enable cloud sync, your knowledge entries are stored in our database so your other devices can read them. API keys are never uploaded.
Which languages are supported?
The interface ships with English and Simplified Chinese, with the other common languages selectable. The assistant answers in whatever language you ask it to.