Heptabase

🚀 New in Heptabase: PDF Parser - Extract text, tables, equations & images (even from scanned PDFs) → save as clean Markdown - Ask AI with precise context (page ranges & paragraphs) → responses include link refs back to the source - MAX mode ensures AI reads every word → perfect for translation, summarization & fact-checking

In the latest version, you can paste web links into bookmark blocks and mention nodes! You can also easily save a web link to the card library directly from its bookmark block so you can access it offline in the future!

In the latest version of the mobile app, you can add a home screen widget to search inside Heptabase, quickly write ideas, and record voice notes!

In the latest version, you can rotate the mindmap into a vertical layout!

In the latest version, you can highlight and annotate text on note cards!

In the latest version, we’ve introduced the Web Card: save full website snapshots with one click so you can view them offline, search them across your knowledge base, and connect them on whiteboards with your notes.

In the latest version, we’re excited to introduce AI actions for cards! You can now hover over any card on the whiteboard and pick an AI action to run on it—like translating, summarizing, or creating a mind map from the card’s content. You can also create your own custom AI actions, so you don’t have to type the same prompt again and again. For example, you can set up a “Study Guide” action with your preferred format—then anytime you click Study Guide, AI will generate it instantly. We can’t wait to see what kinds of actions you create—feel free to share your favorites with us!

Today we’re excited to announce that Heptabase MCP (Model Context Protocol) is officially in public beta! If you're a normal user, you can use MCP to connect Heptabase to ChatGPT, Claude, or other AI services. This will unlock two powerful workflows: - Save to Heptabase: Imagine you’re discussing a topic with ChatGPT and find the conversation useful. You can simply ask ChatGPT to summarize the discussion into a note and save it to Heptabase as a card or append it to today’s journal. - Consult your Knowledge Base: You can ask ChatGPT to find whiteboards and cards related to a topic, read them, and provide answers based on your existing knowledge, without even opening Heptabase at all! If you’re an AI developer, you can use our MCP to build advanced workflow automations with the tools we provide. To get started, check out this document we wrote: support.heptabase.com/en/articles/12…

Today, we’ve made some big changes to Heptabase. Many of you use Heptabase as your core knowledge base, storing not just notes but also textbooks, research papers, video lectures, and daily journals. Over the past few months, we’ve seen a growing wave of requests for a NotebookLM-like experience right inside Heptabase—one where you can ask anything, and the AI finds and reads your sources to craft trustworthy responses with accurate citations. We're happy to announce that we’ve officially brought this experience to Heptabase—and we’ve even gone beyond it. We’ve fully integrated AI into our built-in note-taking, whiteboarding, PDF reading, and video-watching workflows. This means you can not only ask AI about anything in your knowledge base, but also treat it as a reading partner that explains whatever you’re currently looking at. We’ve implemented this in a way that respects user privacy by self-hosting all data parsing and embedding services. No AI provider can see your data unless you choose to chat with them, and you can always specify what AI can or can’t read. Here are the three major things we’ve shipped in this latest update: First, we’ve introduced a “Research a topic” button on the left sidebar. This opens an interface where you can upload many types of sources: PDFs, YouTube links, documents, images, and more (Web Cards and EPUB support are coming soon!). Once you click “Start Research,” we add them to a new whiteboard as cards, parse PDF contents, and download video transcripts. This allows you to ask AI anything about the whiteboard and get accurate citations pointing back to specific blocks or timestamps in your sources. You can save any AI response as a card with just one click. Second, we’ve given the AI a suite of tools to use during its thinking process. Our AI can search your entire knowledge base using both keyword and semantic search, perform deep search inside specific PDFs, and intelligently decide to read more pages or look for more notes when needed. This becomes especially powerful when you’re using premium models such as Gemini 3.0 Pro, GPT 5.1, or Claude 4.5 Sonnet. In my own testing, it was able to pinpoint the best content across my 8,000 notes and 300 PDFs and use that information to provide answers with citations to specific pages. Third, we’re collaborating with Google to give all Pro subscribers and free trial users a monthly AI credit. You can now chat with the most advanced Google Gemini models at no extra cost. If you hit the monthly limit, you can upgrade to the Premium Plan, which gives you 10× the Pro usage limit plus access to all the latest models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. This means you can always use the most advanced possible model inside your knowledge base. While we can’t guarantee how much AI credit we’ll be able to provide free trial users over time, we can guarantee that right now—and over the next few months—will be a special period during which free trial users can access the most AI during their trial. If you haven’t tried Heptabase before, now is the best time. There are many tools on the market that allow you to ask AI about your sources, but simply asking AI is not enough to establish a deep understanding of a topic. What matters more is what you do before and after asking AI: READING the sources, WRITING about what you’ve learned in your own words, and MAPPING out how different ideas connect. These fundamental methods for learning and research remain irreplaceable if you truly want to master something. That’s why a great PDF reader, a rich text editor, and a powerful whiteboard matter. While Heptabase already has some of the best features in these categories, we’re now combining the strengths of knowledge management and AI to create the best possible environment for learning and research. We’ve updated our website slogan to “Master anything you learn. Do your best research with AI.” We’re excited about everything we’ll be shipping in the upcoming months—features we believe will help you understand and create knowledge in ways you never thought possible.

I've generally done most of my writing, especially attempts at novels, using analog tools. My most successful method is to collect fragments on index cards, which keeps ideas separate yet allows me to move them around and understand them in relation to each other. Today, however, I tried an experiment: I imported my 200+ cards into @Heptabase , connected it to my thousands of @readwise highlights, and tested two new AI features powered by @claudeai 4.5. First, the “related notes” function shows other cards that are thematically or semantically connected to the one I’m viewing. Second, I used the entire whiteboard—with all my novel cards as context—to ask open-ended questions like “What are your thoughts?” This has been extremely powerful. It instantly surfaces connections I might never have discovered, or would have found only years later. It pulls in highlights from books I read long ago and links them to my current notes and it reveals major connections between themes and big picture notes that I wouldn’t have put together until much later in the process. So, despite my genuine love for analog tools, this might become my new primary way of working on this novel.

@codewithimanshu No. medium.com/heptabase/the-…

@Heptabase That's a game changer, Heptabase! But will it truly replace our own thinking, you think?

In the latest version, you can enable AI to use your entire knowledge base as context. Ask anything—AI will search your notes, journals, and PDFs, find the exact content you need, and answer with accurate citations. For the first time, your knowledge base actually feels alive.

In the latest version, you can now display all to-dos of the current whiteboard and card through the tool in the right sidebar!

We're not aiming to build the best note-taking app or the best browser. We're aiming to build the best possible tool for learning and conducting research, which requires working knowledge in all types of format (notes, PDFs, videos, webpages, etc). Here's some users' discussions in Discord on how they're using the web tab, if it helps.

@Heptabase … I liked it when it was a note taking app Now its a browser?

We’ve launched Web Tab in Heptabase! You can now search Google, YouTube, or open any website directly inside Heptabase — take notes side by side, see AI-suggested related cards, or even chat with the page you’re browsing.

@invisprints Is this what you mean by "side pages"? If so, we already support it.

@Heptabase Would be even better if could support side pages or browser extensions like Remote. That way, I could take full advantage of AI browers like Comet—such as AI agents or ad blockers.

We built this with a privacy-first approach. We self-host our AI embedding model, so all processing happens securely on our servers. Your notes remain fully yours and are never sent to big-tech providers.

In the latest version, we’ve introduced AI-powered suggestions for related cards! Open the Card Library from the right sidebar and select the AI filter to see cards related to your current selected card.

@CryptoSpaces1 Yes

@Heptabase Is this after parsing?

In the latest version, you can easily copy the content of an entire chapter or section of a PDF card. You can also add it to the AI chat's context with one click. We believe this will make it much more convenient to study the PDF of textbooks or papers.

In the latest version, you can enable "can chat" permissions for your public whiteboard — this means anyone will be able to chat with you through the whiteboard you published (for free).