REVIEW · AI FILE SEARCH
Verdict: Fenn is a serious, private choice if your files include video, audio, images and design files, or if you want to search meetings and screens you never saved: its policy says files and the index never leave your Mac. At 249 USD for a Lifetime licence with one year of updates, it is worth it for heavy media users; if you mostly search documents, it is a lot of tool to pay for.
16 October 2026 · By Ishtiaque Hossain · 5 minute read
Looking for a file you can describe but not name? Try Shlexball. The first 30 searches are free and need no account.
| Price | Flex 9 USD a month, billed in one annual payment; Lifetime 249 USD; Teams 999 USD for 5 Macs |
| Runs on | Apple silicon Macs |
| What it searches | Inside PDFs, Office and iWork files, images, design files, audio, video, and apps such as Apple Notes and Mail |
| Where your data goes | Processing and indexing on your Mac; files and index never leave it |
| Works offline | Yes; the AI models are downloaded to your Mac |
| Best for | Creatives and media-heavy Macs that want private search across every file type |
Fenn is a private AI app for the Mac that finds what you saved, saw or heard. It searches inside your files, not just their names: PDFs, documents, images, design files, audio and video.
It offers semantic and keyword search (semantic means matching by meaning rather than exact words), plus search by content similarity and face recognition search.
Its agentic search looks for files that match a set of criteria, so you do not have to open and check them one by one. You can also chat with your files, ask for summaries or comparisons, and get answers with citations back to the source.
Fenn reads a wide range of formats: PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Pages and Keynote; InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, RAW photos and Figma; MP3, WAV, MP4, MOV and more; and content in Apple Notes, Apple Mail, Notion, Bear and Craft.
Screen memory search lets you recall meetings, chats, shared screens and dashboards that were never saved as files.
Fenn can also keep auto-organized folders that always hold the files matching your criteria, rename files with AI based on their content, find and remove duplicate files, transcribe audio and video, and turn invoices or other documents into CSV spreadsheets.
A File Anonymizer detects sensitive information so you can remove it before you send a file to a tool such as ChatGPT.
Flex costs 9 USD a month, billed in one annual payment, and keeps you on continuous updates for 1 Mac. The site advertises 6 or more months free on the yearly plans.
Lifetime is a one-time 249 USD for 1 Mac, with lifetime access and 1 year of updates included. Teams is a one-time 999 USD for 5 Macs, also with 1 year of updates.
Every plan lists the same core features, from private on-device indexing and search inside more than 100 file types to unlimited private AI chat and the iPhone companion app. Payments go through Lemon Squeezy, which acts as the merchant of record.
This is Fenn's strongest point. Its privacy policy says all file processing and indexing happen on your device, and that your files, documents, media and the search index built from them never leave your Mac.
The AI models it needs are downloaded to your machine, so the whole process can run offline. The company says it has no access to the files you index and keeps only purchase records and any support emails you send.
Fenn is made by MY LITTLE PLANET, a company registered in France, so its users have rights under the GDPR, the European data protection law. The policy was last updated on April 6th 2026.
Fenn fits people whose work lives in many file types: designers with InDesign and Photoshop files, video makers with hours of footage, and anyone who wants to find a moment in a meeting they never wrote down.
Check that your Mac uses Apple silicon before you buy, because the download is for Apple silicon Macs, and decide between Flex and Lifetime by how much you value updates after the first year.
Shlexball does one job: it finds files from a plain-English description of what you remember. It searches file and folder names and the text inside files, including PDFs and Word documents, and also finds apps and System Settings panes. It does not search audio or video.
Its 1.5B-parameter language model runs on your Mac, files are never uploaded, and search works offline after a one-time model download of about 3.1 GB. There are 30 free searches with no account, then 9 USD a month or 59 USD a year on up to two Macs.
If you mostly need documents, Shlexball finds them by meaning on your Mac after a one-time model download: 30 free searches, no account.
▶ DOWNLOAD SHLEXBALLmacOS 15 or later. Apple silicon. 16 GB memory. On a phone? Email yourself the link.
Fenn is made by MY LITTLE PLANET, a company registered in France. Its privacy policy says file processing and indexing happen on your Mac, your files and index never leave it, and payments are handled by Lemon Squeezy.
Flex is 9 USD a month, billed in one annual payment. Lifetime is a one-time 249 USD with 1 year of updates, and Teams is a one-time 999 USD for 5 Macs.
Yes. Fenn says it processes files locally and works offline; the AI models it needs are downloaded to your Mac.
Yes. Fenn lists MP3, WAV, MP4, MOV and other audio and video formats, and includes audio and video transcription.
This review is based on Fenn's own pages, read on 14 October 2026. Every claim links to the page it came from. We are the makers of Shlexball, so we say plainly where Fenn does better.