Minds: Simple Mind Maps

Minds is an iOS notebook for arranging ideas as nodes on mindmaps. Capture by text, voice, or OCR — or brainstorm with AI and turn the chat into a map.

Adding ideas

• Type with the keyboard, dictate by voice, or capture text from a photo via OCR.
• Voice input is transcribed by iOS through Apple's Speech framework.
• "Add from idea" turns an existing library entry into a node on the map.
• Pick the default action for the bottom-left + button (new / from idea / voice / OCR) in Settings.

Mind maps

• Place ideas as nodes radiating out from a theme.
• A tidy-tree layout auto-arranges nodes by parent-child depth.
• Pan and pinch to move around the canvas.
• Change the color of any individual node.
• Reconnect a node to a different parent.
• Collapse and expand any subtree.
• Set a theme color per map.
• Duplicate or delete maps.
• Search ideas within a map by keyword.
• Copy the whole map as Markdown.

Brainstorm with AI (optional, BYOK)

• Save your own Claude (Anthropic) or OpenAI API key to enable the AI chat screen.
• The API key you provide is stored only in this device's Keychain.
• After a chat, tap "Turn this conversation into a mindmap" to extract a tree (up to 5 levels deep).
• The extracted structure is shown as a mindmap preview; create it as a new map when it looks right.
• Past chat history is stored locally and can be resumed later.
• Clear the stored API key from Settings at any time.

Tags

• Tag ideas and nodes.
• Pick a color per tag (defaults to a hash-derived color when unset).
• Add, edit, and delete tags from the tag list screen.
• Search ideas across maps by tag.

Settings

• iCloud sync: on/off toggle plus a manual "Sync now" action.

Privacy

• Idea text, photos, audio, and tags are stored locally on device (UserDefaults). Nothing is sent to our servers.
• When iCloud sync is enabled, data is mirrored only to your own iCloud account via Apple's iCloud Key-Value Store.
• Camera, microphone, and speech recognition are requested only when you choose OCR or voice input.
• The AI feature is optional. When enabled, only the API key and conversation text you provide are sent to your chosen provider (Claude or OpenAI). The API key is stored only in this device's Keychain — never synced to iCloud or our servers.

Devices

• iOS 26.0 or later.