UI Features Guide

A tour of the features in the Scrapalot app — the same on the web, the desktop app and Android. Features marked Pro need the Pro plan or above; see Pricing.

Chat Interface

Real-time AI Conversations

Chat Flow:

Features:

• Streaming Responses - See answers as they're generated in real time
• Citations - Every answer shows which documents and pages were used; click to jump to the passage
• Search strategy panel - See which retrieval strategy ran and why
• AI Thinking - Watch reasoning models think through complex questions (optional)
• Branches - Regenerate an answer as a new branch, or edit a message and resend
• Split chat - Open a second conversation side by side
• Projects and folders - Group conversations; a project can be shared and has its own group chat with the AI assistant
• Share Conversation - Create a link anyone can use to view a conversation

Chat Toolbar

Around the chat input you'll find:

Model Selector:

• Choose any model from your configured providers
• On hosted plans, the built-in Scrapalot AI model is available without your own key (hidden if you subscribed at the BYOK price)

Knowledge Stacks:

• AI Routing (default) picks collections and a retrieval strategy for each question
• Manual mode lets you select stacks, similarity, number of chunks, the orchestrator and strategy, and knowledge augmentation (Strict / Augmented / Auto)

@-mentions:

• @ picks a file, @/ a collection, @/name/ browses inside a collection

Options:

• Simple Search - Add live web results to the answer
• Deep Research - Multi-step research with a long, cited report (Pro)
• Thought Partner - The assistant asks you questions instead of answering
• AI Tutor mode - Socratic teaching, step by step
• Incognito - The chat is not used by your second brain

Also in the toolbar:

• Prompt Templates - Reuse saved prompts
• Model settings - Model instructions, temperature, max output tokens and other parameters
• Attach Files - Add a document to the conversation
• Voice mode - A spoken conversation with the assistant (Pro)
• Generate image - Create images from a text prompt (Pro)

See Asking Questions for how each mode works.

Document Management

Knowledge Stacks

Knowledge Stacks is your document library. It has four tabs: Upload, Library, Connectors and Search.

Document Processing Pipeline:

Features:

• Multi-file upload - Drag and drop many files at once, then Compose
• Processing options - Choose whether to extract text, build embeddings and build the knowledge graph
• Live progress - Per-file status, with the reason shown when something fails
• Collections - Create, nest, rename and delete; generate a description with AI
• Library - Search, filter, sort, tag, prioritize and move documents; review duplicates; Smart Collections (saved searches)
• Import papers - Create documents from DOI, arXiv or PubMed identifiers
• Find open-access PDF - Via Unpaywall
• Export Citations - Export document metadata in citation formats
• Book and chapter summaries - Generate, translate and read aloud
• Audio overview - A 10–15 minute podcast-style conversation between two hosts about a collection

Supported File Types: PDF, EPUB, DOCX, RTF, TXT, Markdown, XLSX, XLS, CSV, TSV, and audio/video (transcribed). See Uploading Documents.

Document Viewers

Documents open in built-in viewers for PDF, EPUB, DOCX and spreadsheets, so you can read while you chat.

• Citations open the viewer at the cited passage
• Annotations - Highlight in colors; the chat can filter by annotation color
• AI actions on a highlight - Explain (an AI explanation of the passage), Similar (similar passages in your library), Cite, and Save excerpt to a note
• Ask Scrapalot about any selected text

Knowledge Graph (Pro)

The Knowledge Graph view shows entities and ideas linked across every book you own, as a Map and as Themes. You can export a collection's graph as a knowledge bundle (.zip), import a bundle, or share it as an offline file.

Settings & Configuration

Open Settings from the sidebar. Tabs:

Tab	What it holds
Account	Profile and password, plan, usage and storage, Second brain, Discord link; on desktop, sign-in and where your books are kept
General	Theme and accent color, font, language, Simple mode, knowledge agent profile, response length and style, notifications
Voice	Voice assistant, wake word, your own Whisper key
Integrations	MCP servers for your assistant; Connect your agent (API keys for Claude Code, Gemini CLI and other MCP clients)
Workspaces	Your workspaces and team members; mounted folders in the desktop app
AI Providers	Remote and local model providers
Documents	Citation style, chunking strategy
Prompts	Custom prompt templates
Local AI	Desktop app: run models on your own computer. Web: administrators only

Simple mode hides advanced options — model and sampling settings, prompt templates, AI-thinking indicators, the tutor, thought-partner and incognito modes, the Knowledge Map, and the Integrations, AI Providers and Prompts tabs. Chat, collections, web search, deep research, attachments and citations all stay.

General

• Theme - Light, dark or hybrid
• Accent color - Gray, blue, green, red, violet or orange
• Language - English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Croatian
• Knowledge agent profile - Bias every chat toward a domain: Legal, Medical, Academic or Technical
• Response length and style - Short, medium or long; formality and framing

AI Providers

Provider	Setup
OpenAI	API key
Anthropic	API key
Google Gemini	API key
DeepSeek	API key
Groq	API key
OpenRouter	API key
Z.ai (GLM)	API key
Ollama	Endpoint URL
LM Studio	Endpoint URL
Remote vLLM	Endpoint URL
OpenAI-compatible	Base URL + key

Add a provider, Fetch Models, and select which models to enable. You can export and import your provider configuration.

Local AI (desktop app)

In the desktop app, Local AI shows your computer's GPU, CPU and memory, lets you download models from Hugging Face sized to fit your hardware, and runs them locally with llama.cpp (or MLX on Apple Silicon). See Apps & Platforms.

Second brain

With Learn about me turned on (Settings → Account → Second brain, off by default), Scrapalot learns about you from your chats — who you are, your preferences, what you know — so it gets more helpful over time. You can read, edit and delete everything it remembers. Incognito chats are excluded.

Collaboration Features

Collaboration Use Cases:

• Shared workspaces with Owner, Editor and Viewer roles (Pro)
• Team chat for the whole workspace, with an AI assistant you can bring into the conversation, plus private messages between members (Pro)
• Huddles - Voice and video calls with screen sharing, in a workspace or a project (Team)
• Shared projects - Share a group of conversations with a teammate

See Team Collaboration for details.

Notes Editor

Collaborative Notes Editor:

• Rich text: headings, lists, task lists, toggle lists, tables, callouts, quotes, code blocks, images
• Real-time collaborative editing
• Comments with replies, @-mentions and resolve
• Version History - Browse, compare and restore previous saves
• Share Note - Invite a workspace member as Editor or Viewer
• Import Markdown and Import BibTeX, Bibliography
• Export - PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown + BibTeX, LaTeX (.tex or a .zip project for Overleaf), HTML
• Templates - Start a note from a template, or save one as a template
• Citation style set in Settings → Documents

Slash commands — type / for:

• Text, Heading 1–3, Bullet List, Numbered List, Task List, Toggle List
• Quote, Code Block, Divider, Table, Image
• Info / Warning / Success / Error / Note callouts
• Import Markdown, Import BibTeX, Bibliography
• AI tools: Research, Cite, Verify, Summarize, Hypothesis, What-If Oracle, Outline

Notes AI assistant (Pro):

• Compose from sources - A paragraph grounded in your documents, with inline citations
• Fact check - A verdict and GRADE evidence rating for each factual claim, with bias and fallacy warnings
• Connect the dots - Entities in the note that also appear in your other collections
• Research / Verify Claim - Search your library and the web from inside a note

Advanced Features

Deep Research (Pro)

Research Flow:

Configuration:

• Research Breadth (Focused … Comprehensive) and Research Depth (Surface … Deep)
• Research templates - Scientific Research, Literature Review, Concept Exploration, Fact Verification, Comparative Analysis, Alternative Research, PRISMA Review (with a PICO framework and inclusion/exclusion criteria)
• Depth tiers - Quick (~50 papers, 2–3 min), Standard (~150 papers, 8–10 min), Deep (500+ papers, 30+ min)
• Background mode - Let it research on the server for up to ~30 minutes while you close the tab
• Activity timeline - Planning, retrieval, web, verification and synthesis steps in real time

AI Scientist — Paper Generation (Pro)

Generate Paper turns a deep research report, your notes and research discoveries into a formatted paper. Choose a template or a target venue (journals, conferences, preprints), output format and citation style, edit and reorder sections with custom instructions, and add author, affiliation and keywords.

Voice (Pro)

• Voice mode - A live spoken conversation. The assistant can search your library and the web while you talk, and can read books aloud
• Wake word - Make the assistant respond only when you call it by name (Settings → Voice)
• Your own Whisper key - Use your OpenAI key for speech-to-text
• Read aloud - Any answer or summary can be read aloud (all plans)
• In the desktop app, speech can be transcribed locally

Web Search

• Turn on Simple Search per conversation
• Live web results with source attribution, combined with your documents

Mobile & Responsive Design

• Full-screen interface on phones
• Touch-optimized controls and drawer-based navigation
• Sidebars collapse automatically on small screens
• The same features in the Android app

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Command Palette	Ctrl+K (⌘K on Mac)
New conversation	Ctrl+N
Add split chat	Ctrl+T
Toggle context shield	Ctrl+Shift+S
Toggle theme tray	Ctrl+Shift+T
Copy last AI message	Ctrl+Shift+C
Regenerate last AI message	Ctrl+Shift+R
Edit last user message	↑
Edit last AI message	Alt+↑
Submit message	Enter
New line in message	Shift+Enter

The Command Palette jumps to the Library, Notes, Settings, a workspace or a collection, and starts a new chat or note.

Accessibility

• Keyboard navigation support
• Light, dark and hybrid themes with six accent colors
• Adjustable font size in chat
• ARIA labels on controls

Next Steps

Learn More

• Uploading Documents - Detailed document upload guide
• Asking Questions - Get better answers
• Collections - Organize your knowledge
• FAQ - Common questions