Cobalt

Cobalt

Universal offline-first note capture and personal knowledge archive

Hanan Bhatti Bookmark Note Task

Download (5.3 MB) Website

Screenshots

Screenshot of Cobalt Screenshot of Cobalt Screenshot of Cobalt

Description

Cobalt is an offline-first personal archive and capture app for Android. It stores links, notes, images, audio clips, code snippets, and movie/anime watchlists in a local Room database without requiring an account.

Capture Methods:
- Android Share Target: Save text, URLs, images, and videos directly from other apps via the system share sheet.
- Floating Overlay: Access a screen-edge panel to write quick notes, capture links, or trigger OCR without leaving your current app.
- Screen Region OCR: Capture a screenshot or crop a region on screen using MediaProjection to extract text and links.
- Quick Settings Tile: Launch OCR capture directly from the system Quick Settings panel.
- Voice Notes: Record audio memos with real-time waveform display, stored locally on device.
- Home Screen Widgets: View recent captures or trigger capture actions from your home screen.

Organization & Viewing:
- Supported Item Types: Links (with metadata previews), Markdown text notes, Photos/Images, Video clips, Code snippets, Audio recordings, and Movies/Anime.
- Folders & Archive: Organize items into custom folders or archive them to remove them from the main feed while keeping them stored.
- Search & Filters: Search across titles, content, extracted OCR text, and URLs, with filter chips for each media type.
- Media Hub: Track movies and anime with watch statuses (Plan to Watch, Watching, Completed), genres, ratings, and release years.
- Storage Management: View local storage usage broken down by media type, with options to delete cached files.

Network & Privacy Disclosures:
The FOSS build stores all data locally on your device. It does not include analytics, tracking SDKs, or background synchronization services. Certain optional features connect to external APIs:
- AI Screen OCR & Transcription: Sends selected image regions or voice notes to Google's Gemini API for processing. This requires you to provide your own Gemini API key in Settings.
- Movie & Anime Data: Queries The Movie Database (TMDb) and Jikan (MyAnimeList) for media details and poster images. TMDb searches require your own TMDb API key.
- Trailers: Embedded playback of YouTube trailers on media detail screens.

What’s new (2.1.2)

- Added opt-in toggle for GitHub update checks (default off in FOSS).
- Fixed radial FAB menu to support direct tap selection.
- Decoupled Home screen feed from Search tab query.
- Completely removed sync/download background services from FOSS.
- Added custom User-Agent and guidance for anime search.
- Removed recurring backup notification dialog on note save.

Anti-features

Properties of this app that are worth knowing about before installing.

  • NonFreeNet

Versions

Version Date Size Requires Android Download
2.1.2 current
bae3daf176851259…
 2026-10-15 5.3 MB API 24

Permissions

What the app asks the system for. Android only grants sensitive access after you confirm it.

  • Internet accessSend and receive data over the internet.
  • Network stateCheck whether and how the device is connected.
  • MicrophoneRecord audio.
  • Display over other appsDraw content on top of other apps.
  • Foreground serviceKeep running in the background, visible in the status bar.
  • FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PROJECTION
  • FOREGROUND_SERVICE_SPECIAL_USE
  • NotificationsShow notifications.
Show 8 more permissions
  • Run at startupStart automatically after the device is switched on.
  • REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS
  • VibrationControl the vibration alert.
  • safe.autostart
  • safe.autostart
  • permission.CLONE_APP_AUTORUN
  • Prevent sleepingKeep the device from going to sleep.
  • cobalt.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION

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