Everything About Using em

A library is just a folder of Markdown files that em can access.

1. Open em and select Choose a Folder… (or drop a folder into em's directory in iCloud Drive — anything you put there is added automatically, on every device).
2. Pick any folder of Markdown files inside iCloud Drive.
3. em indexes it. Files appear as they're read — a large library takes a little while on the first pass, and after that, only what changed is re-indexed.

Every document has two faces:

• Reader renders your Markdown as a clean, typeset page — your fonts, your spacing, your colors, all customizable in Settings → Reader. (By default, it looks a lot like this site.)
• Editor is a Markdown editor that styles as you type, with its own customizations in Settings → Editor. Not sure what Markdown code to use? Type / to insert anything from a heading to a Ghost product card.

Drop or paste an image into a document and em copies it into an images folder in your library and inserts the Markdown link — so the document and its images stay together both in and out of em.

On iPhone, em can draw on Apple's on-device Journaling Suggestions — photos, places, and moments from your day — as a starting point for a new document, so you can turn a memory into Markdown without starting from a blank page. Suggestions are generated entirely on-device by the system; em only sees the ones you choose to use.

Print any document straight from the Reader — it comes out set the same way it reads on screen, fonts and all.

Everything em knows about your writing lives in one of three places:

• Your documents stay in your folders.
• Version History, library settings, and preferences live in em's iCloud folder.
• The search index is a cache of data that is unique to each device and does not sync anywhere. em can rebuild it from your files at any time, and deleting it doesn't touch your writing.

If you ever stop using em, your writing is exactly where it always was: a folder of Markdown files, with nothing missing and nothing to export.

• Search matches the words themselves — titles and full text, instantly, as you type.
• Smart Search matches meaning and is enabled by hitting return or the search button. Describe what you're looking for — a topic, a half-remembered idea, even a question — em searches by meaning and keywords together, and orders results by what they're about. All of this happens completely on your device.

Smart Search doesn't require enabling em's AI features. On a new install or right after a big import, the index may take a little while to build, but keyword search works immediately.

Ghost posts are also searchable. Published posts are included by default; drafts and scheduled posts are included if you turn that on in Settings.

A Smart Folder is a saved set of rules that stays current as your library changes:

• Match any or all of your rules.
• Rules can include title, content, library, favorite status, Ghost post status (draft, published, scheduled), or date the file was last edited.

Smart Folders live in the sidebar, sync to every device, and can be renamed and customized like any library.

Favorite a document and it joins the Favorites list in the sidebar — the status syncs to your other devices through em's own iCloud folder.

Every file list can be narrowed and ordered:

• Sort by title, date created, date modified, or — for Ghost libraries — date published.
• File rows can show text excerpts, dates, and file extensions — all of it is up to you in Settings.

If results ever look stale or incomplete, em's Data settings has the tools to investigate (or repair):

• Check Index Health tells you what's wrong.
• Repair Search Index fixes the common cases.
• Rebuild Search Index starts everything over.

The index is only a cache of your files — rebuilding it never touches your writing, and you never lose anything. Indices are unique to each device and do not sync.

You don't do anything. em versions a document the first time you edit it, and again at natural intervals. Rewrite the ending before lunch and change your mind after dinner — the Version from before lunch is ready to restore.

Choose Version History… from a document's context menu or the Options menu (⋯):

• Every Version is listed with its date and the device it was edited on. Select one to explore the differences.
• Use This Version replaces the current document with the selected Version. It also silently creates a new Version of what it's replacing, so even restoring is completely reversible.

Version History is stored in a folder inside em's iCloud directory. That means it syncs with the other files and preferences through iCloud and reaches all of your devices.

Edit the same file on two devices before iCloud can sync and most apps silently pick a winner. em doesn't:

• Both copies are kept on every device.
• The file view tells you the file was Also Edited on Another Device and offers a choice.
• Choosing one discards nothing — the copy you don't keep is saved into the Version History.

The same promise holds when another app changes a file that's open in em: you choose which Version continues, and the other goes into Version History.

1. In your Ghost admin, open Settings → Integrations → Add custom integration, name it (em happens to be a great name), and copy the Admin API key — not the Content API key.
2. In em, choose Connect Ghost Site…, enter your site's URL, and paste the API key.
3. em verifies the connection and indexes your posts.

Your site appears in the sidebar like any other library. The Admin API key is stored in your Keychain and syncs to your other devices through iCloud Keychain — connect once, and your site works everywhere.

A newly connected Ghost site is read-only — you can read, search, and export every post, and nothing you do in em can change your site. When you're ready to edit and publish from em, turn off Keep Ghost read-only in Settings → Ghost.

Any Markdown file in any library can become a Ghost post:

1. Choose Publish to Ghost… from the file's context menu or the Options menu (⋯).
2. Set the title, excerpt, post slug, featured image, and tags. If the draft has an image, em offers the first one as the featured image automatically.
3. Choose the newsletter settings — send to all subscribers, free or paid only — or don't send at all.
4. Create Draft to keep working on it in Ghost, Publish Post to go live, or Schedule Post for later.

Once Ghost's read-only mode is off, open any post from your Ghost library and switch to the Editor. em converts Ghost's cards into readable Markdown (see the Markdown cheat sheet) so the whole post stays plain text while you work.

• Save to Ghost (⌘S) sends your changes back to the site. Nothing is ever sent until you save — there is no auto-publish.
• If the post changed on Ghost while you were editing, em shows you both versions and lets you choose. Your edit is never silently overwritten, and neither is the site's.
• Leave a post with unsaved changes and em asks to save them to Ghost, or revert to the site's version.
• Edit Post Settings… changes a post's status — title, excerpt, tags, newsletter, schedule — without touching its content.

em checks your site for changed posts every time it launches so your site is always in sync.

Ask a question — “what have I written about my grandfather?”, “when did I first mention burnout?” — and em answers from your own writing, grounded in the actual documents, with sources you can open. Answers arrive as conversations in the AI library, which is itself just a folder of Markdown files in your iCloud Drive — your conversations sync everywhere, and you can read them in any app.

Ask em only reads libraries you've approved in Settings → AI.

Ask for an Editorial Review and em reads the open draft and returns structured feedback. What makes it different: the instructions are yours. Every review follows the “Editorial Review Prompt” document that you can edit in Settings → AI (or in the Shortcut, if you're using Apple Intelligence). Want reviews to focus on structure, or check your citations, or be harsher? Edit the prompt document. Delete your edits and em falls back to its built-in prompt.

Editorial Reviews run through one of two engines:

• A connected model, if you've added one.
• A Shortcut you build in Apple's Shortcuts app — a “Use Model” action runs on Apple's Private Cloud Compute. em hands the Shortcut your draft, and the Shortcut's own permissions govern everything else. See Shortcuts.

Either way, a review sends the draft's text to the service that reviews it — em tells you so before the first one runs.

In Settings → AI, pick a provider and paste your API key (the Get a Key… button opens in your browser).

• Your key, Your Billing. em is not a middleman — usage is billed by the provider to your account, and you can revoke the key in their console at any time.
• One Connection at a Time. Connecting a provider replaces the previous one, but switched-away keys stay safely in your Keychain — switch back without re-pasting. Only the Forget API Key… button (or an em Factory Reset) deletes one.
• Keys Work Everywhere. The connection and key sync through iCloud Keychain.
• em Always Tells You Who's Answering — the input field itself says “Ask em, powered by Claude” (or ChatGPT, or Gemini, or Apple Intelligence).
• Disconnect keys anytime to return fully on-device.

Web Searches. External models can access the web to add references to your results. This is off by default. When off, requests carry no tools — the model cannot browse the internet, and em strips any external link the model invents. Turn Enable Web Searches on and the provider's own search runs using your API key, and Editorial Review cites real retrieved sources in an Extended Citations section.

Settings → AI → Enable AI turns the whole thing off. Turning AI off deletes the entire AI library and its conversations on every device. This is a destructive action and conversations cannot be restored after disabling AI in em.

Actions that write are careful by design: if a file changes while a Shortcut is running, em declines to overwrite the file rather than clobber your edit.

• Capture Inbox. A Shortcut on your phone that asks for text and appends it to a file in your library — a thought captured in two taps, from anywhere.
• Daily Note. Create a document named for today's date in your journal library, from a time-of-day automation.
• Read it Later. Share a link to a Shortcut that appends it, with the page title, to a reading list document.
• Your Own AI Pipeline. Chain Get Document Markdown into any model action Shortcuts can reach, then Import AI Result to file the response in em — your archive in, your archive out. This is how Editorial Review using Apple's model works.

No. There is no em server at all — that's not an “em doesn't sell your data” promise, it's an architectural decision. Your writing syncs through your own iCloud account and never touches infrastructure em operates. Read more in the Privacy Policy.

No. If you use an external model with an API key, those questions are sent through that provider's process. The response is captured as a Markdown file in your AI library. Nothing is ever sent to em or its developer. Read more in the Privacy Policy.

iCloud is em's only sync feature. Your folders, your Version History, your library settings — all of it reaches your other devices by living in an iCloud-synced folder.

em keeps a record of changes made to your writing in case you ever need to restore an accidental change. Versions are saved automatically to em's folder inside iCloud, so they're separate from your actual writing.

To preserve iCloud space, Version History cleans up after itself:

• Versions less than 24 hours old are never touched.
• Versions between one day and one week old are condensed to the most recent version per day — the rest are removed.
• Versions older than a week are reduced to one per week — the rest go.

These are em's home for preferences, Version Histories, and library customizations. They live inside iCloud so they sync across your devices. They can be deleted by performing a Factory Reset in Settings.

Nothing. Your writing stays in its original iCloud location, exactly where it's always been.

Each device needs to explicitly request permission to your iCloud libraries. This is a way to protect your files in accordance with Apple's policies.

Ghost sites are read-only by default. To enable editing, turn this off in Settings → Ghost.

Never. Nothing reaches your site until you explicitly save or choose to publish. If you leave a Ghost draft with unsaved changes, em asks what to do.

Yes! em uses a customized version of Markdown that supports 19 different Ghost Koenig card types, like callouts, image galleries, and toggles. This custom Markdown is denoted by ::: in the editor and can be used in local drafts too. Learn more in the Markdown cheat sheet.

Yes. em can export a single post or your entire library as Markdown files, including em's customized Markdown format for Ghost-specific styles.

Smart Search relies on semantic vectors (“chunks”) that are built during search indexing. Creating chunks for each file can take a few minutes, especially on large libraries. Each chunk is stored on-device in accordance with em's Privacy Policy. Once the index is finalized, Smart Search is available.

Something may have gone wrong with your index, not your files. Visit Settings → Index → Check Index Health to see what's going on. If needed, use Rebuild Search Index. The index is only a cache; rebuilding never touches your files.

AI use among writers can be controversial, but em believes it's a choice you get to make for yourself. If you want AI to provide feedback, em provides the opportunity — but only after you explicitly enable it and grant access to your libraries. em puts you in control of how, or if, you use AI.

Absolutely not. Your writing is yours and you should be the only one who decides what to do with it. Markdown editing, Version History, Smart Search, and Ghost publishing all work without ever enabling AI.

Write With Siri is a system-wide proofreading tool provided by Apple Intelligence.

Theoretically yes, but it depends on the AI provider's privacy policies. When AI is enabled, em defaults to Apple Intelligence's on-device models, so your questions and your data never leave your device. AI conversations, even with on-device models, sync through iCloud so they appear in each copy of em you use.

Editorial Review sends the contents of the selected draft through remote servers for analysis. With the on-device model selected, this happens through a Shortcut and Apple's Private Cloud Compute.

If a remote model (Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini) is enabled, your questions and Editorial Review content are processed in accordance with that provider's usage policies. Read more in the Privacy Policy.

You do. em connects using an API key you supply, and usage is billed by the provider. You can revoke the key from the provider's account or delete it from Keychain at any time. em is not a billing middleman and takes no cut.

Settings → Data has a few erasure options. They only touch the data em creates — Version Histories, saved preferences, and the like. Deleting them never touches your own Markdown files.

The em dash is the single greatest punctuation mark there is and it's worth showing off — if you want, that is. em can pick every one of them out for you in the editor, and this site does the same thing everywhere you see one.

Yes. Read Aloud is in the Options menu (⋯), with your choice of voice and speed. It reads the whole article — or, on the Mac, just your selected text — and skips code, tables, and images. It's a good way to edit based on what you hear.

Yes. So long as iCloud has downloaded copies of the files in its directory, they're available offline, and changes sync the next time you connect. Smart Search, editing, Version History, and on-device AI all work offline. Ghost publishing and remote models need the internet.

It looks better that way.

em will only be available for Apple devices — it's the ecosystem I use and understanding one development process was hard enough.

Maybe? It depends on API availability and my patience (and maybe user requests). If Medium opened their API again that would be a no-brainer...