New: Ally Web Clipper browser extension for Safari on iOS and macOS

To create a PKM and personal productivity system that actually works, one that you stick with over time — because it works for you and your life — it needs to be easy to add information to it. Tasks. Reminders. Websites. Recipes. Shower thoughts.

Really easy. Because if it’s not easy, you won’t do it. Neither will I. Most people won’t because friction kills productivity.

Throughout the day, there’s all kinds of information we should save. To assist you really well, your PKM or productivity system needs these updates in as close to real-time as possible, so it stays in sync with your life. But, if there’s friction, or we lose faith in our system, sometimes we stop saving things and then our system starts to fall apart as it becomes out of sync with our lives and so less helpful.

This is why Ally is so focused on Quick Capture, with the first of these “frictionless input channels” being voice input and transcription. It’s one of the fastest and easiest ways for most people to transfer information from their head, into their digital productivity system of choice.

Capturing web content for later

But, often, we come across web content — the perfect Reddit comment, a great tutorial, a must try recipe, a thought-provoking think piece that’d be perfect for a plane ride — that we want to save for later. We want to add it to our “read it later” reading list. Or we want to catalog it into our recipe archive so we can put it into rotation for family meals.

If we bookmark it, it might disappear and we have yet another place to check for information we need contributing to that frustrating “I know it’s somewhere…” phenomena that often ends with Googling for it again, defeating the purpose of bookmarking or having a PKM solution.

Now, saving web content is easy. One click and it is added to your Inbox. That means you have a permanent copy that’s yours forever. If Reddit removes the post, if the website goes down, etc the data is now yours.

Introducing the Ally web clipper Safari extension

Strip advertisements & clutter

The Ally web clipper automatically removes all the ads and complex formatting that plague modern websites so when you read it later, you can focus on the content. Read in Ally’s Full Screen mode for ultimate focus and immersion.

Permanent save & accessible files

With a single click, you can archive a permanent copy of whatever web page you’re on as a Markdown file. If the website disappears, if the article is put behind a paywall, or if you don’t have access to the internet, you’ll still have an archived copy of the web content you need that you can open and read with any text editor.

Add notes for context

Ever come across a web clipping or bookmarked article and wonder why, exactly, you saved it for later? With the Ally Web Clipper browser extension you can add notes before saving the page so you’ll understand why you thought it was important later. Your future self will thank you. You can also add tags to automatically place it in your Library.

Custom keyboard shortcuts

Configure whatever keyboard shortcut you want for the fastest save possible. No reason to touch a mouse. By default it is fn + shift + s.

Automatic context processing

Your web clippings and web content are automatically processed into vector embeddings and further processed into an evolving knowledge graph that creates temporally-aware relationships between data and concepts. This all happens locally on your device and no data ever leaves your device. This means you can be sure that the content you saved last week or last year is easily surfaced when you need it by your own personal 100% local AI assistant powered by a local LLM running on your device.

This also means that every web page you archive adds to Ally’s knowledge, so it’s more capable of assisting you with whatever you’re working on. You may have forgotten about that Medium article you saw a few months back, but Ally will find and surface it and pull info from it to assist you with whatever you’re working on at that moment.

How to install the Safari browser web clipper extension on macOS

The Ally Web Clipper browser extension for macOS and iOS Safari is automatically included when you download the apps from the App Store. You don’t need to download anything additional after you’ve downloaded the apps.

Download and install Ally
Open Safari
Go to Settings > Extensions
Activate the Ally Web Clipper extension by clicking the box next to it

Using the web clipper

There are a two ways you can use the web clipper extension to save content:

Click the icon that appears next to the Safari address bar.
A dropdown will appear that gives you the option to add any notes. This is a good idea if you often find yourself wondering why you saved something when you find it later.
Click Save to Ally and it will automatically appear in your Unified Inbox

With configurable keyboard shortcuts

The quickest way to save web content is with a keyboard shortcut that bypasses the “add notes” step. When you use the keyboard shortcut, the web page is instantly saved and archived.

See the help doc on the Ally Web Clipper for more detailed information on setting up and using the web clipper browser extension to save web pages.