refern is a library and reference board for your images, videos, working files, and saved web pages. Save from anywhere, find anything again, and lay it out beside your work.
This is the 3rd launch from refern.. View more
refern.
Launched this week
refern keeps your images, videos, working files, and saved web pages in one library. Find any reference by tag or color, put any file on a board, and pin it on top of your drawing app. Your files stay in your own folders. Windows, macOS, and Linux.
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Hi Product Hunt! I’m Jackson, an artist and the maker of refern.
My references were spread across folders, Pinterest, PureRef boards, and old drives. I spent more time looking for the right image than drawing from it. So I built the app I wanted to use.
Some of you may remember refern from its 2024 launch here as a web app. It grew to 23,000 users before I had to shut it down, and people kept asking for it back. So I rebuilt it from scratch as a desktop app that works with the files already on your computer.
refern is a reference library and a reference board in one desktop app:
Browse the folders you already have. Your files stay where they are.
Save images, videos, and whole pages from your browser with the refern extension.
Tag your images, then find them by tag or color. Pick an image to find others that look like it.
The optional Auto Tagger suggests tags on your device, so a big unsorted library gets searchable fast.
Drag what you find onto an infinite board with notes and color swatches. Any file and any saved web page can go on a board too.
Pin a reference window on top of your drawing app, and bring your Eagle library, PureRef boards, and public Pinterest boards with you.
It’s $35 once, with updates included, on Windows, macOS, and Linux. For Product Hunt, the code PRODUCTHUNT takes 20% off ($28) for launch week. The 30-day free trial needs no card, and the desktop app needs no account or subscription.
I’d love to hear how you keep your references today and what would make you switch. I’ll be here all day to answer questions.
Pinning references on top of my drawing app is the one feature here I have never had working properly, and finding by color is how I actually recall a screenshot I saved two months ago.
@karimbenkeroum yep the pinning is hard to get right, since it can block what's underneath. I tried it make it easier to use by adding a global shortcut (ctrl+shift+drag) to drag the window whenever, allowing changing window background opacity or the entire window as a whole, and allow window click through.
and agreed! finding by color is super useful, especially when i vaguely remember the color of the screenshot, but there is too much to go through.
Interesting!! If two people point refern at the same Dropbox folder, do tags sync between them or is it one library per machine?
@thomas_wazza as of now, it is one library per machine, but refern allows you to put your workspace data folder anywhere, so you can put it inside a Dropbox folder. Then you can just point refern at the Dropbox content and data folder, and it will work and Dropbox handles the syncing. Although, it is not recommended two people editing the same workspace at the same time, because Dropbox sync might override the change.
To solve this, native sync within refern + collaborative workspace is coming before end of year! Please look forward to that.
Do videos play right on the board, and can I park one on a specific frame?
@adamvisu yes! video play right on the board. you can play multiple video at once, step frame by frame, and park the thumbnail to a specific frame. embedded video like youtube links also works on board too.
My references live in the exact mess you describe — screenshots in a folder, a few PureRef boards, saved pages I never open again. The two things that stand out to me are files staying in their own folders and the on-device auto-tagger; I don't want to re-import a library into another silo just to make it searchable. Finding by color is how I actually remember a screenshot too — usually the dominant color, not a tag I gave it months ago.
Keeping files in their existing folders is a thoughtful choice. A way to reconnect a moved folder without rebuilding its boards and tags would help that library stay useful over time.
@oleksii_sekundant I wanted the user to have full control over their library and their data, hence you can pick where you want refern to read your file and where you want refern to store its own workspace data. So this allows you, for example, make a workspace where the database is on an SSD, your main references on a regular HDD, and archived files in on a network drive.