Find again what you didn’t save: Introducing Orbit
I’m excited to announce that the preview release of my new app, Orbit, is now available for early access. Orbit is a Mac app that privately records your screen activity in the background, so you can easily search and revisit anything you’ve ever seen. It’s like a time machine for your screen.
You can read more about how I developed this idea in my posts on creating a Rewind alternative and building the app’s moodboard.
Before jumping into how you can get access, I want to share a bit about the its origins, its current state, and my vision for its future. I hope this gives you a clearer picture of what Orbit is and why I’m so passionate about it.
Why I decided to build Orbit
A few years ago, I discovered an app called Rewind. It allowed Mac users to privately record and search their screen history. As far as I know, it was the first prominent solution to offer this kind of functionality and I relied heavily on it ever since I joined its early access program. Unfortunately, the app has stopped receiving active development and gradually became harder to use.
As a big fan of the concept, I kept finding myself wishing something similar existed. After some deliberation and trying out similar tools on the market, I realized that this need wasn’t going away, and if I wanted it solved properly, perhaps there were others who felt the same.
That’s how Orbit was born. The name “Orbit” itself is actually just a placeholder for now. Speaking of naming things, I once heard on a podcast that some parents don’t name their babies at birth. Instead, they wait until they get to know them a bit better. I found this idea pretty funny and also surprisingly thoughtful. So that’s what I’m doing here: I’ll hold off on choosing a permanent name until I’ve spent more time getting to know the app.
My goal with Orbit is not simply to replace, but significantly improve upon the original Rewind concept: an app that’s faster, more efficient, and richer in functionality.
How Orbit lets you time travel through your screen
The core concept of Orbit is actually pretty simple. The app quietly sits in the background of your Mac, recording snapshots of your entire screen at a fixed interval. It stores what is visible on screen in a way that allows you to search through its history and revisit anything you’ve seen.
Imagine this scenario: You vaguely remember seeing a baking recipe, but can’t recall which website it was from. With Orbit, you just type a few words you remember seeing, like “chocolate chip cookies”, into the search bar, and Orbit instantly provides a timeline of moments matching your query. And if you want, you can filter results by the specific app you were using or the timeframe you’re interested in.
Keeping your digital world private
Privacy is, hands down, a critical part of Orbit. Here are the clear commitments Orbit makes:
- All screen recordings stay exclusively on your Mac. They never, ever leave your device—no uploading, syncing, or cloud storage required.
- The Orbit database is fully encrypted. While raw screen recordings themselves are not yet encrypted as of this early stage, that’s coming very soon.
- No data selling or sharing. I value your privacy and have no interest in storing, accessing or selling your data.
Building for speed and efficiency
Because storing months or even years of screen activity could be resource-intensive, improving Orbit’s speed and efficiency has been one of my core priorities. You should never have to worry about running out of Mac storage or slowing down your computer.
To achieve this, I’ve placed special attention on lots of different optimizations. This includes data compression methods to reduce storage usage and clever tricks to keep CPU use minimal, even with continuous background recording. I’ll be publishing some technical blog posts highlighting these behind-the-scenes optimizations soon. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter if you’re interested in the details!
Early alpha and how to try it
Orbit is currently in early alpha. This means it’s fully functional: you can already record your screen activities, perform full text searches, and quickly scroll through your visual history to revisit past moments. Every week, new features, stability improvements, and optimizations are rolled out based on early user feedback.
Right now, I’m looking for passionate early adopters willing to try Orbit and actively shape its direction with their feedback. If you’re interested, joining is straightforward: Just head over to orbit.heckmann.app and sign up for the waitlist.
The future of Orbit
While my main focus right now is ensuring the core functionality is solid, I can already see plenty of exciting opportunities to make Orbit even more powerful: from smarter, AI-powered search capabilities to seamlessly integrating it into your everyday workflows. I’m really excited about building Orbit alongside a community of enthusiastic users.
Do you have ideas or feedback inspired by Orbit? What would be most helpful or exciting to you? I’d absolutely love to hear your thoughts, feel free to reach out anytime!