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Getting started with Home Economics

Home Economics helps a household keep its paperwork in order: bills, statements, tax forms, insurance policies, medical records, and the rest. Your documents stay ordinary files in a folder you choose, on your own devices, and the app works without an internet connection. Nothing leaves your device unless you later decide it should.

Can I use it yet?

Not yet. Home Economics is in development and hasn't been released. The first feature, the document library, is being built now. Today's builds only open a window that confirms the app started correctly; you can't create a library or add documents yet.

This guide describes what installing and setting up the app will look like, based on the design for that first feature. It will be updated as each part becomes available.

If you're comfortable with developer tools and want to follow along, you can build the apps yourself; see the development setup guide.

What you'll need

  • A Mac with macOS 15 or later, or an iPhone or iPad with iOS or iPadOS 18 or later.
  • A folder for your documents. It can be a new, empty folder, or one where you already keep paperwork, including an Obsidian vault.

Installing

There's no download yet, and how the app will be distributed hasn't been decided. When it is, the steps will be here.

Setting up your library

The first time you open the app, it walks you through four choices. Nothing is created until you've made them.

  1. How your privacy works. The app explains that your documents stay on your device. Every household starts with the Device-Only setting: nothing is sent anywhere. Features that could use the internet come later, and each will ask before it sends anything.
  2. Where your library lives. Pick a new folder, or an existing folder of documents. The app never moves, renames, or changes the files already in a folder you pick. If the folder is inside a location that a service such as iCloud Drive or Dropbox keeps in sync, the app tells you before continuing, because copies of your documents may then exist on that service.
  3. How your documents are protected. Choose one:
  4. The app encrypts your files. Every document is encrypted, and only Home Economics, or you with your recovery key, can read them. The app shows you a recovery key once. Print it or store it somewhere safe outside the app. If you lose access to the app and also lose the recovery key, no one, including us, can recover your documents.
  5. Rely on your device's encryption. Your files stay ordinary files. The app checks that your Mac or iPhone encrypts its storage (FileVault on a Mac, a passcode on iPhone and iPad) and warns you if that's turned off.
  6. No encryption. Your files stay ordinary files with no protection requirement. You have to confirm that you understand the risk.

You can change this later; the app converts your library safely, and you can stop and resume the conversion. 4. Where the details you add are kept. Titles and notes you add to documents are stored in one of two ways: - A hidden file in the library folder. This is the default and keeps the folder tidy. - Obsidian notes: a small note next to each document, which Obsidian shows alongside the file. Choose this if you use Obsidian.

When setup is done, the app invites you to add your first document.

Whatever you choose, the app's own data, such as its search index and settings, is always encrypted.

Adding and finding documents

Once your library exists, you'll be able to:

  • Add documents by dragging them into the app on a Mac, picking them with the file picker, or sharing them to the app from another app on iPhone and iPad. The app copies them by default, or moves them if you ask. It never overwrites a file, and it asks what to do when you import something that's already in your library.
  • Organize documents into folders, and rename, move, or remove them. Removed documents go to the trash, never straight to permanent deletion. Changes you make in Finder or the Files app show up in Home Economics, and the other way around.
  • Search by words in a document's name, its title and notes, and the text inside PDFs.

If you get a new device

Point the app at your existing library folder. It finds your documents and everything you added to them. For an encrypted library, it asks for your recovery key.

Taking your documents with you

You can export your whole library at any time, with all documents unencrypted and all their details, in an open format that other programs can read. Exporting never depends on a license or subscription.