Help Center

How can we help?

A quiet manual for a quiet room. Search it, or browse by what you’re trying to do.

Getting Started

Wretify is a writing app built for serious non-fiction writers. It gives you a calm, distraction-free space to write books and articles — with an AI thinking partner that helps you sharpen your ideas (not write for you). Your writing is stored as simple files in your own Google Drive, so you always own your work.
When you first open Wretify, press "Continue with Google". This connects your Google account so Wretify can save your writing to your Google Drive. Wretify never sees your Google password — Google handles that.
BYOK stands for "Bring Your Own Key." You connect your own API key from Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini) or DeepSeek, and you pay that company directly at their published prices. Wretify adds no markup and never charges you for AI. Google's Gemini has a free tier that needs no card. Step-by-step guide: www.wretify.com/blog/how-to-get-and-connect-your-ai-api-key
1. Get a key from the AI company: Google AI Studio (free), Anthropic (Claude) or DeepSeek. 2. In Wretify, press Alt+P to open Preferences (or press Alt+K and choose "Settings"), then open "Power Add-ons". On a phone, press and hold the leaf, tap the gear, then Settings — the cards are right there. 3. Find the "Thinking Partner" card. 4. Choose Gemini Pro, DeepSeek or Claude. 5. Paste your key and press Save. Wretify asks the AI company whether the key works; the card says "connected" only once it says yes. If not, it tells you why in one sentence. Your key is saved in your browser and in Wretify/_keys.json in your own Google Drive, so it reaches your other devices. Where to get each key, step by step: www.wretify.com/blog/how-to-get-and-connect-your-ai-api-key
Power Add-ons, inside Preferences (Alt+P), is where you connect your AI keys. Thinking Partner — choose Claude, DeepSeek or Gemini Pro and paste that provider's key. This is the AI you brainstorm with. Gemini (Free) — a free Google AI Studio key. With it, Gemini Flash answers everything in Wretify. Two things need a Google account with billing: web search, and Gemini Pro as your thinking partner. Research Intelligence — the academic paper search (through OpenAlex). Always on, no key needed. Your keys are saved in your browser and in Wretify/_keys.json in your own Google Drive. When you use the AI, the key goes with each request to the provider — through Wretify's server, or for some small jobs on Gemini straight from your browser to Google. Wretify does not log or store it.
Open the Help Center (the ? in the bottom-right corner) and choose Walk me through Wretify at the foot. The welcome plays again (connecting your AI), and then the box opens in the middle of the screen with its explanations on. Press Escape to leave the welcome at any time. On a computer only.
On a computer, a small ? waits in the bottom-right corner of every page, so help is always one click away. Rest the mouse on it, or reach it with Tab, and a card shows two doors: Open everything (Ctrl+K or Alt+K), the box for your books, reading, notes and Clarity, and Help Center, for answers, your setup, and Clarity to ask. Click the ? itself to go straight to the Help Center. Inside, type your question in your own words, or browse the three groups below. Press Escape to step back, and once more to close. Want the tour again? At the foot of the Help Center, choose "Walk me through Wretify".
On a computer, one short welcome stands on your home screen: Connect your AI, a free Google Gemini key, step by step. If this device already has an AI connected, there is no welcome at all. The moment your AI is connected (or you press "Skip for now"), the box opens by itself in the middle of the screen. That box is everything: your books, your reading, your notes and Clarity. Its card on the right explains each row, and the explanations stay on until you turn them off with the gear at the bottom. Alt+K opens the box and Alt+K closes it. Clarity, your AI writing companion, asks what to call you in your first conversation. On a computer you can also set your name in Settings, under "Your name"; on a phone, just tell Clarity. You can connect your AI later from the box: Alt+K, then type "connect". On a phone, Wretify offers the same "Connect your AI" guide when you start with no AI, and you can skip it.
At the very bottom of Settings — Preferences (Alt+P) on a computer, or the leaf's gear → Settings on a phone — a quiet line says which version you have and the day it was updated, such as "Wretify version 1.0 · updated 26 October 2026". Wretify updates itself, but a tab left open for a long time can still be running an older version: reload the page to get the newest. If something isn't working and you write to us, include that line — it tells us straight away which Wretify you are on.

AI Setup

You don't need a key to write in Wretify. Writing, saving to your own Google Drive, reading and listening all work without one — the key is only for the AI. An API key is a long code an AI company gives you. It works like a password: it lets Wretify ask that company's AI questions for you, on your own account. Why isn't the AI included? Because every question to an AI costs real money, and how much differs from writer to writer. Built into the price, everyone would pay for the heaviest users, with a markup on top — even in months they never ask a thing. So Wretify asks for your own key instead: you pay the AI company directly, at their own published price, and Wretify adds nothing on top and never charges you for the AI. Start free with Google Gemini, add another AI later, or skip the AI entirely. It is separate from any ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini subscription you may already have. You make the key once, on the AI company's own website, and paste it into Wretify. It stays yours: saved in your browser and in your own Google Drive, never sold, never shared.
You don't need a key to write in Wretify. Writing, saving to your own Google Drive, reading and listening all work without one — the key is only for the AI. Why isn't the AI included? Because every question to an AI costs real money, and how much differs from writer to writer. Built into the price, everyone would pay for the heaviest users, with a markup on top — even in months they never ask a thing. So Wretify asks for your own key instead: you pay the AI company directly, at their own published price, and Wretify adds nothing on top and never charges you for the AI. Start free with Google Gemini, add another AI later, or skip the AI entirely. It is separate from any ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini subscription you may already have.
Google Gemini — free No card. About 20 full questions a day, then up to 500 lighter ones. Ten questions a day fits inside the free part. DeepSeek — about $5 to start $5 is roughly 500 questions: about seven weeks, asking ten a day. Claude — about $5 to start $5 is roughly 185 questions: about two and a half weeks, asking ten a day. Why credits? DeepSeek and Claude have no free part: you pay them a few cents for each question. So before the first one you add credit — money kept on your account with them, like a prepaid phone card. A new account starts at $0, and nothing is taken beyond what you added. Where to add them On DeepSeek: the Top up button. On Claude: Billing, then Buy credits. You pay them directly — never Wretify. (Prices checked October 2026, from each company's own price page. A "question" here is one conversation turn with Clarity about your page.)
Start with the free layer: a Gemini key from Google. 1. Go to aistudio.google.com/apikey and sign in with your Google account. 2. Click "Create API key" and copy it. New keys start with "AQ.". Ignore anything about billing or prepay — Google shows a yellow banner and "Set up billing" links, and the free tier needs none of them. In Google's list, your key's Billing Tier says "Free tier". If yours starts with "AIza", make a new one: Google stopped accepting those older keys in September 2026. 3. In Wretify, press Alt+P to open Preferences (on a phone: press and hold the leaf, tap the gear, then Settings). 4. Open "Power Add-ons", then the "Gemini (Free)" card, and follow its steps: paste the key and press "Save key". The card says "Connected" once Google confirms the key works. That is all you need to start: every AI feature works with it, answered by Gemini Flash. Web search and Gemini Pro need a Google account with billing; DeepSeek and Claude can both search too — see the next question. Full guide, with Claude and DeepSeek too: www.wretify.com/blog/how-to-get-and-connect-your-ai-api-key
You have three choices. Pick one in Preferences (Alt+P) → Power Add-ons → Thinking Partner, paste its key, and press Save. Gemini Pro (Google) — uses a Gemini key from Google AI Studio. If you already added one for the free layer, that same key works. DeepSeek — needs a balance on your DeepSeek account. Top up at platform.deepseek.com, then create a key on its API keys page. Claude (Anthropic) — needs prepaid credit. At platform.claude.com: Settings → Billing → "Buy credits", then Settings → API keys → "Create key" → "Continue with an API key" (the small text, not the black button). Copy it straight away — Anthropic shows it only once. You can switch between them any time. Step by step for each: www.wretify.com/blog/how-to-get-and-connect-your-ai-api-key
Start free. A Gemini key from Google AI Studio costs nothing and switches on the quick tools right away. When you want a thinking partner, try Gemini Pro first with the same key. When you want the sharpest conversation, add Claude. DeepSeek sits in between. All of them are BYOK — Bring Your Own Key. You pay Google, Anthropic or DeepSeek directly, at their published prices, and set a spending limit with them. Wretify never charges you for AI.
"Connect your AI" is a step-by-step guide to connecting your AI, and you can come back to it any time. Press Alt+K (or Ctrl+K), type "connect", and press Enter. It starts free: press "Start free with Google Gemini →" and follow the steps to make a key at Google AI Studio (no card needed), then paste it in. Before anything is saved, Wretify asks Google whether the key works; if it doesn't, you're told why in one sentence. When it works, you'll read "Your Google Gemini key is now added" — press Enter and you're ready — and Clarity, your AI writing companion, says hello by name; you can ask her anything about Wretify right there. Already connected? The guide says so and checks the key again. DeepSeek or Claude, a deeper thinking partner, is added in Preferences (Alt+P) → Power Add-ons.
Wretify gives the work to two AIs. Your free Gemini key does the everyday work: Define in the bar above your text, tags, tidying the Compost, summaries, the steps of Check this fact, and answers in the Help Center. If you add a thinking partner (DeepSeek or Claude), it does only the thinking you ask for: conversations with Clarity in the sidebar, Explain, Find blind spots, Test the logic, Spot a habit, your own verbs, and "Think this through with me". Adding a partner never replaces Gemini; Gemini keeps the everyday jobs. So you pay your partner only when you ask it to think. If you have no Gemini key, your partner does everything.

Writing

Press Alt+N, or press Alt+K and choose "New book or article". Pick Book or Article, give it a title (and a topic if you like), and press Create. You can also start one from My Writing (Alt+W): switch to Books or Articles and use "+ New book" / "+ New article" on the Ideas & Drafts shelf. A book holds chapters; an article holds sections.
It's on purpose. Working memory holds about three to four things, so Wretify keeps at most three books and three articles active at once. That's enough variety to stay fresh and few enough to make real progress. When you pause or finish one, move it to Ideas & Drafts or Finished, and another can become active.
On desktop, type / while writing to open a menu of blocks and actions. Keep typing to filter it: /h1, /h2, /h3 for headings, /ul for a bullet list, /ol for a numbered list, /todo for a checklist, /quote, /call for a callout, /table, /link, /foot for a footnote, /hr for a divider. /text turns a heading back into plain text. The same menu also opens your Library (/lib) and your Notes (/notes) — or one kind of note straight away: /persp for perspectives, /res for resources, /quotes, /refs for references — and starts something new (/new, or /book and /article). Each row shows its own shortcut. Ask Clarity any time: "what's the slash command for a table?"
Focus Mode fades every paragraph except the one you're writing in, so you can stay with one thought at a time. On desktop, toggle it with Alt+F, or open the small grid mark in the top-right corner ("Wretify at a glance") and use its Focus switch. Toggle it again to see the whole page at full strength.
Yes. Wretify saves your words on your device about half a second after you stop typing, then syncs them to Google Drive after 5 seconds of quiet, and again when you switch away. On desktop, the top-left corner of the page tells you where things stand — "Online · Saved just now" — and its dot turns amber if something needs your attention. You never need to press save.
Yes. On a phone, open the chapter, press and hold the leaf in the bottom-right corner, tap the gear, then Restore previous versions — the list and the choices are the same as below. On a computer, rest the mouse on the line in the top-left corner ("Online · Saved …"), click it, or press Alt+V, and the last few moments of this chapter appear — just the time each was saved. Click one to read it; nothing changes while you look, and paragraphs that are not in today's text carry a thin line in the margin. Then choose Restore this version, Copy the words (to take back just a paragraph), or Back to now. Restoring never loses anything: the words you had are kept, and they appear in the same list. The versions come from your own Google Drive, which keeps a chapter's history for about 30 days. Press Alt+V or Escape to close.
You don't have to memorise any. Press Alt+K (or Ctrl+K) and a search box opens — type where you want to go. Commands that have a shortcut show it on the right, so the box teaches you the faster path while you use it. To see every shortcut at once, click the small keyboard in the bottom-right corner, or press Ctrl+/ (Cmd+/ on a Mac). Press it again, or Escape, to close. Worth knowing (most rooms close with the same key that opened them): Alt+K the box · Alt+N new book or article · Alt+W My Writing · Alt+S search inside this chapter · Alt+L read aloud from the cursor · Alt+F Focus · Alt+V earlier versions of this chapter · Alt+A the AI partner (Alt+1, 2, 3 switch its lanes) · Alt+Q Quick Capture · Alt+M dictation · Alt+R reading library · Alt+J journal · Alt+C calendar · Alt+G the Compost · Alt+T your Notes · Alt+P Preferences · Alt+H home · Alt+B back one level. Escape takes you back out of whatever is open, one step at a time (never while you're typing, and never past your desk). For text: Ctrl+B bold, Ctrl+I italic, and on desktop type / for the block menu.
Put your browser beside your writing, and drag what you find straight onto the page. On Windows: press Windows+Left with Wretify selected, then Windows+Right with your browser — you'll have both, side by side, in about two seconds. On a Mac: hold the green button in the corner of a window and choose Tile Window to Left of Screen, then pick your browser for the other half. Now select a passage in your browser and drag it into your chapter. It arrives as text on your paper — paragraphs kept, the web's colours and fonts left behind. It works from any browser you already trust, and nothing about it passes through us.
No, and it isn't coming. You already have a browser you know and trust, with your logins, your bookmarks and your ad blocker in it — asking you to give that up for a worse one inside a writing app would be a strange trade. What we care about is the other half: that what you find comes back onto your page cleanly, and that stepping out doesn't cost you the sentence you were in the middle of. So put your own browser beside Wretify (see above), and let us look after the writing.
Select text (with the mouse, or Shift with the arrow keys), or press the space bar on an empty line, and a bar opens above your words. Press space on its empty box, or Escape, to close it. It holds: formatting (paragraph, h2, h3, bold, italic, quote, callout) · lens, a list of ways to look at the passage (Define, Explain, Find blind spots, Test the logic, Spot a habit, Check this fact) · the marks (bookmark, a comment to yourself) · Note, which files the passage to your Notes · Mulch, which keeps a fragment in your Compost. Type in its box to ask your AI something about the selection. Select a single word and it also shows other words for it, from a built-in dictionary — no AI involved, and once a letter has been looked up it works offline too.
Select a sentence that states a fact, open lens in the bar above your text, and choose Check this fact. Wretify first asks whether it is a checkable claim at all; if it is, it searches real academic papers (through OpenAlex) and has a quick AI — your free Gemini — read each paper's summary against your sentence. You'll see one of: a paper that backs it up, with the quote and where it comes from; "Worth a second look", if a paper pushes against it; "Sources point both ways", if papers disagree; or "No direct source found" — which never means wrong, only unverified. If it found support, "Add citation to this sentence" puts a footnote on it. It never invents a source.
They answer four different questions. Bookmark — "I left off here." One per chapter, set from the bookmark icon in the bar above your text (on a phone: Add, in the leaf). When you open the chapter, the page scrolls to it. Put a pin in it — a dated reminder for this chapter. Set it from the chapter tools on the right edge; it shows up in Today at a glance and in your Calendar on that day. Note — "this passage needs work, file it." It leaves the page and goes to your Notes (Alt+T). Comment — a remark to yourself that stays on the page, waiting for tomorrow's conversation. Set it with the pen in the bar; hover the pen mark to read it.
Notes is where passages and thoughts are filed, sorted into Perspectives, Resources, Quotes and References. Open it with Alt+T (or Notes in the chapter tools on the right, or /notes). Quick Capture (Alt+Q, or Quick note on your home clock) catches a thought without leaving what you're doing: type it, or tap its microphone and say it — your words are kept exactly as you said them — then choose the book, chapter and kind of note it belongs to. A note always has a home. On a phone: press and hold the leaf and choose Quick note, and type — or use your keyboard's own microphone.
The Compost (Alt+G) is where fragments wait: a phrase you liked, an insight from a book, a sentence that has no chapter yet. Add to it with Mulch — in the bar above your text, on a reading highlight, in the AI sidebar or in your journal. Your AI sorts each piece into Words or Insights, gives it a topic and a few tags, and you can see and change all of it. Browse by book, theme or topic, search it, copy a piece, or send it to your writing. The Compost is on the computer; on a phone you can Mulch from Brainstorm.
On a computer, Wretify opens on your home: a map of where you've been working — Today, Yesterday and This week — where every title is one click into the words. The clock at the top opens three things: the day opens Today at a glance (today's pins, to tick off or jump to), the time opens a Quick note, and the date opens your Calendar (Alt+C). Under it sits This week's focus, a line you write for yourself. If your shelf is empty, the box (Alt+K) waits there instead, to help you start. On a phone, home is your recent work with the leaf in the bottom-right corner.
The box is the one door to everything. Press Alt+K (or Ctrl+K), type a few letters of where you want to go, and press Enter. Each row shows its own Alt key, so it teaches you the faster way while you use it — and if what you type matches no command, it offers to think about it with you, with your AI. Hover the gear at its foot to choose how much it explains: Learning (a short card beside each row), Assisted, or Bare. Press Alt+K again, or Escape, to close it.
The Journal is a private place for what you're thinking and feeling, apart from your books. Press Alt+J (or Ctrl+J) to open it, and press it again, Escape, or Close to put it away. Press the + at the bottom right for a new entry: a title, a line to frame it, then the page. Stuck? "Use a Prompt" offers seven themes of questions. Switch between Feed (newest first, filter by tag) and Calendar (entries by day) at the top. Each entry's actions are Send to writing (files it as an idea for a chapter), Brainstorm, Mulch and Share. Every entry is saved as its own Markdown file in Wretify/Journal/ on your Google Drive. On a phone, open it from the leaf.
The Calendar is where you plan the writing ahead: what is coming up, and on which day. Press Alt+C, or click the date on the clock on your home screen. Press Alt+C again, Escape, or Close to leave. It has three views. Week lays this week out day by day, each entry on its day, with your This week's Focus sentence above it; click an entry to open that day's note, and step to other weeks with the arrows. Feed lists your entries under This week, Later this month and Already out in the world; press + to add one ("What's coming up?"), with a status and tags if you like. Month shows the whole month: step through with the arrows, and click a day to write that day's note, starting blank or from a template you've made. Chapters you "Put a pin in" appear on their day. Tip: you can keep more than one calendar; click the calendar's name and choose "New calendar".
Today at a glance shows what you planned for today, so the morning starts where last night left off. On a computer, rest the mouse on the day on the clock on your home screen to peek; click the day to keep it open. Click the day again, press Escape, or click elsewhere to close it. Tick a box and the task is crossed out, then leaves the list after a moment; it stays in your calendar as done. Click a pinned chapter's title to go straight into it. To fill it, use "Put a pin in it" from the chapter tools on the right edge of a chapter and choose a day, or add an entry for today in the Calendar; "See the whole calendar →" at the foot takes you there. It is on the computer only.
This week's Focus is one sentence you write to yourself about what this week is for, such as "Finish chapter four". On your home screen it sits under the clock; click it to open its page. Press "Write it →", type your sentence, and press Save → (or Ctrl+Enter). Rest the mouse on the line on Home to read your sentence without opening it. Underneath, choose what kind of week it is (Gathering, Creating, Refining or Resting) or press + to add your own word. The days of the week show the chapters you've pinned for them; click one to open it. "Next week →" lets you write next week's sentence ahead, and it appears on Monday. Press ← Back or Escape to return. It's kept in a plain file, _focus.md, in your Google Drive.
A footnote is a small raised number that points to where an idea came from. On a computer, type /foot to place one at your cursor; it is numbered for you. Most footnotes arrive with their source attached: when you drag a cited finding from the AI sidebar onto your page, or press "Add citation to this sentence" after Check this fact. Wretify numbers them in the order they appear on the page, so moving a paragraph renumbers everything by itself. Under the chapter, an Endnotes list gathers them in the trade non-fiction style (Chicago): the full note the first time a work is cited, a short one after. A footnote added with /foot has no source yet, and its line says so. Rest the mouse on a number to see its source, or jump to Endnotes from the chapter's table of contents. When you export, each chapter carries its Notes, and Word and Markdown book exports add one bibliography at the end.
Yes, two, in the slash menu on a computer. Type /template, or go straight to one: 1. Answer-First Article (/answer): for tutorials, how-tos and explainers. A question-shaped title, an opening that answers it, question-shaped sections, a pull quote and a short FAQ. 2. Editorial Essay (/essay): for opinion, long-form and manifestos. A title, a one-line frame, an opening with stakes, sections that build the argument, a pull quote and a close. Each placeholder tells you what goes there. The title is selected so you can type over it straight away.

Reading

Reading mode is Wretify's reading room. Press Alt+R (on a phone, tap the leaf and choose Read) to open your Reading Library: the books and articles you've imported from other writers. (Your own writing lives in My Writing.) The interface fades away while you read. Select a passage to Discuss, Explain, Practice or add a Note — and on a computer, Mulch it into your Compost. Your reading and your writing live in the same place, so what you read can go straight to a chapter.
Select text while reading and these appear (with Note beside them, and Mulch on a computer). Each opens a conversation with your AI partner about that passage: Discuss — the AI asks what's on your mind about it, and you explore it together. Explain — the AI helps you understand what the passage means. On a phone it explains straight away; on a computer it first asks which angle interests you, so the explanation fits your question. Useful for dense writing. Practice — the AI asks how the idea lands in your own life: where do you see it playing out? It moves you from understanding something to using it. They turn reading into thinking. They need a connected thinking partner.
On a computer, use the controls at the bottom of the page: the play button between two circular "10" arrows. Play picks up where you last listened (a few sentences back, so you find your place); the arrows skip back or forward about three sentences. On a phone, an imported article opens in its own listening view; books you've imported have no play button on the phone yet. A soft highlight follows the sentence being spoken. The voice is your browser's or phone's built-in text-to-speech, free and with no setup.
Your journal is one room for reading and writing alike. Open it with Alt+J on desktop, or Journal in the leaf menu on your phone. Each entry is saved as its own plain Markdown file in Wretify/Journal/ in your Google Drive — yours forever. While reading a book on your phone, tap "Notes" at the top right to see the notes you've made and any Discuss, Explain or Practice conversation you chose to keep with "Keep this".
Tap the leaf in the bottom-right corner and choose Brainstorm. When you're done, tap the leaf again: where Brainstorm was, there's now a Back button that takes you straight back to your book. You can also select a passage and choose Discuss to take it into a conversation.
Reading follows Wretify's own light or dark mode, with the same warm colours as your writing. On a phone, switch it under the leaf's gear → Settings → Appearance (Light / Dark). On a computer, flip the Dark Mode switch in "Wretify at a glance" (the small grid of dots, top right), where Text Size sets how large the words are while you read.

AI Thinking Partner

The AI lives in a sidebar that slides in from the right (Alt+A on desktop). Once you've connected a thinking partner in Settings → Power Add-ons, you can ask it anything about your writing — brainstorm, test an argument, get feedback on structure. It reads the chapter you have open and relevant passages from your own earlier writing. Think of it as a thoughtful colleague across the table.
At the bottom of the sidebar you choose what kind of help you want, and it stays chosen until you change it: Brainstorm — a conversation with your AI about your writing and ideas. (Alt+1) Research — searches academic papers and answers with real citations you can drag onto your page. (Alt+2) My Writing — finds passages across everything you've written, by meaning, on your own device; no AI and no key needed. Each result can be inserted at your cursor. (Alt+3)
Conversations are saved beside the book you're working on. Open them again from Past Insights at the top of the sidebar, or start a new one. When a conversation gets long, the sidebar offers to start fresh and can carry a short summary forward. When an answer comes in parts, you can rate each part — "Deepens my thinking", "Gave me a new perspective", "I already knew this" or "Off the mark" — and your AI reads those ratings before answering you next time. The ↩ on a part lets you reply to just that part.
Yes, in the AI sidebar — with DeepSeek, Claude, and Gemini on a Google account with billing. (Google's free tier has no web search; a free-key answer says so when it could not check.) When a question depends on something recent (news, a prize, a new study, today's date), your AI searches the web before it answers; when you're thinking through your own ideas, it doesn't. When it searched, the pages it used are listed under its answer as "From the web", so you can open them and check. With DeepSeek and Claude, Wretify keeps forums, quote sites and social media out of the search, so what comes back is closer to what you can cite. (Claude's web searches are charged by Anthropic to your key, about one cent each.) Academic papers are a separate search — choose the Research lane for those.
Wretify's AI is a thinking partner, not a ghostwriter. In the sidebar it asks questions, finds the weak spot in an argument, and brings you your own earlier writing and real research. It never edits your manuscript by itself: there are no "write it for me" buttons, and nothing reaches the page unless you press Replace selection or one of the Insert buttons, or drag it there yourself.
About you is a text file stored in your Google Drive (_my-wretify-ai.md) where you tell your AI writing companion who you are, what you're writing, and how you like to be spoken to. You can edit it in Preferences (Alt+P), under AI Brain. For example: "I'm writing a book on burnout for nurses. I value directness. Challenge my assumptions." The companion reads it before every conversation and adapts to it — it adds to the companion, it never replaces it.
One test, three seconds: ask the AI to quote the first sentence on your page back to you, word for word. If it gives you your exact words and punctuation, it's reading your page and you can trust the conversation. If it paraphrases, dodges, invents something, or says the page is empty when it clearly isn't, it isn't reading your page — don't trust that conversation. Why it matters: when an AI lacks information, it tends to produce something plausible rather than say "I don't know." Wretify sends your open chapter with every message and tells the AI to say so plainly when the page is empty, rather than review writing that isn't there. While a chapter is still arriving from Drive, the sidebar shows "Loading … from Drive" above the input and waits before sending. If the AI fails the quote test on a chapter that clearly has text, that's a bug — please tell us.
The Heartbeat is a small dot at the top of the AI sidebar that tells you honestly when a conversation is getting too long. Green — "Fresh" (under 60 messages, yours and the AI's together). Go deep. Yellow — "Getting heavy" (60 or more). Save anything that matters — to a chapter, a Bookmark or Quick Capture — before it scrolls away. Red — "Start fresh" (120 or more). The conversation is full; click the dot, or the Start fresh button that replaces the input, to begin a new one. You can choose to carry a short summary forward. Why? AI answers get worse as a conversation grows long: the model loses the thread, repeats itself, drifts. Wretify would rather tell you than pretend otherwise. Starting fresh doesn't lose your work. The old conversation is saved to Past Insights for that book or article, and your About you, your writing and the open chapter are all read again as usual. Only the running thread starts over.
Research Intelligence lets you search more than 300 million academic papers (through OpenAlex) from the AI sidebar while you write. Choose the Research lane in the sidebar and ask. If one question would sharpen the search, your thinking partner asks it first; then it searches and gives you a two-sided summary: what the research agrees on, and what challenges it, with citations like (Author, 2024) and the sources listed underneath. Research you save goes into a library in your own Google Drive, and Wretify checks that library first before searching OpenAlex.
The paper search itself needs no key or account — OpenAlex is free, and each writer gets about 100 searches a day. The summary is written by your thinking partner, so connect an AI in Preferences (Alt+P) → Power Add-ons first (a free Gemini key is enough). Then choose the Research lane in the AI sidebar and ask, like "Is there research on identity-based behaviour change?" It searches more than 300 million academic papers and gives you a summary with citations.
Citations in Wretify are real footnotes. When the AI finds research, its answer cites each claim inline and lists the sources underneath. Drag a cited finding from the sidebar onto your page and it arrives with its footnote attached. You can also add one from a fact check or a definition. Each chapter ends with its own Endnotes, built from those footnotes and numbered in the order they appear — so if you move a paragraph, its note moves and renumbers with it. Word and Markdown book exports add one bibliography for the whole book, alphabetical, each source listed once. Wretify never invents a source.
Every writer starts with free Gemini, which does the everyday work. On top of it you can add a thinking partner: Claude (by Anthropic) or DeepSeek — or let Gemini Pro think too. Pick one in Settings → Power Add-ons → Thinking Partner, where the card labels them Gemini Pro "Good", DeepSeek "Great" and Claude "The best". You can switch any time.
Every writer connects a free Gemini key from Google AI Studio, and it does the everyday work: quick edits in the bar above your text, Check this fact, tagging what you read, tidying the Compost, summaries and Help answers. With only Gemini connected it also thinks with you in the sidebar. Google's free tier has limits: no web search, no Gemini Pro, and about 20 requests a day answered by Gemini Flash, then up to 500 more by the lighter Flash-Lite, which Wretify switches to by itself. On the free tier Google may also use what you send it to improve its products. When a question needs today's web, a free-key answer tells you it could not check. Some things need no key at all: dictation (Alt+M) uses your browser's own speech recognition, the search across your chapters is built on your own device, and the academic paper search is free. If you add a thinking partner (DeepSeek or Claude), Gemini keeps doing the everyday work for free and the partner only does the thinking you ask for — conversations with Clarity, explaining, finding blind spots. You only pay the partner when you ask it to think.
Select a passage and press lens in the bar above your text to see it through one of six ways of looking: Define (what a term means outside your book), Explain (what the passage is doing, and whether it works), Find blind spots (the assumption it rests on), Test the logic (does the conclusion follow), Spot a habit (a pattern you keep repeating), and Check this fact. You can also make your own verbs, saved requests you use often. Start typing in the bar's box and choose "+ New verb", give it a name ("Make it punchier") and say what it asks Clarity to do. Your verbs then show up as you type, and under "Your verbs" in the menu behind the Clarity mark, where you can edit or delete them. Escape closes the bar. On a computer only.

Tips

Ask for one thing at a time. Instead of "review the whole chapter and fix everything," try "let's look at the opening section — where does it lose momentum?" The AI gives sharper answers when it can focus on one piece of your thinking. Treat it like a real conversation: give it a thought, let it respond, build on that. The back-and-forth is the point.
If you ask for something very large in one go — like feedback on a whole book's structure and every chapter at once — the request can run out of time. An answer may take up to about five minutes — a "Thinking" counter shows it working — and after that you'll see "No answer after nearly five minutes, so this stopped. Nothing was lost — ask again." (or, if part of the answer had arrived, "Ran out of time after nearly five minutes — what was written above is kept."). It isn't a bug; long requests have a time limit. Break the ask into pieces — one section, one question — and you'll usually get better answers too.
Watch the Heartbeat dot at the top of the sidebar. Green means the AI is sharp and focused. Yellow means the conversation is getting heavy — save anything valuable. Red means it's time to start fresh. But here's the deeper truth: even before the dot turns yellow, if the AI's responses start feeling generic or repetitive, start a new conversation. It's not losing your work — it's giving your thinking partner a clean slate. Your About you, your own writing, and your chapter all reload automatically. The only thing that resets is the conversation thread itself.
Yes — and you can check it in three seconds. Ask the AI to quote the first sentence of your page back to you, word for word. If it gets your exact words and punctuation, it's reading your page. If you see "Loading … from Drive" above the input, the chapter is still arriving; Wretify holds your message and sends it once the text lands.
The AI is at its best when you bring it a specific thought and ask it to push on that thought. Instead of "What should I write about?" try "I'm working on the idea that lifestyle is the only thing you can maintain without willpower. Where is this argument weakest?" Instead of "Fix this paragraph" try "This paragraph feels flat. What's missing?" The more specific your question, the more specific — and useful — the answer. The AI reads your chapter, your About you, and your own writing. Give it something real to work with and it will meet you there.
Not by itself. Nothing reaches your page unless you put it there. From the sidebar you drag what you want onto the page; when you search your own earlier writing, those passages have an "Insert at cursor" button. In the inline bar (select some text, or press space on an empty line) you can ask for something specific, and the result is only applied when you press Replace selection or one of the Insert buttons.
Because every other AI tool pretends the limits don't exist — and then you feel the degradation without understanding why. The responses get flatter, the suggestions less surprising, and you start blaming yourself or the tool. We'd rather tell you the truth. Conversations have natural limits. Complex tasks need to be broken into pieces. The AI is sharpest when it's focused on one thing. These aren't flaws — they're the physics of how AI works. A car manual doesn't pretend you never need to change the oil. It tells you when and how, so you can keep driving well.
Wretify opens in light: warm, paper-like. For late nights there is a warm dark mode. On a computer, click the small grid mark in the top-right corner ("Wretify at a glance") and flip the Dark Mode switch; flip it again to go back. On a phone, press and hold the leaf, tap the gear, then Settings, and choose Light or Dark under Theme. Your choice is remembered. Tip: Reading has its own themes (Light, Vintage, Dark); see "How do themes and fonts work in Reading mode?".
Two keys take you back, one step at a time. Escape closes whatever is open (the Journal, the Calendar, a book you're reading, a corner panel), innermost first. It never acts while you're typing, and it never takes you away from your page: once only your chapter is left, Escape stops. Alt+B does the same steps, and from a chapter it also takes you home (if something hasn't reached Drive yet, it offers to save first). Tip: most rooms also close with the key that opened them, like Alt+J for the Journal or Alt+C for the Calendar.
On a computer, the empty line where your cursor blinks says, in small italics: "Press space for AI, / for commands, or Alt+K for everything". It only shows where the cursor is, and it disappears the moment you type. To hide it, click the small hide at the end of that line. To hide it or bring it back any time, open Settings (Alt+P), go to Writing, and turn Spacebar hints on or off. The choice is kept on this computer.

Listen

Out of the box it uses the voices your browser or phone already has, and Wretify picks the best one it finds. In Microsoft Edge that means Microsoft's natural-sounding voices; in Chrome, Google's voices. There's nothing to set up and no cost. Quality depends on your browser and system — Edge's natural voices are the strongest of the free options. For a natural, high-definition voice, add a Google voice key in Settings → Power Add-ons → High-definition voice. Up to about 20 hours of listening a month is free — that is about 100 ten-minute articles. After 20 hours, it costs about $1.50 for each extra hour, paid to Google, never to Wretify.
Google asks for a card before it switches the voice on, even though the first 20 hours each month are free. Google asks for it to check that you are a real person and to stop its free services being misused. Adding the card may show a small temporary hold while Google checks it — that is not a charge, and it goes away. Google's own words: you won't be charged unless you go past the free amount. Google may start you on a 90-day free trial. Before it ends, press Upgrade in Google Cloud — that costs nothing by itself, and you still pay only after 20 hours a month. Without it, the voice stops when the trial ends. If you want to be sure you never pay without knowing: in Google Cloud, open Billing → Budgets & alerts → Create budget, and set it to $1. Google then emails you before you get there. It warns you; it does not switch the voice off.
On desktop, put your cursor where you want to start and press Alt+L, or click the small play button at the top centre of the page. Your writing is read aloud from there. Press Alt+L again to pause; press it again to resume — or, if you've moved the cursor, it starts from the new spot. A soft highlight follows the sentence being read.
Yes. At the top centre of the writing page, click the small arrow next to the play button to open the voice list. In Microsoft Edge you'll see a short list of natural-sounding voices (such as Andrew, Brian, Emma); in Chrome, the English voices your browser offers. Your choice is remembered and used for your writing, AI responses and reading.
On your phone, tap the play icon under the chapter title when you're writing or reading your own work, or on each AI reply in Brainstorm. An article you've imported opens in its own listening view. (Books you've imported have no play button on the phone yet.) The voice comes from your phone's built-in text-to-speech, and Wretify picks the most natural voice it finds there. On Android you can add more natural voices in your phone's text-to-speech settings by choosing Google's or Samsung's speech engine.
The free reading voice on a phone is your phone's own text-to-speech, so its language is set in your phone, not in Wretify. On Android: 1. Open your phone’s Settings app 2. Scroll down and tap System (on some phones it’s under General Management) 3. Tap Language & input 4. Tap Text-to-speech output (you might need to tap Advanced first) 5. Under “Preferred engine,” choose Google or Samsung — both have natural neural voices 6. Tap the gear icon next to the engine to install additional voices — look for English 7. Tap “Install voice data” and download the voice you like 8. Come back to Wretify and press play — you’ll hear the new voice immediately If you cannot find the page, open Settings and search for Text-to-speech. On the phone, the same steps open from the ⋮ beside the listening bar of a saved article.
Yes. Every AI response in the desktop sidebar has a subtle Listen control below it. Click it to hear that specific response read aloud; you can pause and resume. If you'd like every answer read to you as it arrives, switch on "Read answers aloud" in the sidebar. It uses the same voice you've selected in the voice picker.
Yes. Listening uses the text-to-speech built into your browser, so Wretify charges nothing and needs no key. Depending on your browser, the voice may be played on your device or provided online by the browser's maker (Microsoft in Edge, Google in Chrome) — at no cost to you either way.

Dictation

On desktop, press Alt+M and speak. Your words are typed at the cursor exactly as you said them — nothing is polished, corrected or continued, and no API key is needed. To send a spoken thought to a chapter's notes instead of the page, press Alt+Q for Quick Capture and tap its microphone. On a phone, use your keyboard's own microphone: it shows each word as you say it and lets you fix a sentence while you're still talking.
No. Both microphones are literal. There was a mode that turned spoken thinking into polished prose — Neural Voice — and it was retired in August 2026. The words you speak are the words that land. The only choice left is where they land: on the page, or in a filed note.

Mobile

Your phone carries the same books and articles. Tap the leaf in the bottom-right corner to move between Write, Read, Journal, Brainstorm and Search; press and hold it to start something new. You can write and edit chapters, read and highlight the books and articles you've imported, keep your journal, and brainstorm with your AI partner, then send the result to a chapter. On mobile the AI never changes your page. To dictate, use your keyboard's microphone.
From any room, press and hold the leaf in the bottom-right corner. The box that opens is for starting something new: a journal entry, a quick note, or an article or book. Its top-right corner holds the gear. Tap the gear for Settings, Help, a short guide to Wretify on your phone, and what's coming next. Settings live there, one press away, so the home screen can stay clear for your own work.
On your home screen, tap the leaf in the bottom-right corner. Under the rooms there's a line that says "Search your writing". Type two letters or more and matches from your books, articles and journal appear above it, title matches first; the ✕ closes it. From any other room, tap the leaf and choose Search — it takes you home, where the search line is.
Type your idea — or speak it with your phone keyboard's microphone. Your AI partner thinks with you: it builds on the idea, adds what you may be missing and pushes back where the thinking is thin. Go back and forth as many rounds as you like; it keeps the whole conversation in view. When something's worth keeping, send it to one of your chapters.
Tap the + inside the text box (bottom left) and choose "Send to my writing". A drawer shows your active books and articles (up to three); tap one, then the chapter where this idea belongs. The conversation is saved there as an idea note straight away.
Tap the speech-bubble icon in the top-right corner to open Brainstorming Sessions — your recent sessions, grouped by time (Today, Yesterday, Last Week, 30 Days Ago). Tap any session to continue where you left off — the AI remembers everything from that conversation. Sessions are saved automatically when you start a new one, and the last 30 days are shown.

Your Data

Everything is stored in your own Google Drive, in a folder called "Wretify": your books in Wretify/Write/Books and your articles in Wretify/Write/Articles. Each book is a folder of simple Markdown files — one per chapter — plus a small _meta.md that describes the book, and a notes file for any chapter that has notes. These are plain text files that any text editor can open. If Wretify disappeared tomorrow, your files would still be there, perfectly organized and readable.
Wretify syncs your writing to Google Drive automatically after 5 seconds of quiet, and again when you switch away from the app. On desktop, the top-left corner shows "Online · Saved just now" (or how long ago). Only what changed is uploaded, not your whole library.
On desktop, press Alt+K and choose "Share & Export", then "Back up all" at the bottom. This downloads a JSON file of all your books and articles. Any chapter this device hasn't opened yet is read from your Drive first; if one can't be read, Wretify tells you instead of making an incomplete backup. Your Google Drive folder remains the complete copy of your writing.
In the same Share & Export panel (Alt+K → "Share & Export"), press "Restore" and choose your backup file. After you confirm, it replaces ALL your current data with the backup, so use it carefully — back up what you have now first if you're unsure.
Keep writing. Everything is saved on your device first, and a small "Offline" note tells you it will reach Drive next time you're online. If a chapter was changed on another device in the meantime, Wretify doesn't guess: a card asks you to choose — "Load the Drive version", "Keep what's here", or "Decide later". On a computer, the top-left corner always says where things stand ("Saving…", "Saved just now", or "On this device — not yet on Drive").
On a computer, open Preferences (Alt+P) and scroll to the end. On a phone, press and hold the leaf, tap the gear, then Settings. Both show where you stand — your free months and the day they end, or your plan — and, once you pay, "Manage my subscription →", which opens Polar's own page to change your card, see receipts or cancel. Sign out is at the very end.
Nothing happens to your writing. It's all in your Google Drive as plain Markdown files. You can open them in any text editor, in Obsidian, in VS Code, or anywhere that reads text. We provide the tools; you own the files. No lock-in, no ransom, ever.

Import

Liberation is how you bring your writing home from other apps. If you have pages in Notion, Liberation scans them, converts them into clean Markdown files, heals all the internal links, and saves everything to your Google Drive. Your original Notion pages stay untouched — we're making copies, not moving anything.
Press Alt+K and choose "Import your writing" (or type "import"). Create an integration at notion.so/my-integrations, share your pages with it, then paste the integration token and the root page URL into Wretify. Press "Start Safety Scan" first — it checks everything before importing. When you're happy with the scan, press "Liberate My Writing." The full walkthrough: www.wretify.com/blog/getting-your-writing-out-of-notion
Right now, Liberation supports Notion. It follows a safe pattern: scan first, then import — so you see exactly what will move before anything moves.

Export

Press Alt+K and choose "Share & Export". For a book, choose this chapter or the whole book: Markdown (.md) or Word (.docx) for either, PDF for a single chapter, and EPUB for the whole book. An article exports whole, as Markdown or Word.
Markdown (plain text you can open anywhere) and Word (for editors and collaborators) for books and articles; PDF (for a single chapter) and EPUB (for a whole book, for e-readers) for books. Word and Markdown book exports also include a bibliography built from your footnotes.

Library

Open My Writing (Alt+W) and switch between Books and Articles. Each item sits on one of three shelves: Active (what you're writing now — at most 3 books and 3 articles), Ideas & Drafts (early work), or Finished. My Writing always opens on your Active work; the other shelves are one tap away in its filter menu.
On a computer: to search inside the chapter you have open, press Alt+S. To find passages across all your writing by what they mean, open the AI sidebar (Alt+A) and choose the "My Writing" lane — it searches your whole library on your own device and needs no AI key. On a phone: tap the leaf on your home screen and type in "Search your writing" — it searches your books, articles and journal, with title matches first.
Instead of free tags, each book or article can have one topic, chosen from a short fixed list (for example "Habits & Change" or "Meaning & Purpose") when you create it — Wretify suggests one from your title. On the Ideas & Drafts shelf in My Writing, your drafts are grouped by topic, and "Suggest topics" can propose topics for any untagged ones.
The Semantic Index is what lets Wretify find passages across all your chapters by meaning, not just by matching words. It is built on your own device, with no key and nothing sent away, and Wretify builds it by itself in the background once an AI is connected. It is what powers the My Writing lane in the AI sidebar (Alt+A, then Alt+3), and it lets your thinking partner bring in what you've written before. You'll find it in Preferences (Alt+P) → Power Add-ons → Semantic Index. There you can see its size, Rebuild it, Clear it, or untick Active to stop your AI drawing on your earlier writing. A copy is kept in your Google Drive, so another device doesn't have to start from nothing.
Still need help?
We’re a small team, and we care about every writer.
Write to us