# Brief — Catch What Matters — Find the to-dos in your texts > Find the to-dos in your texts (iPhone/iPad app by JAMES L MCGOVERN.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/brief-catch-what-matters/id6793264537 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [JAMES L MCGOVERN](https://appshunter.io/developer/6793264539) - Category: Productivity, Utilities - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 10 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-08-13 - Data updated: 2026-10-05 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/brief-catch-what-matters/id6793264537/reviews.md ## What is Brief? Brief is your calm command center for the things that actually need you. Your Mac reads your iMessages, finds the few that are real action items — a request, an appointment, a bill — and turns them into a clean review queue on your iPhone. Everything else stays noise. Every morning, Brief gives you a one-screen brief: today's weather, the headlines you care about, and what got caught overnight. WHAT BRIEF DOES Catches action items from your messages — tasks, calendar events, and payments. Casual chat, spam, surveys, and "all done" status pings are filtered out automatically. Tells tasks from events: "Can you call the dentist?" becomes a task; "I'll stop by at 9am" becomes a calendar event. A morning brief: weather for your zip, news on your topics, and an overnight catch-up — ready when you wake up. Tasks tab that mirrors your Apple Reminders lists, grouped Urgent / This Week / Next Week / Future, alongside what Brief caught. A real calendar that shows your Apple Calendar events in their own colors. Three filter levels — Essential Only, Smart Filter, Catch Everything — set on your Mac, so you decide how much gets through. HOW FILTERING WORKS What leaves your Mac depends on your filter engine, not your plan. With Smart Filter or Apple Intelligence the judgment happens on your Mac and your message text never leaves it. With Cloud AI, Brief sends the candidate message and the two or three before it to a model provider — used only to answer that one request, never stored by us, never used to train models. Either way, only the extracted action — a title, date/time and short summary — is saved to your account. PLANS Free — on-device filtering on your Mac, up to 50 actioned items a month, the full review queue and routing. Bring Your Own Key ($6.99/month) — cloud filtering on your own AI provider key. You pay your provider directly. First month free. Pro ($16.99/month) — cloud filtering on Brief's key with nothing to set up, up to 200 items surfaced for review a month, and the full morning brief. Premium ($24.99/month) — everything in Pro with no monthly item cap, plus Brief Plus daily modules you configure yourself: sports, markets, workout and your own. First month free. PRIVACY Contact names are resolved on your device — your contact list is never uploaded and is never sent to the AI provider. When Brief creates an item, the matched name appears in that item's title, which syncs to your account so your phone can show it. Attachments never leave your device. Message text leaves only on the Cloud AI engine, and only the candidate message and the two or three before it — see HOW FILTERING WORKS. Export or delete all your Brief data anytime from Settings. HOW IT WORKS Brief is two apps: a Mac app that does the scanning (it needs Full Disk Access to read Messages) and this iPhone app where you review and act. You'll need both. Catch what matters. The rest can wait. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://justbriefme.app/privacy ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **Subscriptions** | Subscription | Price | Period | | --- | --- | --- | | Brief — Bring Your Own Key | $6.99 | per month | | Brief Pro | $16.99 | per month | | Brief Premium | $24.99 | per month | ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.3.2 — 2026-10-04 Your review queue now orders items more consistently. ### 1.3.1 — 2026-09-28 Fixes for signing in and getting set up. Clearer errors when your email and password don't match, so a new account is easier to create, and Settings now tells you when notifications aren't working and offers to fix it. ### 1.3 — 2026-09-16 Choose your plan during setup — Free, Premium, Pro, or bring your own API key. Approving an item now sends it straight to Reminders or Calendar based on what it is. Fixes for on-device filtering, account setup, and a number of smaller issues. ### 1.2 — 2026-08-18 Away mode: auto-reply to the texts that need an answer while you're away, controlled from your phone. Settings rebuilt and simplified on Mac and iPhone. Fixed push notifications. ### 1.0 — 2026-08-14 No release notes. ## Apps similar to Brief | App | Rating | Price | Category | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [Daylit: Honest Daily Planner](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/daylit-honest-daily-planner/id6778850267) | — | Free | Productivity | | [Onit: AI To-Do List Planner](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/onit-ai-to-do-list-planner/id6796374358) | — | Free | Productivity | | [Note26 — Planner & Reminders](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/note26-planner-and-reminders/id6503249459) | 5.0 (2) | Free | Productivity | | [VecML](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/vecml/id6742846520) | 5.0 (2) | Free | Productivity | | [Quick Reminder 3: Tasks & ToDo](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/quick-reminder-3-tasks-and-todo/id1632991298) | 5.0 (1) | Free | Productivity | | [AI Dictation](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ai-dictation/id6754910103) | 4.0 (2) | Free | Productivity | --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-05.*