Comparison

Cat Scribe vs Captured!

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Cat Scribe

Features
Read full description

Capture notebook pages and convert them into clean digital text with Cat Scribe. Use your camera to scan handwritten notes, pick your preferred extraction engine, and quickly copy or send results to Drafts. Cat Scribe is built for fast personal note capture with a simple workflow and minimal friction.

About

Captured!

This app acts as a universal clipboard, saving links, photos, videos, audio, files, and texts shared from other applications. It offers on-device processing for previews, AI descriptions, OCR, and transcription, with smart organization and full-text search capabilities.

Highlights
  • Universal content capture from any app
  • Automatic previews and AI enrichment
  • On-device OCR and transcription
  • Smart organization with folders and views
  • Full-text search and Spotlight integration
  • iCloud sync for selected folders
  • JSON backup and restore
Features
Read full description

Tired of losing links, photos, videos, audio, files or texts shared from your apps? Captured is your universal clipboard. Tap Share from any app and choose Captured — everything is instantly saved, previewed and enriched, on-device by default. UNIVERSAL CAPTURE Accepts URLs, photos, videos, audio, files and text from any app. Automatic source detection (Safari, YouTube, Instagram, X, Photos...). AUTO-GENERATED PREVIEWS Every item gets a thumbnail: web pages via live browser, photos/videos from first frame, files via QuickLook, audio as waveform, text as typographic render. Thumbnail gallery with on-demand regeneration. AI DESCRIPTION, OCR & TRANSCRIPTION AI image/video description: Apple Vision (free, on-device), OpenAI GPT-4 Vision or Anthropic Claude. Built-in OCR on photos and videos. Audio speech-to-text transcription — all on-device by default, no cloud required. SMART ORGANIZATION Folders with batch move/delete and drag-and-drop reorder. Smart Views: All, Recent (7 days), Unread, With Location, With AI. Configurable sort: manual, newest, oldest, title, source. Filter by type: URL, file, photo, video, audio, text. FULL-TEXT SEARCH & SPOTLIGHT Instant search across titles, URLs, notes, AI descriptions and transcriptions. All items indexed in system Spotlight — searchable from the home screen. RICH METADATA Auto-fetch of web page title and last-modified date (bold title signals updated content). Reverse geocoding of GPS coordinates in photos. WIDGET WidgetKit widget in small, medium and large sizes showing unread items in real time. BACKUP & RESTORE Full JSON export/import (items, folders, settings, thumbnails) with Replace or Merge mode. PRIVACY All your data stays on your device. No account, no server, no ads. Network calls only when you explicitly enable web fetching or AI description via your own API key. iCloud sync, folder by folder Choose exactly which folders you want to find on your other devices. A long press on a folder offers "Sync with iCloud": its photos, videos, files and links — including previews — automatically appear on your iPhone, iPad and Mac linked to the same Apple account. Folders that are not synced remain strictly local. A "Resync iCloud" option lets you reconcile state across devices in one gesture. Link previews: lock, zoom, crop You can now lock a link's preview so it never changes, or enlarge the preview by a factor of 2 to better see thumbnails from your favorite sites. A new setting automatically crops the white or black bands surrounding some previews. Organization: everything by drag-and-drop Reorganize your folders by dragging them in the sidebar. Move an item from one folder to another simply by dragging it onto the destination folder. No more drop-down menus. Paste a link from the clipboard A new menu entry lets you directly add the currently copied link, without going through another app's "Share" menu. Manage your space better The info panel now shows the space used in iCloud when sync is active. A long press on each line gives access to quick actions. The "Delete local data only" option frees up space while keeping your synced folders intact.

Screenshots

Cat Scribe4 screens
Captured!3 screens

Verdict

The call

Cat Scribe and Captured! are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Cat Scribe ships an update every 4 weeks, Captured! fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on July 6, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Cat Scribe versus Captured!: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCat ScribeCaptured!
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 4 weeksFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.017.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB4 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperDavid DegnerAlexandre Fenyo

In-app purchases

None

Cat Scribe

No in-app purchases

None

Captured!

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Cat Scribe free?
Cat Scribe is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Captured! free?
Captured! is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Cat Scribe or Captured! have ads?
Neither Cat Scribe nor Captured! shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Cat Scribe or Captured!?
Cat Scribe ships an update every 4 weeks, and Captured! fortnightly. Most recently, Cat Scribe was updated on July 6, 2026 and Captured! on September 22, 2026.

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