reHydrate: offline reMarkable → Mac sync app I made for myself; sharing it in case it's useful to anyone else
Hi all,
I bought a reMarkable because I wanted a paper-like place to think — but I was a bit disappointed when I found out that it does not provide a good way to sync to my PC without my files first syncing to their servers. The only option: The web UI that gets slow once a library grows (and honestly copying files one by one is annoying), and SSHing into the tablet every time I wanted my files also was no real option for me.
So I started a small weekend project with Claude which turned out to be a multi-week project in the end.
It kind of got away from me. It now does:
- Two-way sync over USB (pull + push), with live progress and a real cancel button
- Full version history — every sync keeps a snapshot, restore any past version of any document
- Content-addressed local library — one blob per unique file, content hash deduped, so the storage stays sane even with years of notebooks
- Folder organisation, drag-and-drop moves, search, Quick Look, command palette (⌘K, because of course)
- Handwritten notebook → text via a local Ollama (https://ollama.com) vision-language model running on your own machine (or a GPU box on your LAN). The handwriting never leaves your network.
- Publish straight to Ghost or WordPress as drafts. Credentials live in the OS keychain. The HTTP client is host-pinned and refuses redirects, so transcripts go only to the host you configured.
It's macOS (Apple Silicon) only for now, bundles ship unsigned (right-click → Open on first launch — there's a one-time Gatekeeper dance), and this is early. I've used it on my own library for a while and it works for me, but I'm one person, the test matrix is small, and I genuinely can't promise there are no bugs. Please don't use it as the only copy of notes you can't afford to lose — keep your normal cloud sync on if those notes matter, and treat reHydrate as a second, offline mirror until it's earned more trust.
What I'd love:
- Try it and break it. Bug reports with the in-app log directory attached are pure gold.
- Tell me what's missing. I built the features I wanted; I have no idea what's obvious-but-missing for other people's workflows.
- If you write Rust or React you likely know more than me, the repo is open source (MIT + Apache-2.0 dual licence) and I'd love to make this a community thing rather than a one-person side project. There are good first issue tags and a CONTRIBUTING guide.
Links:
- Landing page: https://rehydrate.ink
- Source + releases: https://github.com/dm807cam/rehydrate
- DMG download: https://github.com/dm807cam/rehydrate/releases/latest
Thanks for reading. Honest feedback — including "this is solving a problem I don't have" — is welcome.