Pinako User Guide

Introduction

Pinako is a browser extension that organizes your tabs into a visual, hierarchical tree. Rather than a flat row of browser tab icons or simple list of bookmarks, Pinako gives you a structured homebase you can easily navigate, where every window and tab has an adjustable place in the hierarchy. The tree persists across browser sessions, allowing you to rearrange, keep, or remove tabs from your browsing history.

Archive and store tab trees in separate offline Libraries to organize collections or active projects. Libraries can also be turned into full collaborative workspaces where links and documents can be accessed or edited by teams or friends.

Every tab, window and Group node is annotatable with tags, short memos, and color coding. And every tree and Library can have full-featured rich-text notes and documents attached to them.

Whether you're researching a topic across dozens of tabs, managing multiple ongoing projects, or just someone whose tab count tends to creep upward, Pinako gives you the tools to stay organized, recover anything you've closed, and move between browsing contexts with ease.

Key Highlights

• Libraries for saving and sharing tab collections
• Using Libraries as synchronized and feature-rich collaborative workspaces
• Rich text Notes with multimedia embeds
• Quick Memos, Tags and color-coding for adding context and annotation to any node
• Numerous backup solutions and fallbacks to fully secure your data, including blockchain integration.
• Full import support for all popular tab-organizer and session-manager extensions with automatic conversion of all data into Pinako's organizational structures.
• Cloud sync and web portal
• AI-powered natural language search
• Connect your Pinako data to AI assistants and agents with our MCP bridge.

Browser Compatibility

Pinako is available for Google Chrome (version 116 or later), Microsoft Edge, Brave, Comet, Opera, Vivaldi, and other Chromium-based browsers. Support for Safari and Firefox is currently in development.

First Steps & Interface Overview

!important: Once installed, pin Pinako to your browser toolbar so you can instantly access the tree for navigation:

• Click the puzzle-piece icon in Chrome's top-right corner (or the equivalent on your non-Chrome browser), find Pinako in the list, and click the pin icon next to it. The Pinako icon will stay visible in your toolbar from then on. Click it to open the extension window.

On first launch, Pinako scans your open browser windows and tabs and builds the tree automatically. Every open tab appears as a node in the tree, organized under its corresponding window. The tree is live: it updates in real time as you browse. Move tabs in the tree by dragging them, and the browser will reflect these changes.

The main Pinako window has three areas. The main toolbar runs along the top, containing the main menu (hamburger icon on the left), followed by buttons for Home Tabs, Backup & Restore, Libraries, Synced Devices, Browser Bookmarks, Clone View, Undo, Redo, and Zoom. Below it, the search toolbar holds the Create Group Node button, Collapse All and Expand All buttons, the search bar, and the search mode toggle buttons. The rest of the window is the main tree area, with a row for Note tabs along the top that can optionally be displayed or hidden.

The main menu (the hamburger icon) provides access to display options, Home Tabs set up, Backup & Restore options, keyboard shortcuts and other options, appearance settings, and resource links.

The zoom control (the ± button near the top right) opens your browser's native zoom popup, where you can quickly adjust the scale of the text, row height, and general layout. The standard Ctrl+, Ctrl-, and Ctrl+0 keyboard shortcuts also work.

!important: Disable the browser's restore session if active. This can add clutter and duplicates to your Pinako tree. Use Pinako's Session Restore or Home Tabs feature instead.

The Tab Tree

The tab tree is a live, hierarchical view of everything in your browser. It updates in real time as you open, close, and rearrange tabs. The tree has three types of nodes: Group Nodes, Windows, and Tabs.

How the Tree Works

Windows represent open browser windows. Each window Pinako detects becomes a node in the tree, shown with an expand/collapse arrow to its left. Windows can be renamed, given a star color, a memo, or tags. When you close a browser window, it becomes a ghost window in the tree: still visible and intact, just no longer live.

Tabs are individual browser tabs. Each tab shows the site's favicon and page title, which you can also rename using the Edit Title button on the node. Tabs can be nested under other tabs to any depth, which is useful for organizing topics and related pages.

• Right-click a tab to copy to clipboard its title + URL as a hyperlink, or just the URL.
• When a tab or window is closed from within the tree by pressing the Close button (the "X" icon), it becomes a ghost tab or ghost window: closed in the browser, but saved and stored in the tree.
• Press the Delete button on a node (the trashcan icon) to remove the node from the tree.
• When a tab is closed in the browser, it is deleted and removed from the tree.

Collapse/Expand buttons

Click the arrow next to any window or nested tab to collapse or expand its nested children. When you delete a node with children, only that node is deleted and its children are moved up and adopted by the next parent node. But if you want to delete an entire branch of nested children ('descendants'), collapse the branch using the collapse button on the left, then delete. The entire branch of descendants will be removed from the tree.

Show Active Tab

Click this button, located to the right of the search box, to quickly center the tree on the currently active tab in the browser. (You can also center the tree on the active tab by clicking the Pinako icon pinned to the browser's toolbar, or typing "A" (for active) as a keyboard shortcut.)

Ghost Nodes

When you close a tab or window in the browser, it is deleted from the Pinako tree. But if you close a live tab or window using the tree by clicking the Close ("X") button on the row, it is preserved in the tree as a ghost tab or ghost window. Ghost nodes appear at lower opacity than live ones, so you can tell at a glance which items are open in the browser and which are saved but closed.

Ghost nodes consume no browser memory: they are not loaded or running. They maintain their position in the tree hierarchy while live tabs are opened and closed around them, and can be rearranged while in ghost state.

To reopen a ghost tab, double-click it. It opens in the browser and becomes a live tab again. Double-clicking a ghost window reopens all the ghost tabs it contains. If a window contains a mix of live and ghost tabs, double-clicking the window node opens all the remaining ghost tabs within it.

The Close button (X) closes a live tab or window in the browser and turns it into a ghost, but it is disabled for ghost nodes because there is nothing to close. The Delete button (trash icon) removes the node from the tree entirely.

Undo/Redo buttons

Undo and redo buttons are located in the main toolbar and can undo deletions and moves.

Undo tracking resets after closing or creating tabs directly in the browser. It only tracks moves and deletes occurring during manipulation of Pinako trees. Future updates may expand the undo capabilities.

Organizing Your Tree

Drag & Drop

The primary way to reorganize your tree is drag and drop. Grab any node (or node branch with nested children) and drag it to a new position. As you drag, a visual indicator shows where the node will land when you release.

When hovering a node over another node, there are two possible drop positions: dropping between rows, and dropping directly on top of a row. The behavior of each is a configurable Drag & Drop setting. In the default mode, dropping on top of a row inserts the dragged node as a 'sibling' on the same depth-level, immediately below it, and dropping between rows nests it as a 'child' of the row above. The alternate mode reverses this.

Unlike other tab-tree managers, Pinako also gives you full control to insert nodes into any position allowed by the hierarchical logic. If you have node branches with many depth-levels of indentation, you can drop nodes on any depth-level and at any vertical position, allowing the node to 'adopt' any of the more deeply nested children below it.

To get comfortable with drag and drop, try dragging nodes through different parts of the tree, including over the empty space created to the left of deeply nested branches. The combination of hover position and the drop indicator gives you precise control over complex placements once you've built a feel for it.

Indent & Outdent

Indent and Outdent buttons can optionally appear upon hovering over a row. They move the node one level deeper or shallower in the hierarchy without dragging. Indent places the node as a child of the row above it; Outdent promotes it to the same level as its parent. The visibility of these buttons can be changed in Display Settings.

Collapse & Expand All

The Collapse All and Expand All buttons in the search toolbar collapse or expand every top-level node (windows and group nodes) in the tree at once. Collapse All is useful when you want a compact overview of your top-level structure without scrolling through every open tab.

Dragging Links In from the Browser

Drag a URL from a browser tab's address bar, or drag a hyperlink from a web page, directly into the main tree or a Library tree. Dropping it into a library adds it to that library, and dragging it into the main tree creates a new ghost tab node at that position. (Since the tab is already in the tree, this creates a duplicate.)

Group Nodes

Group Nodes are organizational containers you create inside Pinako. They have no connection to the browser: they exist purely to help you structure your tree. They can hold windows, other Group Nodes, or a mix of both.

Because Group nodes function in the main active session tree (or any other tree), they are restricted by certain logic rules, such as inability to nest windows inside other windows, or having a mix of tabs and windows or tabs and groups on the same nesting depth level. You can accomplish these more flexible organizational patterns by using Folder nodes in the non-active trees, such as Libraries or the Browser Bookmarks panel.

To create a Group Node, click the 'stack' icon on the left side of the search toolbar. A new group appears at the top of the tree with its title immediately ready to edit. Type a name and press Enter.

Group Nodes can be nested inside other Group Nodes to any depth. Drag one inside another, or use the indent/outdent buttons to adjust depth. Each Group Node can be assigned a row background of any color: hover over the group row and click the color wheel icon to choose a color that tints the group row to further assist visual organization.

Folders

Folders are organizational containers available in Libraries and the Bookmarks panel. They function similarly to Group Nodes in the main tree as collapsible, renamable, color-codable containers, but they exist in offline or bookmark contexts rather than in the live browser session, and are more flexible than Group nodes because Folder nodes can contain a mix of tabs, windows, or other folders, and combine them on the same nesting depth levels.

In the Bookmarks panel, creating or rearranging folders syncs directly to your browser's native bookmark folder structure.

Creating Folders

In both Libraries and the Bookmarks panel, a Create Folder button (folder-plus icon) is located in the panel toolbar. Click it to add a new folder at the top of the tree and give it a name.

Assign any background color to any folder row, just like Group Nodes. Use the color wheel button or context menu.

You can also add memos, tags, and star colors to any folder for further context and annotation.

Dragging Folders to the Main Tree

Folder nodes only exist in non-active trees (Libraries and Bookmarks). The main tree, which manages live browser sessions, uses windows and groups instead. When you drag a folder from a library or the bookmarks panel into the main tree, Pinako automatically parses out any nested folders or windows and flattens them into separate windows, each titled with a breadcrumb path (e.g., "Projects > Research > Quantum Quasicrystals").

Double-clicking a folder in a library or the bookmarks panel also opens all contained tabs as live browser windows, applying the same flattening logic for any nested sub-folders.

Bookmark Folders and Browser Sync

Folders in the Bookmarks panel correspond directly to your browser's native bookmark folders. Creating, renaming, moving, or deleting a folder in Pinako's bookmarks tree is automatically synced to the browser's bookmark manager, and vice versa, in real time.

Chrome's "Tab Groups" (also available in other Chromium browsers such as Brave)

Pinako seamlessly integrates the "Tab Groups" feature available in most Chromium browsers. If you use Chrome's native Tab Groups (the color-coded labels in the browser's tab bar), Pinako recognizes them and displays the Tab Group color with Group name as a small badge on each tab row that belongs to that Group. Moving tabs contained within "Tab Groups" in the browser can either join tabs to a Group or separate them from it. When the same moves are performed in the tree, the corresponding Tab Group actions in the browser (merging into or separating from groups) take place.

Group identity persists when a tab is ghosted (closed but kept in the tree), and is restored when the tab is resurrected later. In Libraries and the Bookmarks panel, the color and label are preserved as a static snapshot so you can see where a closed tab belonged, even if the live group no longer exists.

Clone View

Clone View opens a second copy of your main tree in a panel alongside the first. Both panels show the same tree, updated in sync, but each panel has its own independent scroll position and its own search bar.

This allows one to quickly move content between distant parts of a large tree. Without Clone View, you'd need to drag and auto-scroll to move a node from one area of the tree to another. With Clone View, you navigate each panel to the relevant section independently, then drag the node from one panel to the other. The tree updates immediately in both views.

Each panel's independent search bar is also useful for locating and comparing specific nodes in different parts of the tree at the same time.

Open Clone View with the Clone View button in the main toolbar. Click it again to close the clone panel.

Libraries and the browser Bookmarks tree can also be cloned using the 3-Panel View.

Search

The search bar filters the tree in real time as you type. It searches the content of tab titles, URLs, memos, and tags. Matching nodes are highlighted; their parent nodes are expanded automatically so results are always visible.

Use the left and right arrow buttons inside the search bar (or press Shift+Enter / Enter) to step through individual results one at a time. The match count is displayed next to the arrows. Press Escape, or click the red "X" in the search bar, or clear the search field to return the tree to its normal state.

Alternate Search Modes

The search toolbar has three mode buttons on the right of the search bar:

Note Search

(Document icon) Switches the search to look inside your note documents rather than the tree. Results are highlighted within the notes panel as you type.

Snapshot History Search

(Clock icon) Switches to searching across your saved Snapshots. Instead of scrolling through a list of past states, you can query snapshot content directly. Results show matching nodes from older states of your tree, and you can append individual results (or entire window subtrees) back into your current tree. If you deleted something some time ago, and want to retrieve it, this provides fast and easy way to do so, without needing to go through the process of finding the right exports or synced backups and importing them entirely.

AI Natural Language (Semantic) Search Pinako Pro

(Sparkle icon) Activates AI-powered natural language search. Incredibly useful to find tabs based on subject matter, the time-period it was saved, or that you don't remember the name of. See AI Semantic Search for full details.

Node Annotations

Every node in the tree can carry Stars, Tags, and Memos: lightweight tools for adding context and making nodes easier to recognize or find at a glance.

Stars

The star icon is always visible on the right side of every row. Clicking it opens a color palette. Selecting a color assigns that color to the star as a visual flag. To clear a star color, click the star and choose the empty option.

Stars are purely visual. Use them for marking tabs you want to return to, flagging important resources, or distinguishing different categories within a group.

Tags

Tags are categorical labels you can attach to any node. Click the tag icon on a row (or right-click and select Tags) to open the tag editor. Type to create a new tag, or select from tags you've already used. A node can have multiple tags. The tag icon receives an indicator color on rows that have tags.

Tags are searchable: type a tag name in the main search bar to find all nodes with that tag across your entire tree.

Memos

A memo is a short note attached directly to an individual node, up to 2,500 characters. Memos support basic formatting: **bold**, *italic*, and clickable links (pasted URLs are auto-linked, or use [text](url) for named links). Memos are designed for quick annotations: a reminder of why you have a tab open, a note about what to look for in the link, or any info that helps you remember context at a glance.

Click the memo icon on a row (or right-click and select Add Memo) to open the memo popup. Existing memos open in a formatted preview where links are clickable; click anywhere on the text or the Edit button to switch to the text editor. The memo icon receives an indicator color on rows that have memos. Memo content is included in the main search, so you can find any node by searching for words in its memo.

Memos are different from Notes. Notes are full rich-text documents with toolbars and multimedia; memos are short, lightweight, and per-node. For longer documentation or heavily formatted content, use Notes.

Notes

Notes are rich-text documents attached to either the main tree as a whole, or specific libraries. They're created with a full-featured text editor and can range from a quick comment to a fully formatted document.

The Notes Tab Bar

A Notes Tab Bar appears as a horizontal row of file-tabs above the relevant content area. The main tree has its own Notes Tab Bar, and each library has its own inside the library view. Each tab in the toolbar represents one note document. Click a tab to open that note. Drag the tabs to reorder them. To create a new note, click the plus button. To rename a note, edit its title in the note content area.

The main tree Notes Tab Bar can be shown or hidden via Display Options in the main menu. Turn it off if you don't use notes and prefer a more minimal interface.

Rich Text Formatting

The notes editor includes a full formatting toolbar. Available on the free Pinako extension and all subscription levels:

• Headings and paragraph styles
• Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough
• Font colors and text highlights
• Ordered lists, unordered lists, and task lists (checkboxes)
• Code blocks with syntax highlighting
• Mathematical expressions
• Hyperlinking
• and more.

With a Pinako Pro subscription, you also get:

• Additional font families
• Full-featured table editor
• Import and export as Word (.docx), HTML, or Markdown
• URL image embedding
• Invisible character display
• Character/word count

Multimedia Embeds

With a Pinako Pro+ subscription, you can embed images, video, and audio files directly in your notes. Media are uploaded to Pinako's cloud storage and served via CDN, so embeds remain synced and available across all your devices and on the web portal.

These extra features, such as Import/Export as docs and multimedia embedding, are especially useful when Libraries are used as collaborative workspaces.

Libraries

Libraries are individual collections of windows and tabs that exist independently of your open browser sessions. They can be used as:

• Enhanced archives of bookmarks: collections of links separated into categories and organized into hierarchical trees and annotated with notes and memos.
• Resource hubs for ongoing projects with detailed records attached as Notes; whose links can be pulled from, or their entire trees opened with a single click.
• Stand-alone web pages where curated lists of hyperlinks, updated in real-time, can be privately shared with friends, family, or co-workers, or shared publicly by posting to social media with a single click.
• Collaborative workspaces where teams, students, or private groups can add links to the tree, embed relevant media, and co-edit the Note documents in real-time, complete with detailed edit histories viewable as logs.

Creating & Managing Libraries

Click the Libraries button in the main toolbar to open the Libraries panel. The panel shows a list of Library Cards representing the Libraries. Click "New Library" to create a new one and give it a name and a description.

Using the import button on the library cards page, you can import a library from a Pinako export file or any JSON, HTML or TXT document containing a list of links (see Import and Export). Pinako also allows you to select and extract a specific Library from a JSON or HTML that contains multiple Pinako Libraries.

An Import/Export button is also located on the Title Header toolbar above individual Library pages. Use this to save an export of a Library or import a Library. Choose whether to append imported data to the existing library (including Library Notes) or replace it entirely.

To rename a library, use the edit option on its card. Drag library cards to reorder them in the panel.

Adding Content to Libraries

There are several ways to add tabs to a library:

• Drag any node from the main tree directly into the open library panel.
• Drag nodes onto a library card in the cards view, without opening the library first.
• Click the Copy to Library icon button on any row in the main tree to choose a destination library from a picker.
• Right-click any node and select "Copy to Library."
• Right-click the Pinako icon in the browser toolbar and choose "Add Tab to Library" or "Add Window to Library", to send straight from the browser without opening the Library in the extension.
• Use the import button on the library toolbar to import content.

Pulling Tabs from a Library

Double-click any tab in the library to open it in the browser. It becomes a live tab and is added to the main tree. Double-click a window node in the library to open all the tabs it contains as a new browser window. You can also drag nodes from the library panel directly into the main tree, placing them where you prefer in the tree.

Dual Library View

You can open two Libraries in separate panels using the 3-Panel View, which allows you to drag and drop items directly between them. You can also use the 3-Panel View to open two instances of the same Library simultaneously, creating a Clone View that allows you to quickly drag items from one section of the tree to another, without having to drag-auto-scroll long distances. This can be useful when dealing with large Library trees.

Library Notes

Each library has its own dedicated Notes collection. Use library notes for project context, documentation, associated multi-media files (Pinako Pro+), or any written content that belongs alongside that collection.

Expanded Library Mode & Fullscreen

When a library is open in the secondary panel, click the expand button between the Link Tree tab and the first Note tab to open the 3-panel expanded library mode: your main tree on the left, the library tree in the center, and the library's notes panel on the right. To return to two panels, click the collapse button on the border between the library and notes panels, or the close button on the third panel.

The full-screen button in the library toolbar maximizes the Pinako popup window to full OS window size, giving you more room to work with Note documents.

Each library also has an Edit Log (Pinako Pro+) that records recent changes: what was added, removed, or moved, and when, used for tracking multi-editor activity in shared collaborative libraries.

Library Groups

Libraries can be joined together into Library Groups, providing further organization capabilities to link various separate workspaces or libraries together under a shared topic, or to help condense space if one has many Libraries. The Library Group can also have its own set of Note documents relating to the Group as whole.

Creating Library Groups

On the initial Library panel, click the "Group" button in the panel header. A new card representing a Library Group will appear at the top of the list. Give it a name and optional description. Drag other Library cards onto the Group card to merge them into the Group, or right-click a card and select "Add to Group".

Organizing Library Groups

The Libraries within a Group will appear as condensed strips under the Group. The Library Group can be moved around the list of other Library cards by dragging and dropping into new position. Click the condensed strips to expand them into full-view Library cards. From here, the individual Libraries can be edited, deleted, or rearranged within the Group by dragging.

There are four ways to remove a Library from a Group:

• Drag it out of the Group and into the main list.
• Click the "Remove from Group" button (arrow-icon on a grouped Library card).
• Right-click the Library card and select "Remove from Group."

Or, you can remove all Libraries from a Group (preserving them) and delete the Group container by clicking the "X" button on the Group card. And you can delete a Library along with deleting all Libraries it contains by clicking the Delete button with the trash-can icon.

Using Library Groups

Click the Library Group card to enter the Library Group panel and display all the Libraries inside and access the Library Group Notes (by clicking on the Notes tabs).

Click the "Expand Notes Panel" button (located on the Note tabs row) to open the Library Group Notes in a third panel. With the Group Notes open, click on one of the Library cards in the second panel to open that Library, and Groups Notes will stay visible and writable. You can also then navigate back to the Group panel to open a different Library.

Click on a Library Notes tab in the second panel and you will have a Library's Notes and the Group Notes open at the same time, and be able to easily reference or copy text from one note to another. You can also expand the Library Notes from the second panel while the Group Notes are open to replace them in the third panel.

Sharing Libraries Pinako Pro

A library can be shared as a public or private web page. With a single click, you can share an entire window of tabs, or multiple windows, with someone you know, or post them publicly on social media:

• Collections of real estate listings, car research, funny videos, music streams, academic research topics, journalistic sources, etc., along with accompanying information in the notes.

Open the sharing options to generate a public link. Anyone with the public link can view the library in their browser: browse the links, see the tree structure, and read attached notes.

The sharing panel also lets you send the link directly via email and messaging apps (Gmail, ProtonMail, Slack, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Discord, Outlook, and others) or social platforms (X, Reddit, and others).

Public Link Publishing

In the "Manage Access and Permissions" panel, you can choose how public links are kept up to date:

• Auto-publish recent changes: The public link updates automatically whenever you edit the library. Viewers always see the latest version.
• Update public link manually: The link only updates when you click "Update public link." This lets you make edits and review them before they go live. This option is the default setting.

The status line shows when the snapshot was last published. Those with edit privileges always see real-time updates regardless of the publish mode.

Private Link Sharing

To create a private link with restricted access, click the "Manage Access and Permissions" option, uncheck the "Anyone with the link can view" box if it checked, and invite specific people with their email address and set their access level:

• Read access: They can view the private library link, but not make changes. Available from Pinako Pro.
• Edit access: They can add, remove, and rearrange content of the tree and notes. Available from Pinako Pro+.

You can also set the link to public, and invite others to have edit privileges.

Adding Libraries Pinako Pro

You can add libraries created by others to your personal collection. This makes it easier to access them in your extension interface or on your private web portal. Click the "+" button on the Library web page's toolbar next to the Library title to add it to your own Libraries.

• If you have edit privileges, you can now perform the edits from within your extension as well as the library's web URL.
• If you have read-only access, it will still stay updated and synced to any changes made to it by those who do have write access, and you can still pull links from it directly into your tree. Unlike all the other data in Pinako which is synced in real-time, read-only libraries in your collection check for updates every hour. However you can force an update sooner by clicking the Sync button on the read-only library toolbar.
• If you wish to alter a library that you have view-only read access to for your own purposes, you can create an editable copy of it by clicking the Duplicate button located on the Library card or on the individual Library toolbar. This duplicate will not be synced to the original, but you can now alter it as you wish.

Collaborative Workspaces Pinako Pro+

With Pinako Pro Plus, you can turn shared libraries into real-time collaboration projects and workspaces, with changes made by any collaborator synced in real time.

Useful for project or client resource stations, team research collections, collaborative academic assignments, or any situation where multiple people need to add and jointly edit and organize links and associated commentary, media content, and documents.

When multiple collaborators have a Library Note open at the same time, each person's cursor and text selection is visible to the others in real time, labeled with their username and displayed in a unique color. A green "Live" indicator appears beside the note title whenever collaborative editing is active. Edits made by any collaborator appear instantly as they type; there is no need to save or refresh manually.

Each collaborative library also includes an Edit Log: a searchable, scrollable timeline of all changes made to the library. The Edit Log tracks tree tabs and windows added, deleted, and rearranged, as well as text-level diffs within Note documents, showing exactly what was written or removed. Every entry is timestamped and labeled with the editor's name. New entries from other collaborators appear in the log in real time, highlighted briefly so recent activity is easy to spot. The log includes a search bar with match navigation (previous/next) and supports infinite scroll for browsing older history. Edit log entries are retained for 90 days.

Collaborator limits by tier: Pinako Pro+ allows up to 5 collaborators per Library, Pinako Premium allows up to 20, and Pinako Enterprise up to 50 per library.

Pinako Session Restore

When you let the browser restore a session after a reboot or browser reload, it creates new windows for tabs which are no longer connected to their original tree positions and nested organizational structure.

Pinako's Smart Session Restore preserves your tree structure and reopens the tabs exactly where you left them, with all the valuable context and relationships they were saved with.

Be sure to first disable the browser's restore session if active, which will add clutter and duplicates to your Pinako tree.

However, Pinako personally advises against always restoring your entire session if many tabs and windows were open during the last browser close, because all your previous session tabs are still stored in the tree, so you can select which ones to re-open. This helps us tab-hoarders keep things more tidy by starting fresh every once in a while.

But, for the Pinnacle of browser launch experiences, Pinako recommends using our unique Home Tabs feature:

Pinako Home Tabs

Choose a set of tabs you tend to open every session (email, calendar, messaging, news feeds, video subscriptions, project tools, or any page you use regularly) and let Pinako open just those Home Tabs for you; maintaining the same tree positions you last left them in, still connected to all the stored closed tabs in their respective window trees.

Far more convenient and useful than the browser's basic "Open a specific set of pages" option, which never maintains any continuity with your past sessions. And something no other browser extension offers.

If a Home Tab was moved, deleted, or replaced in the browser with an entirely different website since it was designated, Pinako uses a multi-level heuristic system spanning six layers of contextual reasoning to determine the most logical placement upon launch.

Home Tab Groups Pinako Pro

Create multiple named sets of Home Tabs to switch contexts between leisure, work, school, or specific projects. A Leisure group might open reading and entertainment sites. A Work group might open your project tools and communication apps. With one click, you can open only the relevant tabs for that context to help you focus by reducing distractions and clutter, without losing your tree structure and browsing history.

Setting Up Home Tabs and Home Tab Groups

Click the Home icon in the main toolbar, or go to Main Menu > Home Tabs & Restore Session. Click the "Select Home Tabs" button. The tree enters selection mode. Click any tab in the tree to mark it as a Home Tab. Click "Done" when finished.

To create a new Home Tab Group, click the "+" in the Home Tab Groups tab bar within the Home Tabs panel. Name the group, then use selection mode to designate its tabs.

The Restore Session Dialog

When Pinako launches on a fresh browser start, it can show a Restore Session dialog with four options:

1. Open Home Tabs: Opens only the tabs you've designated as Home Tabs, placed in their remembered positions in the tree. The rest of your saved tree, including all ghost tabs and saved structure, remains intact and visible.
2. Open a Home Tab Group (Pinako Pro): If you've created multiple named Home Tab Groups (Work, Leisure, School, and so on), this option shows a list to choose from. Only the selected group's tabs are opened.
3. Restore Last Session: Reopens all tabs that were live during your last browsing session, placed exactly where they were in the tree. Unlike the browser's built-in session restore, which opens disconnected windows, Pinako restores everything in its proper tree context.
4. Clean Slate: No additional tabs are restored. Any tabs already open in the browser when Pinako launches are added to the tree as live entries, but nothing further is loaded.

The dialog can be disabled in Home Tab Settings if you prefer Pinako to start silently.

Home Tab Preferences

In the Settings tab of the Home Tabs panel:

• Show Restore Dialog on Launch: Toggles whether the Restore Session dialog appears when Pinako starts. Turn this off to start silently.
• Auto-Open Home Tabs on Launch: When enabled, Pinako opens your Home Tabs automatically every time the browser starts, skipping the dialog entirely.

Browser-Toolbar Button Actions

Clicking the Pinako icon in the browser's toolbar opens the extension and centers the tree on the active browser tab. Right-clicking the icon gives quick access to additional actions without opening the full interface. The right-click context menu offers the following options:

• Add Tab to Library
• Add Window to Library
• Open Pinako Web Portal
• Open Home Tabs, Close and Save Others (non-Home tabs become ghost tabs in the tree)
• Open Home Tabs, Close and Delete Others (non-Home tabs open in the browser are removed from the tree entirely)

Browser-Bookmarks Panel

The Bookmarks panel gives you a full, interactive view of your browser bookmarks inside Pinako's tree interface. Rather than the flat bookmark manager built into Chrome, Pinako renders your entire bookmark list including bookmark folders as an easy to read and organize tree, with the ability to add draggable nested hierarchies to your bookmarks.

You can:

• Annotate bookmarks with memos and tags.
• Reorganize them visually by nesting tabs under other tabs.
• Create and organize folders in the Pinako tree which will sync to your browser's bookmark structure.
• Use drag and drop to add bookmarks and bookmark folders to your main tree or any library.
• Drag tabs and windows from your mobile devices, synced PCs, Libraries or main tree directly to your browser bookmarks.
• Use AI Semantic Search to find long-forgotten bookmarks.

Opening the Bookmarks Panel: Click the Bookmarks button (bookmark ribbon icon) in the main toolbar. Clicking the button again closes it.

The panel loads your full browser bookmark tree and it stays in sync automatically: any changes made in Chrome's native bookmark manager (or by other extensions) are reflected in real time.

Annotating Bookmarks

Every bookmark node supports the same metadata features available on regular tabs:

• Memos, Tags and Star Color

All metadata is accessible via the right-click context menu or the inline buttons that appear on hover.

Organizing and Transferring Bookmarks

Reordering and Renaming

Drag any bookmark or folder to a new position within the bookmark tree. Moves between folders (and reordering within folders) are synced to the browser's native bookmark manager.

Rename bookmarks or folders in Pinako and the changes will be synced to browser.

You can also open two instances of the Bookmarks panel simultaneously by using the 3-Panel View, creating a Clone View that allows you to quickly drag items from one section of the tree to another, without having to drag-auto-scroll long distances. This can be very useful when dealing with extremely large bookmark collections.

Visual Nesting

You can nest bookmark tabs under other tabs to create custom visual hierarchies. This is a Pinako-only organizational feature: these nesting hierarchies are stored locally by Pinako and are not pushed to the browser. They persist across sessions and are automatically cleaned up if the underlying bookmarks are deleted from Chrome.

Drag and Drop Between Bookmarks, Main Tree, Libraries, Devices

Double-click a bookmark to open it, or drag it into your preferred position in the tree and then open it. This creates a copy; the original bookmark stays in the bookmarks panel.

Bookmark Folders dragged onto the main tree are automatically parsed into windows. Sub-folders are recursively flattened into separate windows with breadcrumb titles (e.g., "Projects > Research > Quantum Quasicrystals").

Double-clicking a bookmark folder opens all contained tabs as a live browser window (with folder flattening for nested sub-folders).

Drag tabs from the Main Tree into the Bookmarks panel they will be saved to your bookmarks in the position you place them. Drag a window from the main tree and it will be saved in your browser bookmarks as a folder.

Use the 3-Panel View to drag links from Libraries, Mobile devices, or other Pinako-synced PCs into your Bookmarks. Or drag bookmarks into any of your Libraries.

AI Bookmark Search

The search bar at the top of the panel filters bookmarks by title, URL, memo text, and tags. Normal Search is live (results update as you type) and operates independently from the main tree's search.

AI Semantic Search also works on the Bookmarks tree. This can be very useful since many bookmark collections in browsers can contain large numbers of disorganized links that may have been accumulating for more than 20 years. If your bookmarks are a massive collection of tens of thousands of links, Pinako will fire up multiple parallel AIs simultaneously to ensure the results return as quickly as possible. However, it should be noted that AI Semantic Search is run on monthly credits, so if one searches a bookmarks collection with 20,000 links, it may consume as much credits as 50 AI searches on an average size tab tree. See the section on AI Semantic Search for more.

3-Panel View

Use the 3-Panel mode to drag and drop tabs and windows:

• From one Library to another.
• From a Library to the browser bookmarks tree, and vice versa.
• From a mobile device or synced PC to a Library, or into your browser bookmarks tree.
• Between clones of your browser bookmarks tree or clones of a Library.

To open 3-Panel View, first open a secondary panel that is compatible with 3-Panel View: Library Panel, Synced Devices Panel, or the Bookmarks Panel. Then click the 3-panel button located on the right side of the main toolbar. From there you can select to open Libraries, Linked Devices, or Bookmarks, in the third panel. Click the 3-Panel View button again, or the "X"/close button, to close it.

Synced devices are read only: you can drag links from them into the main tree, library or bookmarks, but they can not be changed or added to from within the Pinako extension. So only one instance of Synced Devices panel can be viewed in the 3-panel view.

You can, however, open 2 instances of the Bookmarks panel, which serves as a Clone View for your bookmarks. This can be very useful because many people's browser bookmarks collections can be very old, disorganized, and massive, and a Clone View of them allows one to rearrange and organize the tabs and folders much more easily.

You can also open clones of the same Library in 3-panel view, allowing you to rearrange items quickly if your Library is particularly large. As well as dragging items from one Library to a different one.

Backup & Restore

Pinako supports multiple backup methods. Use the Backup & Restore panel (toolbar button or main menu) to access all of them. Use as many as you like for additional contingencies.

Export Options

Pinako JSON and HTML Exports: Export your complete Pinako workspace as a JSON file with full fidelity: all tree structure, libraries, notes, Home Tab configurations, custom themes, and per-node meta-data such as memos, tags, date-created and star-color. Export options let you choose the scope: the main tree only, libraries only, custom themes only, or everything.

If you have multi-media embedded in your notes, you can choose to include the inline media in a JSON or HTML back-up, or, to save space, just use the URLs that point to your media stored in the Pinako cloud.

HTML Export (Pinako Pro): Exports a portable HTML file viewable in any browser, formatted as a structured list of clickable links with their titles and URLs. Useful for sharing or archiving your tree without requiring Pinako to access it.

Importing Pinako Files

Import a previously exported Pinako JSON or HTML file using the import button. Choose whether to append the imported data to your current tree or replace it entirely.

Replace is less destructive than it sounds. When you import a tree that replaces your main tree, Pinako matches each currently-open browser tab to the imported tree and keeps it open in its new spot. Anything in the imported tree that isn't already open becomes a ghost tab you can reopen on demand. Your open tabs are never closed by an import.

Pinako can also extract individual libraries from an imported file, so you can restore a single library without affecting the rest of your data.

Importing from Other Tab Managers

Using the same import button, Pinako can also import data from:

• Session Buddy
• Toby
• Workona Tab Manager
• Tabs Outliner
• BrainTool
• Link Map
• TabXpert
• OneTab

Click here to read guides on how each of these extensions' export data is converted into Pinako's structures (workspaces, sessions, nested folders, text notes, tags, metadata, etc.)

Pinako also accepts generic JSON, HTML, or plain-text formats and applies its own parsing to fit the data into Pinako's tree structure as accurately as possible.

Auto-Snapshots & History

Pinako automatically takes periodic snapshots of your entire tree and saves them to local browser storage. These snapshots are independent of your main tree: your tree continues updating while snapshots accumulate quietly in the background as a safety net.

Configure how frequently snapshots are taken and how long they are kept before being deleted. Find these settings in the Backup & Restore panel.

To search your snapshot history, switch the search bar to Snapshot History mode using the clock icon in the search toolbar. Type a query to find content from past states of your tree. You can append individual results (or an entire window subtree) from a snapshot back into your current tree for fine-grained recovery, without replacing anything.

To do a full restore, open the Backup & Restore panel, select a snapshot from the list, and choose whether to fully replace your current tree or append the snapshot to it.

Note to Free Extension users without Pro accounts:

• Be sure to set up your local backup system (e.g. File History) or cloud backup service to include whatever folder you save your manual exports to, as well as the IndexedDB folder that stores Pinako's snapshot history, so you have the most recent snapshot should you need it. (Or upgrade to Pro to automatically sync and backup and have convenient access to multiple additional backup options!) The folder containing the snapshots is located at:
  
  
  IndexedDB locations

  Chrome	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_clakbccnkfpmpfooiiffomhknnfcodgd_0.indexeddb.leveldb
  Brave	%LOCALAPPDATA%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_clakbccnkfpmpfooiiffomhknnfcodgd_0.indexeddb.leveldb
  Edge	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_clakbccnkfpmpfooiiffomhknnfcodgd_0.indexeddb.leveldb
  Comet	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Perplexity\Comet\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_clakbccnkfpmpfooiiffomhknnfcodgd_0.indexeddb.leveldb
  Vivaldi	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Vivaldi\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_clakbccnkfpmpfooiiffomhknnfcodgd_0.indexeddb.leveldb
  Opera	%APPDATA%\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Default\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_clakbccnkfpmpfooiiffomhknnfcodgd_0.indexeddb.leveldb

Cloud Backup Pinako Pro

• Pinako Cloud: All your data is continuously synced to Pinako's servers. In the event of a complete data loss (device failure, reinstalling the extension without a local backup), your tree, libraries, notes, tags, Home Tab groups, and custom themes can all be restored from the Pinako cloud.
• Google Drive: Automatic periodic backups to your Google Drive account. You can choose the frequency and duration.
• Dropbox: Automatic periodic backups to your Dropbox account. You can choose the frequency and duration.

Multi-Media Backups Pinako Pro+

Images, audio and video files embedded into Pinako Notes are stored in the Pinako Cloud. If you wish to have further backups of these files, you have the option to include inline media into your JSON and HTML exports, or manually back them up to your cloud or blockchain storage provider, or create automated interval backups to your cloud or blockchain provider that also includes inline media.

Blockchain Backup Pinako Pro+

For maximum data permanence and decentralized storage, Pinako supports backup to three blockchain-based storage networks:

• Filecoin / Lighthouse: Backups are stored on IPFS. A free Lighthouse account gives you 5 GB.
• Arweave: Permanent on-chain storage. Each upload costs a small amount of AR. Requires an Arweave wallet file in JWK format.
• Storj: Decentralized S3-compatible object storage. Requires S3 credentials from the Storj console.

Encryption and password

Every backup is encrypted on your device with AES-256-GCM before upload, using a password you set. Storage providers never see your data in plaintext. You will need the same password to restore. If you forget it, the backups cannot be recovered.

By default, Pinako saves the password on this device so auto-backups can run in the background. The saved copy is wrapped by a non-extractable browser key, so an attacker who steals only the extension's data file cannot read it. Your API keys and Arweave wallet key are wrapped the same way. For Arweave specifically, the raw wallet material is imported once into a non-extractable browser key handle and then discarded, so the wallet's private components never sit on disk after the initial import.

If you prefer stricter security, uncheck "Keep password on this device for background auto-backup" in the provider's panel. You will then need to reopen Pinako and re-enter the password after each browser restart. Scheduled auto-backups pause until you do.

Provider-specific tips

• Arweave: Uploaded data is public and permanent. Choose a strong password, because anyone who obtains an old encrypted backup can attempt to crack it offline. Treat your JWK wallet file with the same care as any crypto wallet.
• Storj: In the Storj console, create an access grant scoped to a path prefix like pinako-backups/* with read and write permissions only (not delete). This limits damage if your credentials are ever exposed.
• Lighthouse: The API key grants full account access. Rotate it periodically from the Lighthouse dashboard, and disconnect it from Pinako if you stop using the service.

Options & Preferences

The Options panel contains most of Pinako's configurable settings. Open it via Main Menu > More Options.

Display Settings

• Display Main Tree Notes: Shows or hides the Notes file-tabs row on the Main Tree panel. Turn this off if you don't frequently use notes and prefer a less cluttered interface.
• Show Date Created: Shows or hides the date each tab was first added to the tree, displayed on the tab row. Useful reference for gaining more context about tree content.
• Show Indent/Outdent Buttons: Shows indent and outdent buttons upon hover.
• Show Memo Button: The memo button appears on hover by default (and is always visible when a memo exists on that row). Enable this to keep it permanently visible on all rows.
• Show Tags Button: Same as above, for the tags button.

Interaction Settings

Open Tab on Single Click / Double Click

Controls whether clicking a live tab in the tree immediately switches focus to that tab in the browser (single click) or requires a double-click. Double-click mode is on by default, and is more user-friendly if you frequently interact with the tree without intending to switch tabs.

Always Center Tree on Active Tab

When enabled, the tree automatically scrolls to keep the currently active browser tab visible whenever Pinako gains focus or the active tab changes in the browser.

Auto-Open Pinako on Browser Launch

When enabled, the Pinako window opens automatically every time the browser starts, without needing to click the toolbar icon. Recommended to keep this on for Pinako to function optimally.

Include Incognito Tabs

When enabled, incognito windows and their tabs appear in the tree alongside your regular browsing. This requires you to first grant the "Allow in Incognito" permission in your browser's extension settings: open chrome://extensions (or your Chromium browser's equivalent), find Pinako, click Details, and enable "Allow in Incognito."

Incognito tabs are stored locally on this device only. They are never synced to the cloud, shared with third parties, or exposed to external services, even with Pinako Pro sync or AI features enabled.

Expand Direction

• Auto-Detect Expansion Direction: Pinako automatically determines which direction to expand secondary and tertiary panels based on where the window is positioned on your screen, keeping everything visible.
• Manual Direction Setting (Left / Right): When auto-detect is disabled, you can manually set whether to always expand to the left or right.

Performance: RAM-Saver Smart-Load Threshold

When opening many tabs at once (via session restore or opening a single window containing many tabs), tabs beyond a set threshold are opened in a hibernated (suspended) state rather than fully loaded, protecting your system's RAM.

The default threshold is 6: if you're opening more than 6 tabs at once, everything beyond the first 6 is suspended until you click it. Adjust this number based on your system's available memory.

Drag & Drop Behavior

Two modes control what happens when you drop a node on a row versus between rows. In the default mode, dropping directly on top of a row inserts the dragged node as a sibling below it at the same depth level, and dropping between rows nests it as a child of the row above. The alternate mode reverses this. Use the swap button in this section to toggle between modes. See Organizing Your Tree for more on how each mode behaves.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Pinako includes a comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts for common actions. Open the Keyboard Shortcuts panel from the main menu or from the Options panel to see all available shortcuts and their current key bindings.

All shortcuts are fully customizable. Click any shortcut entry in the panel to rebind it to a new key or key combination.

Themes & Appearance

Light & Dark Mode

Toggle between light and dark mode using Main Menu > Toggle Light/Dark. Pinako's dedicated in-house team of preeminent ophthalmologists, neurologists and endocrinologists recommend dark mode, even during the daytime hours.

Built-In Theme Gallery

Main Menu > Themes opens a gallery of built-in themes shown as visual previews. Click any theme to apply it to the entire Pinako interface immediately. Change the color palette by clicking edit or entering Customizer. Switch directly to the Customizer panel by clicking the button in the toolbar.

Theme Customizer

Main Menu > Customize opens the Theme Customizer. Adjust individual color variables (background tones, accent colors, text colors, and others) and the scrollbar width. Changes are previewed live as you adjust each setting.

When you're satisfied, save your customization as a custom theme. Saved custom themes appear in your gallery alongside the built-in ones and are included in your data backups. With a Pinako Pro subscription, custom themes are also synced to the Pinako web portal, so your preferred appearance is available everywhere you access Pinako.

Cloud Sync & Web Portal Pinako Pro

Setting Up Cloud Sync

Click "Pinako Pro Sign In" in the main menu to open the cloud sync panel. Sign in with your Pinako Pro account or use an authenticator connected to your account email. Once signed in, Pinako begins syncing your data automatically: tree structure, libraries, notes, tags, memos, Home Tab groups, node-metadata and custom themes are all kept in sync with the cloud.

The Pinako Web Portal

The Pinako web portal at pinako.pro/portal is a web application that essentially mirrors the Pinako interface in a browser. You can view your tree, browse your libraries, read your notes, and use search from any browser on any device, without the extension installed.

Main Tree vs. Libraries on the Portal

Your main tree is viewable on the portal but cannot be used to control live browser tabs (there is no browser API access in a web page). You can browse its structure and click the tab nodes to open links in new browser tabs, and drag nodes into your library trees, but you cannot edit or rearrange tabs of the main tree using the portal. The main tree Notes, however, unlike the tree itself, can be edited using the portal, with changes synced back to the desktop extension.

Your Libraries, including the link trees themselves as well as the Notes, are fully editable on the portal. Add, remove, and rearrange content in any Library from the portal, and those changes sync back to the extension on your other devices. This means you can add links to a Library while on a device where the extension is not installed, and then pull those links into your main tree once you're back at a device that has Pinako.

Multi-Device Access

If you use Pinako on more than one device, your main tree always represents the browser on the device you are using, but the main tree of another device can be accessed using the Synced Devices panel (Cloud icon in the main toolbar). And tabs can be pulled from that other device's main tree into the current active one. Libraries are synced and shared across all devices and the portal. Changes made on any device or on the portal to libraries are reflected everywhere.

On the web portal, you can switch the main tree display between different devices by clicking the Device Selector button on the main toolbar.

Synced Devices Panel Pinako Pro

The Synced Devices panel is accessible from the cloud icon in the main toolbar. It shows a list of your connected devices where Pinako is installed and active, as well all mobile devices you have connected through your browser.

Click any device in the list to load that device's current tree in the secondary panel. You can browse that device's tabs and drag any of them into your own main tree. This is useful when you want to access and pull tabs you had open on your phone or tablet directly into your desktop tree, or access another computer's browsing session without going to that machine or having to actively send yourself links from that computer.

Connecting Mobile Devices

Pinako can display tabs from your phone or tablet, letting you pull them into your desktop tree. This works by reading from your browser's built-in device sync, so there are two requirements:

1. You must use the same browser on both desktop and mobile. Chrome desktop syncs with Chrome mobile, Edge desktop with Edge mobile, and so on. Cross-browser pairing (for example, Chrome desktop with Edge mobile) is not supported.
2. Tab sync must be enabled in the browser on both devices, with both signed in to the same account.

The following browser pairs are supported:

Support for Safari and Firefox is in development, and when other Chromium browsers (such as Perplexity's Comet) add device sync capability, we will implement it for Pinako as well.

Setting Up Browser Sync

If you already have your desktop and mobile browsers synced, skip ahead to Linking the Device in Pinako.

Google Chrome:

1. On your Android or iOS device, open Chrome and tap your profile icon (or the three-dot menu > Settings).
2. Sign in with the same Google account you use on desktop Chrome.
3. Go to Settings > Sync > Manage what you sync and make sure Open tabs is enabled.
4. On your desktop, confirm sync is on: go to Settings > You and Google > Sync and Google services, and verify Open tabs is enabled.

Microsoft Edge:

1. On your mobile device, open Edge and tap the three-dot menu > Settings.
2. Sign in with the same Microsoft account you use on desktop Edge.
3. Tap your account > Sync, and make sure Open tabs is enabled.
4. On your desktop, go to Settings > Profiles > Sync, and verify Open tabs is enabled.

Brave:

1. On your desktop, go to Settings > Brave Sync > Start a new Sync Chain.
2. A QR code (or sync code) will be displayed.
3. On your Android device, open Brave and go to Settings > Brave Sync > Scan or enter sync code.
4. Scan the QR code or enter the sync code to join the chain.
5. On both devices, make sure Open tabs is included in the sync categories.

Opera:

1. On both desktop and mobile, sign in with the same Opera account.
2. Go to Settings > Sync and make sure Open tabs is enabled on both devices.

Vivaldi:

1. On your desktop, go to Settings > Sync and sign in with your Vivaldi account. Make sure Tabs is enabled in the sync categories.
2. On your Android device, open Vivaldi and go to Settings > Sync.
3. Sign in with the same Vivaldi account.
4. Enable Tabs sync on the mobile device as well.

Linking the Device in Pinako

Once your browser sync is active between desktop and mobile:

1. Open the Synced Devices panel in Pinako (cloud icon in the toolbar).
2. On one of the device card slots, choose the option to link a mobile device.
3. Pinako scans for synced devices and shows a list of detected mobile devices by name.
4. Select your mobile device from the list.
5. The device card now shows your mobile tabs. Click it at any time to browse your phone's open tabs in the secondary panel, and drag any of them into your main tree.

AI Semantic Search Pinako Pro

Pinako's AI search understands the meaning of your query rather than matching literal text. This is useful when you remember the topic or context of a tab but not the exact title or URL.

Using AI Natural Language Search

Normal search finds tabs that contain the exact text you typed. AI Search understands meaning:

• "that article about AI": matches blog posts, news articles, and papers about artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, or LLMs across any domain.
• "tabs I opened last Tuesday": understands time-based queries by comparing when tabs were opened to the current date.
• "music": finds tabs on sites like Spotify, SoundCloud, or Bandcamp, as well as music videos on sites like Youtube, or websites, articles and videos dealing with the topic of music.
• "video about cooking": matches video pages about food and recipes from sites like YouTube or Rumble, even if the word "cooking" doesn't appear in the title.

Click the sparkle icon in the search toolbar to switch to AI search mode. The search bar updates to show a submit button. Type a natural language query describing what you're looking for, for example: "that article about economic policy from last week" or "video about car repair". Press Enter on the keyboard or click the Enter button in the search container.

Pinako sends your query to an AI model that understands Pinako, along with data from your tree: titles, URL domains, memos, and tags. The model identifies which nodes best match your description and highlights them in the tree. It knows youtube.com means video, github.com means code, etc., and it knows about esoteric and unique subjects, such as niche musical sub-genres or localized current events.

Tips

• Be descriptive. "that react tutorial with hooks" works better than "react".
• Ask questions. "do I have any tabs about gardening?" works naturally.
• Use context clues. "the PDF I was reading about taxes"; it knows .pdf URLs are documents.

Monthly AI Credits

Because Pinako's built-in AI search consumes tokens, its use is limited by monthly credits, based on one's account tier. For normal-sized trees and libraries, the allotment should be more than enough for most users on all tiers. But if one uses the AI search on massive link-trees, it will consume the credits faster.

For instance, some browser bookmark collections have been accumulating for decades, and could contain tens of thousands of links. AI-search can be extra useful in such cases, and Pinako will fire up multiple parallel AIs simultaneously to ensure the results return as quickly as possible. However, it will consume a large portion of the monthly credits. One search of a bookmarks collection with 20,000 links may consume as much credits as 50 AI searches on an average size tab tree.

You can track your AI credit usage on "Media, Storage, AI Credits" panel, accessible in the main menu when signed in to your account.

Also note; there are no such limitations imposed by Pinako when using the MCP AI-Bridge to allow another AI assistant or agent to access, perform searches, or answer any questions about your Pinako trees and data.

Query Quotas by Tier

*Approximations

Pinako AI Bridge & MCP Pinako Pro

Pinako AI Bridge connects your Pinako workspace to desktop AI assistants and agents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Once connected, any compatible AI client can search your complete tab tree (windows, groups, tabs, memos, tags, timestamps), browse your libraries, and access your notes through natural language, without you needing to switch to the browser or copy anything manually.

Your AI agent can answer any questions about the content, and also extract and apply the information to use in other projects, such as creating spreadsheets or other documents, or utilizing targeted lists of websites to query for guided topical research, or generate summaries about the content of specific libraries and notes.

Supported Applications

Pinako AI Bridge automatically configures the following applications when they are detected on your system:

• Claude Code
• Claude Desktop
• Cursor
• Windsurf
• Cline (VS Code extension)
• Roo Code (VS Code extension)
• Continue.dev (version 0.9.210 or later)

Any application that supports the HTTP or Streamable HTTP MCP transport can also connect manually by pointing to http://localhost:37421/mcp.

Installing and Connecting

Download the Pinako AI Bridge installer from pinako.pro/downloads.

• On Windows, run the graphical installer. It detects your AI applications and displays a checklist. Select some or all of them, and the installer configures them automatically.
• On Linux, download the CLI installer, make it executable (chmod +x), and run it from a terminal. It walks you through the same detection and configuration steps.
• After installation, restart your AI applications and click the Pinako icon in your browser toolbar to activate the extension connection.
• For more detailed installation steps and manual configurations for apps not included in the installer, click here.

Your Pinako Pro subscription must be active in the extension for the bridge to function. Sign in to your account in the extension if you haven't already.

Data Privacy

All data processing through the AI Bridge occurs on your own machine. Your Pinako data is served from the extension's local storage through a local server running on your device. Nothing is sent to external servers as part of the MCP connection. Your AI client's own model handles all reasoning; Pinako just provides the data.

Coming Soon...

Dozens of additional features and interface enhancements are currently in development or on the docket, including:

• Mobile app
• Comment Threads
• Custom subdomains and custom domains for shared Library Workspace web pages.
• API Access
• More AI
  • Native AI Analyst: AI chat window built directly into the extension window.
  • Agentic AI MCP Bridge: Ability for external AI agents to change the data and tree structures in Pinako.
  • Native AI Agent: AI chat window built directly into the extension window with agentic capabilities.
• Auto-clean-up and organization
• Admin / SSO / Audit

Visit Pinako.Pro/#pricing to get Pinako Pro or compare subscription tiers.

Or go to Pinako.Pro/upgrade if you'd like to upgrade your current subscription.