Ounie FAQ

A standalone set of common questions and answers about Ounie. Each entry stands on its own so it can be retrieved and answered individually.

Getting started & the basics

What is Ounie? Ounie is your AI second brain. You upload the things you read, watch, and write — files, links, notes, audio, and video — and Ounie turns them into a living, interlinked wiki you can ask anything, with answers cited straight back to your own sources.

What problem does Ounie solve? Knowledge workers capture information constantly and lose it instantly. Notes apps store but don't think; chatbots are brilliant but don't know your stuff and can't cite it. "I know I saved this somewhere" is the problem Ounie exists to fix.

How is Ounie different from a notes app? A notes app stores what you put in it. Ounie reads each source, synthesizes it into a clean wiki page, connects it to everything related, and lets you ask questions that draw across all of it — answering in plain language with citations.

How is Ounie different from ChatGPT or other chatbots? General chatbots are trained on the public internet and can confidently make things up. Ounie answers only from the sources you added, and every claim links back to the exact page it came from. If the answer isn't in your brain, Ounie tells you instead of guessing.

What is a "brain" in Ounie? A brain is a knowledge container — a collection of sources, their synthesized wiki pages, and the graph that connects them. You can keep separate brains for separate topics, projects, or clients.

How do I get started? Sign up at ounie.com, create your first brain, and add a source — a link, a note, or an uploaded file. Ounie reads it, builds wiki pages, and you can immediately start asking questions.

Do I need a credit card to try Ounie? No. Your first brain is free forever and no credit card is required to start.

What does "grounded, never guessed" mean? Answers come only from your sources, always with citations, and when the answer isn't there, Ounie says so. Trust is the product.

Who is Ounie for? Researchers, students, consultants, creators, and small teams — anyone who lives in documents and wants an AI that knows their world, not just the public web.

Is Ounie live and usable today? Yes. The web app at ounie.com is live in production, along with the iOS app, Chrome extension, and the public API and MCP connectors.

Adding content & sources

What file types can Ounie read? PDFs and Word documents, images, audio and video files, web pages (via links), and plain notes or text.

Can Ounie read images? Yes. Images are processed with OCR, so text inside an image becomes searchable, citable content.

Can Ounie handle audio and video? Yes. Audio and video are transcribed automatically, then synthesized into wiki pages like any other source. (Audio/video ingestion is a Pro feature.)

Can I save a web page or article? Yes. Paste a URL and Ounie fetches the page, extracts the main content, and synthesizes it.

Can I save a YouTube video? Yes. Ounie supports YouTube link ingestion, pulling the content in so you can ask about it later.

What's the difference between a note and a regular source? A note is saved verbatim and bypasses synthesis — useful when you want the exact text preserved. Links, files, and text sources are read and synthesized into clean wiki pages.

Where are my uploaded files stored? Files are uploaded directly to secure cloud storage via presigned URLs — the server never proxies your upload bytes. Your originals are kept immutable and never altered.

Can I bulk-import my existing notes? Yes. Ounie has a bulk-import wizard that brings in your existing knowledge from tools like notion and obsidian, among other formats.

Can I delete a source after adding it? Yes. Your brains are yours — you can delete any source (or a whole brain) at any time.

Asking questions & citations

How do I ask my brain a question? Open the Ask console for a brain and type your question in plain language. Ounie searches your brain, gathers the most relevant pages, and answers from them.

Does every answer include citations? Yes. Every claim links back to the page it came from, so you can click through and verify.

What happens if the answer isn't in my brain? Ounie tells you it doesn't have the information rather than inventing an answer.

Can Ounie make up a source or citation? No. Citations are resolved against the actual set of pages Ounie retrieved — the model can't invent a source link.

Can I see a history of my past questions? Yes. The Ask console has a Chat view and a List view; the List view shows past questions, and in shared brains it shows who asked each one.

Can I give feedback on an answer? Yes. Askers can react to answers, and brain owners can add push-back corrections, which appear in the brain's Feedback tab.

The wiki & knowledge graph

What is the Ounie wiki? A self-building, Obsidian-style vault. An LLM reads each source and writes a clean page with wikilinks; key entities and concepts get their own pages that grow as you add more.

What are wikilinks? The connections between pages. They let related pages reference each other, so concepts and entities form a connected web instead of isolated notes.

What is the knowledge graph? A visual map of how your ideas connect. Every concept and entity becomes a node you can explore.

Do I have to organize my wiki manually? No. Pages, entity pages, concept pages, and links are generated and grown automatically as you add sources.

What's the architecture behind Ounie? A hybrid llm-wiki + rag design: an LLM synthesizes each source into a coherent wiki page, while those pages are chunked and embedded into a vector index (pgvector) so retrieval stays fast at scale.

Can I edit a wiki page myself? Yes. Owners and editors can edit pages inline; the edit is re-indexed so future answers reflect your change.

Brains: organizing, sharing & collaboration

How many brains can I have? One on Free; unlimited on Pro and Team.

Are my brains private? Yes — private by default. Your brains are yours unless you choose to share or publish them.

Can I share a brain with someone? Yes. Keep it private, publish it publicly, or invite specific people to read or contribute.

Can teammates contribute to the same brain? Yes. Collaboration and shared brains with contributor seats are part of the Team plan.

Will my public brain show up in search engines? Yes. Public brains are SEO-indexed — every shared brain invites visitors to build their own.

Can people follow or star my brain? Yes. Public brains support stars and follows as part of the social layer.

Can I report or block someone? Yes. Ounie includes Report and Block controls as part of its moderation and safety features.

Forking & public brains

What is forking a brain? Forking turns someone's public, fork-enabled brain into your own copy in one click — so you start with a populated, ask-able brain.

Does forking copy the original files? No. A fork copies only the synthesized wiki layer — pages and connections — never the raw source files.

Is a forked brain public? No. Forks are private when created. You can publish later; published forked pages point search back to the original via canonical links.

Can I fork on the free plan? Yes. Forking is available on every plan and counts as a new brain against your brain limit.

Can I fork a paid brain? No. A brain listed for sale can't be forked — forking and paid listings are mutually exclusive.

Plans, pricing & billing

What plans does Ounie offer? Three: Free ($0), Pro ($9.99/month or $99.90/year), and Team ($24.99/month or $249.90/year). See ounie.com/pricing.

How much do I save with yearly billing? Yearly billing gives you two months free — it's priced as ten months instead of twelve.

How many questions can I ask? Free runs on a one-time bank of 1,000 personal questions that never expires. Pro is 5,000 per month; Team is 30,000 per month. Widget and paid-brain questions are metered separately.

How do I upgrade my plan? From your billing settings. On the web, billing is via Stripe; on iOS, via the App Store. Plans sync across both.

Which plan do I need for API and MCP access? The Team plan.

Credits, widgets & marketplace

What are credits used for? Credits are Ounie's universal currency (1 credit = 1 cent). They cover website-widget questions beyond your included allowance, paid marketplace brains, Landing Studio, and Auto-Research. Your own private questions don't use credits.

How do I get credits? Buy credit packs in a one-time checkout on any plan — Starter (1,000 for $10), Growth (5,000 for $40), or Scale (20,000 for $120). Credits never expire. Owners of paid brains also earn credits when their brain is asked.

Can I earn money from my brain? Yes. List a paid brain, earn credits when people ask it, and cash earned credits out to USD.

What is the website widget? It embeds one of your brains on a third-party site as a read/ask-only "Ask" bubble, so visitors can ask questions answered from your brain.

Can I remove "Powered by Ounie" from the widget? Free and Pro widgets show the badge; Team can remove it.

What is the Ounie marketplace? A place to sell access to a brain. You price per question or as a pass; buyers spend credits to ask, after a few free preview questions.

What do I need to sell a brain? A paid plan and a connected Stripe account for payouts. Buying never requires a plan — only selling does.

What fee does Ounie take on sales? 20% on Pro and 15% on Team. Pro can publish up to three listings; Team has unlimited.

Can AI agents pay to use my brain? Yes. Listings can be made agent-ready so autonomous agents discover and pay for access programmatically.

Apps & connectors

Does Ounie have a mobile app? Yes — a native iOS app with full web parity, plus phone-native capture: photos, videos, files, audio recording, and on-device voice dictation.

Can I save things to Ounie from other iOS apps? Yes. The iOS Share Sheet "Save to Ounie" pushes links, text, images, videos, and files from any app into a brain.

Is there a Chrome extension? Yes. It saves links, clips articles, saves pages or selections, collects highlights, and opens a clean reading view.

Does the Chrome extension track my browsing? No. It only sends content you explicitly save or highlight, and stores just your settings locally.

Can I use Ounie inside Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor? Yes. MCP connectors let those clients read and add to your brain.

How do I connect Ounie via MCP? Install the MCP package (npx -y @ounie/mcp) with an API key, or connect the hosted MCP endpoint as a custom connector in Claude.ai or ChatGPT using OAuth.

Can I use Ounie from Telegram, Slack, or Discord? Yes. Link the official Telegram bot, or add Ounie to Slack or Discord, to capture content and ask your brain via commands, mentions, or direct messages.

Is my data safe and private? Yes. Brains are private by default and shareable by choice. Answers are grounded and cited, rendered content is sanitized, files are stored securely, and you can delete your data or account at any time.