the two mac apps

the two mac apps

on a mac, solstone is two separate apps that pair with each other — not one bundle. knowing which is which helps when you're troubleshooting or updating.

sol — the menu-bar app

sol lives in your menu bar. it's the pure client: it experiences your day alongside you and sends what it takes in — screen and audio — to a journal. it doesn't hold the journal itself.

the journal — the dock app

the journal is its own app in your dock. it's the memory sol keeps, running locally on this Mac, with its own window, its own update channel, and — when you've chosen local thinking — the bundled model that does the thinking.

why two apps

they update on separate clocks and ship separately, so a fix to one doesn't have to wait on the other. sol can also run alone, pairing with a journal that lives on a different mac or linux machine — the split is what makes that possible.

which do I have installed?

if you downloaded from solstone.app/install, you likely have both — check your dock and menu bar. if you only see one, look for the other in Applications, or reinstall using the download page's guidance for "sol," "the journal," or "both."

updating

each app updates itself independently — see keeping solstone up to date.