User Guide

What is Loam?

Loam is named after the rich, fertile soil where knowledge grows naturally. It is a personal knowledge management system (PKMS) designed around one simple idea: save everything, structure nothing, explore when ready.

You write freely — jot down thoughts, paste links, drop files, record voice memos. Behind the scenes, Loam uses AI to automatically extract the people, companies, places, topics, and relationships from everything you capture. Over time, a living knowledge graph emerges from your notes, without you ever needing to tag, categorize, or organize anything manually.

Loam is available as a web app and as a native iOS app with a share extension for capturing content from anywhere on your phone.

Who is Loam for?

• Writers and thinkers who want a calm, distraction-free space to capture ideas without worrying about where to file them.
• Researchers and analysts who want to see connections and patterns emerge across their notes.
• Busy professionals who capture everything on-the-go and want it all organized automatically.

Getting Started

Creating an Account

When you first visit Loam, you will see a clean login screen with the Loam wordmark and its tagline, "Thought management for humans."

• Tap Sign Up to create a new account. You will need to provide your email and choose a password.
• After signing up, you will receive a confirmation code via email. Enter it on the confirmation screen to activate your account.
• If you already have an account, simply enter your credentials and tap Log In.
• Forgot your password? Tap the Forgot password? link to reset it via email.

Your First Look

Once logged in, you land on the Home screen. You will see:

• A warm greeting with the current date and a count of thoughts captured this week
• A large capture box in the center — this is where you write
• A "Your day so far..." section showing today's recent captures
• A sidebar on the left with navigation (on mobile, this becomes a hamburger menu)

Capturing Thoughts

Capturing is at the heart of Loam. The philosophy is simple: just write. Do not worry about where it goes or how to organize it — Loam handles that for you.

The Capture Box

The capture box lives front and center on the Home screen — it is the first thing you see when you open Loam.

At the top of the box, you will find a compact formatting toolbar with quick access to Bold (B), Italic (I), Heading (H), horizontal rule (—), and bullet point (•). The expand icon in the top-right corner opens the full-screen editor for longer writing.

The main area is where you write. You can:

• Type a thought — anything on your mind, from a quick note to a longer reflection
• Paste a link — Loam automatically fetches the page title, generates a preview card, and extracts key information
• Drop a file — drag and drop images, PDFs, or other documents directly into the box

At the bottom of the box, you will find:

• Attachment icon (paperclip) — tap to select a file from your device
• Microphone icon — tap to start voice capture
• Date — shows the current date
• Capture button — tap to save your thought (or press the keyboard shortcut)

Below the capture box, a counter shows your usage against the Free plan limit (e.g., "15 / 100 thoughts").

The Expanded Editor

For longer writing, tap the expand icon (the small arrows in the upper-right corner of the capture box) to open the full-screen editor. This gives you a spacious, distraction-free writing environment with a complete formatting toolbar:

• Bold, Italic, Strikethrough
• Heading levels (Normal, H1, H2, H3)
• Bullet lists, numbered lists, and checklists
• Block quotes, inline code, and links
• Markdown shortcuts: type # + space for headings, ** for bold, - for lists

Your work is auto-saved as a draft in the background, so you never lose what you are writing. When you are ready, tap Save or press Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows).

Voice Capture

Loam supports two voice capture modes:

1. Real-time transcription — Tap the microphone icon to start live speech-to-text. Loam streams your audio to the AI and shows the transcription in real time. Just speak naturally and your words appear as text.
2. Record and upload — For longer audio notes, Loam records the audio and uploads it as a voice memo. The system transcribes it on the server side.

Voice capture works across all modern browsers and on iOS.

The Floating Capture Bar

When you navigate away from Home — to Thoughts, Graph, Timeline, Tasks, or any other screen — a compact floating bar appears pinned to the bottom of the screen.

This dark pill-shaped bar reads "Capture a thought..." and includes the same attachment, microphone, and send icons. It lets you quickly capture something no matter where you are in the app without navigating back to Home. Tap it, type your thought, and it is saved instantly.

What Can You Capture?

Loam handles many types of content:

Exploring Your Knowledge

While capturing is calm and simple, the Explore side of Loam reveals the structure that has been building behind the scenes. Navigate using the sidebar (desktop) or hamburger menu (mobile).

Home

Your landing page. Shows today's greeting, the capture box, and a "Your day so far..." feed of recent thoughts displayed as cards. Link cards show a preview image and the source domain. Text cards show the first few lines. Tap any card to see its full details.

Thoughts

The All Thoughts view shows every thought you have captured, displayed in a masonry card layout. Each card represents a different capture — text notes, link previews with images, PDF documents with their filenames, image descriptions, and more. The view shows a count of total captured thoughts at the top.

Graph

The Knowledge Graph is one of Loam's most distinctive features. It visualizes all the entities and relationships that Loam has automatically extracted from your thoughts as an interactive force-directed graph.

• Nodes represent entities (people, companies, places, topics, etc.), each color-coded by type
• Edges represent relationships between entities
• The graph header shows the total count of nodes and connections (e.g., "27 nodes, 22 connections")
• Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, and tap a node to see its details
• Use the Search nodes bar to find specific entities in the graph
• Tap Reload to refresh the graph with the latest data

The node colors correspond to entity types:

• Companies Brown / orange
• Persons Green
• Places Red
• Topics Yellow
• Gray — Concepts, Products, and others

When you tap a node, its direct connections are highlighted and all unrelated nodes fade out, making it easy to see exactly what is linked to that entity.

Timeline

The Timeline view shows all your thoughts in chronological order, grouped by day. Each entry shows:

• The time of capture
• A type badge (CAPTURE for text, URL for links, etc.)
• The title or first line of the thought
• A preview of the content

Use the Filter timeline search bar to find specific entries by keyword.

Tasks

Loam automatically extracts actionable items from your thoughts and turns them into tasks. The Tasks view presents these as a Kanban board with three columns:

• To Do — tasks waiting to be started
• In Progress — tasks you are working on
• Done — completed tasks (shown with strikethrough text)

Each task card shows its description and a priority badge:

• HIGH (red) — urgent items
• MEDIUM (orange) — normal priority
• LOW (green) — lower priority items

You can:

• Tap + New Task to create a task manually
• Use the Filter tasks search bar to find specific tasks
• Tap Refresh to re-scan your thoughts for new tasks
• Drag tasks between columns to update their status

Objects and Entities

This is one of Loam's most valuable features. As you capture thoughts, Loam's AI automatically identifies and extracts structured entities — building a rich, searchable knowledge base without any effort on your part.

Browsing Entity Types

The Objects section in the sidebar organizes everything Loam has learned about your world by type, each shown with a count of how many entities it has found:

• People — individuals you mention by name
• Places — locations, cities, countries
• Topics — subjects and themes across your notes
• Books — books you mention or reference
• Companies — businesses and organizations
• Projects — ongoing work and initiatives
• Events — occurrences and happenings
• Products — tools, services, and products you reference

Tap any type to see the full list of entities of that kind. For example, tapping People shows every person Loam has extracted from your thoughts.

Entity Detail View

Tap any entity to open its detail panel. Each entity shows:

• Entity name and type — displayed at the top with its type badge
• AI-generated summary — an overview of everything Loam knows about this entity from your thoughts
• AI Insights — automatically generated analysis connecting this entity to patterns and themes in your broader knowledge base
• Known facts — key details and specific facts extracted from your captures, presented as a structured list
• Connections — relationships to other entities with descriptive labels (e.g., "Alan Kay — developed — Smalltalk", "Alan Kay — worked at — Xerox PARC")

Tap any connection to navigate directly to that related entity and explore its own detail view.

Creating Objects Manually

Tap the + Object button at the bottom of the sidebar to manually create a new entity if you want to add something that was not auto-extracted.

Search and AI Assistant

Search

Loam has several types of search, each tailored to a different context.

Global Search

Press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows) from anywhere in the app, or tap the magnifying glass in the sidebar header, to open the global search overlay. This searches across your entire knowledge base — both entities and thoughts — and shows categorized results as you type.

Press ESC to close the overlay.

Graph Search

Inside the Knowledge Graph view, use the Search nodes bar to filter the graph. Nodes matching your query are highlighted and brought forward; non-matching nodes fade out, making it easy to focus on a specific area of your knowledge.

Timeline Search

In the Timeline view, use the Filter timeline bar to narrow entries by keyword. Only matching timeline entries are shown.

Task Search

In the Tasks view, use the Filter tasks bar to find specific tasks by keyword across all Kanban columns.

AI Assistant

Tap the sparkle icon at the bottom-right corner of the screen to open the AI assistant panel. The assistant is a chat-style interface where you can have multi-turn conversations about your knowledge.

The assistant:

• Searches your knowledge graph to find relevant information
• Provides answers grounded in your own captured thoughts and entities
• Cites sources so you can verify where information came from
• Supports multiple conversations that persist across sessions

Settings and Account

Tap Settings in the sidebar (or through the user menu at the bottom-left) to manage your account.

Profile

• View your display name and plan type (Free or Pro)
• Edit your display name with the pencil icon
• Set or update your email address

Account

• Upgrade to Pro — access unlimited thoughts, full knowledge graph, and AI features
• Change password — update your account password

Keyboard Shortcuts

Loam supports keyboard shortcuts for efficient use:

User Menu

Click your name at the bottom-left of the sidebar to access quick links:

• Settings
• Subscription status
• Keyboard shortcuts reference
• About Loam
• Sign out

Subscription Plans

Loam offers two tiers:

You can upgrade at any time from the Settings page or the Upgrade screen.

Mobile Experience

Loam is fully responsive and works beautifully on mobile devices.

Mobile Layout

On smaller screens:

• The sidebar collapses into a hamburger menu (three lines) in the top-left corner
• The capture box and thought cards stack vertically for easy scrolling
• The floating capture bar remains at the bottom for quick access
• The knowledge graph is touch-friendly with pinch-to-zoom and drag-to-pan

All views adapt to the narrower viewport. For example, the Tasks Kanban board switches from side-by-side columns to a stacked layout, and the knowledge graph remains fully interactive:

iOS Share Extension

One of Loam's most powerful mobile features is the iOS Share Extension. It lets you send content to Loam from any app on your iPhone or iPad.

How to use it:

1. In any app (Safari, Twitter, Notes, Files, Photos, etc.), tap the Share button
2. Select Loam from the share sheet
3. Optionally add a comment
4. Tap Post

The share extension supports:

• Web links — share a URL from Safari or any browser
• Text — share selected text or clipboard content
• Images — share photos from your camera roll or screenshots
• Files — share PDFs, documents, and other files

The shared content is automatically captured as a new thought in Loam, processed by the AI, and added to your knowledge graph. It is the fastest way to get information into Loam while browsing the web or reading on your phone.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Loam

1. Capture liberally. Do not filter yourself. The more you capture, the richer your knowledge graph becomes. Loam is designed for volume — it handles the organization.
2. Mention names and places. When you write about a meeting with someone, mention them by name. Write "Had coffee with Sarah Chen at Blue Bottle in Hayes Valley" rather than "Had coffee with a friend at a cafe." The specifics become nodes in your graph.
3. Paste links freely. When you read an interesting article, just paste the URL into Loam. It will fetch the title and content automatically.
4. Use the share extension. On iOS, make it a habit to share interesting content to Loam as you browse. Over time, your graph becomes a rich map of your interests and knowledge.
5. Check your Tasks view. Loam extracts action items from your thoughts automatically. If you write "I need to call the dentist tomorrow," it becomes a task.
6. Explore the graph periodically. The knowledge graph reveals surprising connections. Spend a few minutes zooming around it each week — you may discover patterns you had not noticed.
7. Use the AI assistant. Ask it questions about your own knowledge. It is like having a research assistant who has read everything you have ever written.

Frequently Asked Questions

About Loam

Loam is a personal knowledge management system that builds itself.

Version: 1.0.0
Website: loam.ink

"Save everything. Structure nothing. Explore when ready."