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Ask questions about any text you paste

Drop in notes, a document, a policy or an FAQ, then ask in plain language. On-device AI finds the passages that actually answer you — by meaning, not just keywords.

⚙ loading…🔒 no upload💸 no cost🧠 semantic (meaning-based)

1 · Paste your text

2 · Ask a question

Paste text and press “Prepare for questions” to begin.

✨ Paste & Ask Pro — your private research library

The free tool searches one block of text at a time. Pro turns it into a multi-document knowledge base you can question all at once and quote with confidence:

  • Document library: save any number of named sources on your device and load them back in a click.
  • Search across all sources: ask one question and rank passages from every saved document, each result tagged with where it came from.
  • Export & cite: download your question and ranked matches — with match scores and source names — as TXT, Markdown, CSV or JSON, or copy any passage with a citation attached.
Get Pro →

Want to try it first? Use demo code AV-PASTEASK-PRO-DEMO to preview every Pro feature on this device.

Semantic search, running privately in your browser

Paste & Ask turns any text into something you can question. It breaks your text into passages, converts each one into a numerical “meaning fingerprint” (an embedding) using a small AI model running on your device, and does the same to your question — then ranks the passages by how closely their meaning matches. The result feels like search that understands you, with none of your content ever leaving the browser.

Why it beats Ctrl+F

Find-on-page only matches exact words. This matches meaning: ask “how do I get my money back” and it can surface a passage about “returns and refunds” even if your exact words never appear. That makes it ideal for long documents, FAQs, research notes, policies, contracts and meeting transcripts — anywhere the answer is buried in wording you can’t predict. Switch the result depth between the top 3, 5 or 8 passages, and matched terms are highlighted so you can see why each passage was chosen.

Build a private knowledge base (Pro)

Most “chat with your documents” tools upload your files to a server. Paste & Ask keeps everything on your machine. With Pro you can save many named sources — a handbook, a set of research notes, several contracts — into an on-device library, then ask a single question across all of them at once. Every result is tagged with the source it came from, so you always know where an answer lives. Because the library is stored only in your browser, sensitive and confidential material never travels anywhere.

Export and cite your answers (Pro)

When you need to act on what you find, export your question and its ranked matches — complete with match percentages and source names — to TXT, Markdown, CSV or JSON. Drop the Markdown into a report, open the CSV in a spreadsheet, or copy any single passage with a citation line attached for quoting. It closes the loop between finding the right passage and using it.

Private and free at its core

The embedding model (about 25 MB) downloads once and caches, then everything runs locally at no cost. Nothing is uploaded, so it’s safe for sensitive notes and confidential documents — and there’s no account to create and no usage limit to hit.

Related free tools

Pair it with the rest of the AppVitamins on-device AI kit:

Frequently asked questions

What does it do?
You paste text and ask questions; it finds and ranks the passages most relevant to your question using on-device AI embeddings, so you get the answer without reading everything.
Is my text uploaded?
No. The model runs in your browser. Your text and questions never leave your device; the only network use is a one-time ~25 MB model download, which is then cached.
How is it different from Ctrl+F?
Ctrl+F matches words; this matches meaning, so it can find the right passage even when your wording differs from the text.
Can I search across several documents at once?
Yes, with Pro. Save any number of named sources to your on-device library and switch on “Search across all sources” to rank passages from every document at once — each result is tagged with its source.
Can I export or cite the answers?
Yes, with Pro. Export your question and the ranked matches — with match percentages and sources — to TXT, Markdown, CSV or JSON, or copy any single passage with a citation line attached.
How accurate is the matching?
It uses the same family of sentence-embedding models that power production semantic search. It retrieves and ranks real passages rather than inventing an answer, so you always see the exact source text it matched.