Elyra
 Elyra The coding agent eTerm The terminal that knows where each command ends Starf An activity monitor for Apple silicon that never invents a number Litr A small, native web browser for macOS e The native code editor Elyra Grove Native local development environment Askr The real server for Laravel & PHP Elyra Framework Rust + Svelte 5 framework for desktop apps Elyra Conductor Local project conductor Refr Local-first PDF workspace for macOS Elyra SQL Server MySQL-compatible SQL server in Rust Elyra Félagi Agents as teammates on one board Elyra SQL Client Native desktop SQL workbench Elyra SQL Anywhere Replication-ready SQL engine Elyra Sjá SEO & GEO workspace for macOS Elyra DataGrid Server-driven data grid for Laravel
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Overview
Getting started
The workspace
Working with PDFs
Reading and navigating
Annotating
Comments
Organizing pages
Fill and sign
Saving and exporting
Keyboard shortcuts
Reference
Privacy and limitations
Troubleshooting
Developing
Building
Architecture
Workspace format
Porting notes
Testing
Releasing
Contributing
Elyra
Elyra
Refr
Privacy and limitations

Privacy and limitations

Everything stays on your Mac

  • Refr has no account, sign-in or subscription.
  • It doesn't upload documents, send telemetry or analytics, or check for updates. It makes no network connections of its own. The only time it reaches the internet is when you click a link in About Refr, which opens your browser.
  • Documents are read into memory. Refr writes only files you ask it to save, plus the files below.
File Holds
~/Library/Application Support/Refr/recovery.pdfspace The recovery copy, including its original PDF. It exists only while a document has unsaved changes.
~/Library/Application Support/Refr/recent.json Paths of the last ten files you opened or saved
$TMPDIR/Refr/<title>-print.pdf The PDF created when you print

To remove all traces, quit Refr and delete ~/Library/Application Support/Refr.

Workspaces contain the whole document

A .pdfspace workspace embeds the complete original PDF, including anything that's cropped out or hidden under an annotation. Share a workspace only with people who may see the entire original document.

What Refr deliberately doesn't do

Refr leaves features out rather than doing them badly. The All tools panel lists the ones that are missing, disabled, so nobody mistakes a visual effect for a security feature.

Not supported Why it matters
Redaction Cropping only hides content with the page's crop box, and covering text with a shape only draws on top of it. The original text and images are still in the PDF and can be recovered. To remove sensitive content, use a tool that does true redaction.
Certificate-based digital signatures A drawn signature is a visual mark. It doesn't prove who signed or show whether the document changed afterwards. See Fill and sign.
Encryption and password protection Refr can't add a password, and it can't open password-protected PDFs.
OCR Scanned pages without a text layer can't be searched, selected or marked up by word. You can still draw on them and mark areas.
Interactive form filling Form fields aren't filled. Add text on top of them instead.
Editing existing page content Refr adds content on top of pages. It doesn't change the PDF's own text or images.

A watermark added with Add watermark is also a visual mark. It's easy to remove from the workspace, and in an exported PDF it's ordinary page content, not a protection.

Other limits

Limit Value
Open documents 8
Pages per document 4,096
Combined size of source PDFs in a document 64 MB
Annotations per document 50,000
Undo steps per document 100
Pages in a split archive 300
Exported PNG Longest side 4096 px

Exported annotation text uses Helvetica with Windows-1252 characters. Text in other scripts shows in the viewer but may be missing from exported PDFs.

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