Paper reading, reimagined
Research,
refined.
A fast, private, local-first reference manager built with Rust. Read, annotate, cite, and explore your papers — without the bloat.
Capabilities
Everything you need,
nothing you don't.
PDF Annotations
Highlights, sticky notes, underlines, ink, and area annotations — saved directly in your PDFs.
Smart Import
742 community web translators scrape metadata from Google Scholar, arXiv, PubMed, and 40+ academic sites.
Full-Text Search
Instant full-text search across your entire library, powered by SQLite FTS.
Citation Generation
14 CSL styles including APA, IEEE, Chicago, Harvard, and MLA. Export to BibTeX with auto-sync.
Browser Extension
Chrome extension for one-click saving from arXiv, DOI.org, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, and more.
Cloud Sync
File-based sync via Dropbox, iCloud, or Google Drive. Your data, your storage.
See how your
papers connect.
An interactive graph visualization maps relationships across your library. Group by tags, collections, authors, or journals — discover hidden connections between papers you'd never notice scrolling a list.
Chat with your
papers.
Ask questions about any paper in your library. The built-in MCP server gives Claude full context — your annotations, highlights, notes, and the paper's full text. Research conversations grounded in your actual reading.
Why Rotero
Built different.
Blazing fast
Native Rust binary. No Electron, no JVM, no garbage collector. Starts instantly, stays responsive with thousands of papers.
Truly private
Your library lives on your machine. SQLite database, local PDF storage. No accounts, no telemetry, no cloud dependency.
Open source
AGPL-3.0 licensed. Read every line of code. Contribute features. No subscription fees, no vendor lock-in.
Get started
Ready to refine
your research?
Free and open source. No account required.
Or build from source: git clone && cargo build --release