Sanctum: Writing & Research
Read. Study. Think. Write.
Free · In‑App Purchases
Free to download. Try everything for 7 days, then $2.99 a month, $19.99 a year, or $49.99 once for life. Every plan includes Ember.
Sanctum is a private place for people who take learning seriously. Read, research, and write on a subject for months, and keep everything you know in one calm room that belongs entirely to you.
Your pages live as plain Markdown files in a folder you choose. No account. No servers. No subscription. Pay once, own it, and it comes to your Mac, iPhone, and iPad with one purchase.
ON iPHONE
A reader and a net. Open any page from your vault and read it on a proper page, with your place kept and the minutes left in view. Paste a link or an article, share from Safari, or scan book pages with the camera, and it lands in your Vault for later. Capture a thought in a tap. Everything you take in on the phone is waiting on the Mac.
ON iPAD
The full desk. Write in the editor, build sub-pages, work the Vault, and open the Observatory to see how everything you know connects. With a keyboard it is the Mac experience; with a finger it is built for touch.
TAKE IT IN
Paste anything: a YouTube link, an article, a PDF, raw text, a screenshot. Ember reads it, including full transcripts, distills it into a summary with the people, places, and concepts marked, and files it where you were working.
MAKE SENSE OF IT
Ask Ember about a single notebook or your whole vault. Or look: the Observatory draws your pages, links, and tags as constellations, one for each area of study. The more you write, the more sky you have.
MAKE SOMETHING
A clean, fast editor with focus mode, page history, and typing sounds tuned like instruments. Any page holds sub-pages. Excerpts become footnotes. Build a course, a thesis, a book.
A PLACE, NOT JUST A TOOL
Living scenes behind glass, on every device. Rain and a quiet score that follow the room. On the phone, download the scenes you want and they stay.
EMBER, INCLUDED
Your purchase includes a starting balance of Ember, one pool shared across your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. When it runs out, top it up, or bring your own key from Anthropic or OpenAI and pay them directly. Without Ember, everything else works exactly the same.
YOURS, ON YOUR DISK
Keep your folder in iCloud Drive and every device opens the same vault. Open your files in any app. Export everything anytime. Leave whenever you want; nothing is locked in.
Free to try for 7 days. Then monthly, yearly, or own it forever. One purchase covers every device. The room is yours.
Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Privacy Policy: https://getsanctumapp.com/privacy
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Sanctum is now free to download. Try all of it for 7 days, then choose how you keep it.
• Three ways to keep Sanctum: Monthly, Yearly, or Lifetime (own it once, forever). One purchase covers Mac, iPhone and iPad.
• Already bought Sanctum? Nothing changes — you own it, and this update knows that.
• Every plan, and the trial, includes about a month of Ember — summaries, Ask, synthesis — with no key of your own.
• Your pages stay plain files in your own folder, plan or no plan. Without a plan you can still open, read and export everything.
• Settings › Plan shows your plan, restores purchases, and manages a subscription.
The developer, Spencer Tally, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Purchases
- Identifiers
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Spencer Tally
- Size
- 348 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 15.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 15.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 15.0 or later. - iPod touch
Requires iOS 15.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 12.0 or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Sanctum Lifetime $49.99
- Sanctum Monthly $2.99
- Sanctum Yearly $19.99
- Large Ember Pack $49.99
- Medium Ember Pack $19.99
- Small Ember Pack $9.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Spencer Tally