The library

The library is Oleafly’s home screen. Every project appears as a book on a shelf, sorted by most recently modified, and everything you need to manage projects happens here.

The shelf

Each project shows its name, cover color, and last update. Open a project to return to its source and preview.

Use the grid to browse covers or the list to scan project details.

First time in the app? Start with Create your first project.

Creating a project

Click New project and choose how to start:

• Use a template for a paper, thesis, resume, presentation, or blank document. Browse the template gallery, choose a template, and name your project.
• Import a project to bring in existing files. See the import guide for each format.
• Research project to organize a research workspace with documents, sources, and tasks.

You can also open the gallery from anywhere with the search omnibar: press ⌘⇧F (Ctrl+Shift+F) and type /create.

Hover previews

Hover a book and the first page of its last compiled PDF slides across the cover, so you can tell your papers apart at a glance. Previews come from the real compiled output and are cached, so the shelf stays fast.

If you’d rather not see them, turn off Preview PDF on hover in Settings, Appearance.

Bookmarks

Hover a book and click its star to bookmark the project. The bookmark toggle in the header (Show bookmarked only / Show all projects) filters the shelf down to your starred set, which is handy once the shelf grows past a dozen projects.

The right-click menu

Right-click any book:

• Open project
• Change book color: eleven cover swatches (Blue, Cream, Peach, Rose, Pink, Lilac, Sky, Aqua, Cyan, Mint, Spring). The color is stored in the project itself, so it travels with the project if you sync it to another machine.
• Fork project: copies the project and its full Git history into a new project. The dialog suggests <name> (copy); give it any name you like. Use a copy to try another version of a resume or paper. The copy starts its own automatic checkpoint history.
• Delete project: moves the project to the Recycle Bin, where it can be restored. Permanent deletion removes the project and its checkpoint history.

Renaming a project

Open the project and click its title in the top toolbar. It becomes editable in place: type the new name and press Enter. The rename is saved to the project’s own metadata.

Search from the library

The header’s search icon (or ⌘⇧F / Ctrl+Shift+F anywhere) opens the search omnibar. It searches project metadata as well as the full text of every document in every project, jumping straight to the matching project, file, and line. Type / for scoped commands such as /projects, /docs, or /create.

Plain text matches any indexed project metadata. For a precise search, use a field:value filter:

Filter	Example	Matches
project_id:	project_id:abc123	Project ID
name:	name:resume	Project name
engine:	engine:typst	Tectonic, Typst, or Markdown engine
kind:	kind:image	Document or image project
main:	main:resume.typ	Main document path
created:	created:2026-07-18	Creation date
modified:	modified:7/18/2026	Last-modified date
color:	color:#1982c4	Cover color
bookmark:	bookmark:yes	Bookmarked or unbookmarked projects
preview:	preview:no	Compiled PDF preview availability
export:	export:pdf	Export filename, format, path, or date

Dates can use the ISO YYYY-MM-DD format or the date format used by your computer. Boolean filters accept values such as yes, no, true, and false.

Combine filters by separating them with spaces:

engine:tectonic bookmark:yes preview:true

You can also mix filters with ordinary words:

name:resume typst

The home dock

A small dock on the home screen collects everything that is not a project:

• New project: start from a template, import files, or create a research workspace.
• Search Documents: the search omnibar (⌘⇧F / Ctrl+Shift+F).
• Diagram Composer: the standalone figure editor, without opening a project first.
• Oleafly Tools: a searchable gallery of document utilities (below).
• Theme toggle: switch light and dark mode.
• Settings: the gear opens the full settings window.

Oleafly Tools

Enable LaTeX tools in Settings → Experimentation to show the Oleafly Tools gallery. It contains seven utilities:

Tool	Use it to
PDF to LaTeX	Reconstruct editable source from a text-based PDF, inspect it, and create a project.
LaTeX Preview	Try LaTeX snippets before adding them to a document.
BibTeX Validator	Find syntax problems, missing fields, and duplicate citation keys.
LaTeX Table Generator	Fill cells, set column alignment, and copy the resulting LaTeX.
Citation Search	Find papers and collect references.
Lab Search	Look up research institutions and their public profiles.
Conference Deadlines	Filter upcoming deadlines by research area and plan your writing schedule.

Where the shelf lives on disk

Every book is a plain folder under ~/.oleafly/projects/, with a human-readable random name like flying-pink-pikachu. Nothing about the library is proprietary: see Where your data lives.

Archive and restore

Archive a project to keep it out of your active library. Restoring an archive brings its files and checkpoint history back. The Recycle Bin keeps deleted projects available until you permanently delete them.