Reference Board Features

Everything Reference Board does for visual research.

A complete overview of the user-facing workflows in Reference Board, grouped by how creative references actually move through a project.

Visual First

Canvas + regions Boards stay spatial, zoomable, and easy to revisit even when the reference wall gets big.

Searchable

OCR, tags, colors Reference Board understands the details inside images, videos, links, notes, and metadata.

Private Value

$2.99 once A one-time App Store purchase for a local-first Apple workflow with iCloud when you use it.

Complete Feature Map

Grouped by the jobs Reference Board helps you do.

This page is intentionally practical: every list below is a user-facing workflow or a friendly feature that makes boards easier to collect, shape, search, or revisit.

Collect And Import

  • Drag and drop files onto a board
  • Paste images and URLs from the clipboard
  • Import photos and videos
  • Import any file on Mac
  • Share sheet import on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
  • Browser extension image picker
  • Right-click web image import
  • Selected text import from the web
  • YouTube link import with metadata
  • Import from URL via Shortcuts
  • Import latest photos via Shortcuts
  • Import from clipboard via Shortcuts
  • Continuity Camera photo, scan, and sketch capture on Mac
  • Automatic grid placement for batches

Organize The Board

  • Infinite spatial canvas
  • Multiple boards
  • Compact and tile board views
  • Rename, delete, share, leave, and stop sharing boards
  • Board archive export
  • Board archive import
  • Named regions
  • Region thumbnails
  • Previous and next region navigation
  • Minimap with viewport position
  • Sticky notes
  • Quote cards
  • Map location cards
  • Default sticky note colors

Understand Every Reference

  • Generated descriptions
  • Editable descriptions
  • Automatic title and caption data
  • Custom tags
  • Learned tag suggestions
  • Face naming
  • Manual face area placement
  • Object and segment detection
  • Scene category detection
  • Primary and secondary content types
  • Primary and secondary scene types
  • Dominant color swatches
  • Sharpness and blur signals
  • Body pose signal

Search And Rediscover

  • Command palette search
  • Natural-language search terms
  • Search all boards
  • Search board names
  • Search descriptions and titles
  • Search custom tags and suggested tags
  • Search face names
  • Search detected objects and segments
  • Search visible text inside images and video frames
  • Filter images, videos, faces, text, and sticky notes
  • Color filters and color picker search
  • Search by camera model, editing software, and capture year
  • Search YouTube title, channel, tags, and source terms
  • Open boards and items from Spotlight

Inspect And Use Details

  • Recognized text section
  • Copy OCR text
  • Highlighted text snippets
  • Similar image suggestions
  • Clickable color swatches
  • Source link card
  • YouTube title, channel, description, and tags
  • Camera model, ISO, aperture, shutter, and capture date
  • Resolution and timestamps
  • Location coordinates
  • Add a location map to the canvas
  • Download original when available
  • Preview-only state for synced items

Apple-Native Workflows

  • iCloud sync across devices
  • iCloud shared boards
  • Shared With You collaboration control
  • Live collaborator avatars and statuses
  • Apple Pencil annotations on iPad
  • Two-finger undo while annotating
  • Home screen and desktop image widgets
  • Random or tag-filtered widgets
  • Project-filtered widgets
  • Open widget items directly
  • Create board shortcut
  • Add image shortcut
  • Open board and open recent board shortcuts