Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about ChockaDocs.
Why is it called ChockaDocs?
"Chocka" is Australian slang for "completely full" or "packed to the brim." ChockaDocs is all about filling your library—collecting documents, filling collections, chocking them full of tags and metadata. Plus, it's a bit cheeky and memorable, which felt right for an indie Mac app built by someone who loves great tools.
Is ChockaDocs Mac-only?
For now, yes. ChockaDocs is built specifically for macOS using native Swift and SwiftUI, and needs macOS 26 or later on Apple Silicon or Intel. An iPhone and iPad companion is in development and planned for v2 alongside iCloud sync—it isn't available yet. No plans for Windows.
How much does it cost?
ChockaDocs is a one-time purchase, coming soon to the Mac App Store. No subscriptions, no in-app purchases, no surprise fees. You buy it once and it's yours forever, with free updates included.
Where does my data live?
Everything stays on your Mac. There's no cloud sync, no servers, no accounts to log into. Your library lives in a local .chockadocs package that you fully control. You can move it, back it up, or copy it wherever you want—it's completely yours.
What can I put in it?
PDFs, Word documents (DOC and DOCX), RTF and plain text, plus TIFF, JPEG, PNG, GIF and HEIC images. Each one is kept in its original format and shared out under its real name. Password-protected Word files are never text-searched—ChockaDocs won't ask for, store or work around a document's password—and protected DOCX files can't be imported.
Does it send my documents off to an AI?
No. Capture Details reads each document on your Mac and fills in what's missing: date, issuer, amount, tax, currency, and whether it's a receipt, statement or certificate. Rules and your own library do most of the reading; Apple Intelligence only settles close calls on dates, and it still works without it. It never overwrites anything you've typed, a sparkle marks every field it filled, and a whole run undoes in one step. Summaries are written on-device by Apple Intelligence, so treat them as a helpful guess rather than gospel.
Can I import from Paperless?
Yes. ChockaDocs imports your entire Paperless library in one go—documents (including Word, RTF and image originals), tags, collections, smart collections, document types, the Paid? and Payment Date fields, and your existing OCR text. Paperless OCR is kept, and becomes searchable once ChockaDocs has recognised the document itself.
Can I use ChockaDocs on multiple Macs?
Your whole library is a single .chockadocs package, so you can copy it or move it to external storage and open it on another Mac. You can keep several libraries too: hold Option when launching ChockaDocs to pick one, browse for another or create a new one. One library is open at a time. iCloud library sync is planned for v2.
Does it have full-text search?
Yes. ChockaDocs can recognise text in PDFs and images on your Mac as they're imported, and work through your existing documents in the background. Word, RTF and text files are searchable too. Search works in-app and through Spotlight, with page snippets showing why a document matched, and ⌘F finds words inside the open document. Recognition runs while ChockaDocs is open.
How does it handle large libraries?
ChockaDocs is built to scale. Even with thousands of documents, search is fast and the interface stays responsive. Thumbnails are cached intelligently, and the database is optimised for quick queries. Performance is a core design principle.