Frequently asked questions

ProjBox is a local desktop app that tracks how a project folder changes over time. It helps you see what changed, inspect diffs, and ask questions about your project history.

ProjBox is especially useful for people who work with changing CSVs, notes, configs, and similar project files, including:

• financial analysts
• accountants
• professors and engineering / research teams
• lab users
• software engineers who seek version control in files not tracked with Git or who want their codebases online
• anyone who keeps saving copies of files and later has to figure out what changed
• anyone who wants version control without having to put your files online

ProjBox is entirely local. The website itself may use standard web services for forms, analytics, or video embeds, but the ProjBox app is entirely on your machine

For transparency, I welcome you to verify this yourself by monitoring network activity while ProjBox runs. On Windows, you can use Resource Monitor or Windows Defender Firewall; on macOS, you can use Activity Monitor or a network monitor such as Little Snitch.

My driving credo behind ProjBox was that your project files stay on your machine. No cloud. No uploads. Everything 100% on your machine.

For the product itself, no permanent cloud account is the core idea. For beta access, you may be asked for an email address or access code so we can distribute the app and manage pilots.

The core functionality of ProjBox supports any and all file types. The Diff Viewer currently supports:

• CSV files
• text files
• Markdown
• YAML / YML

Support for more file types will be expanding over time, with .xlsx and .docx next on the horizon

ProjBox is meant to help you:

• see snapshot-level summaries
• inspect exact diffs
• preserve earlier project states
• ask questions about recent project history

No. Git is excellent for code. ProjBox is for project files that are harder to understand in Git, like CSVs, notes, configs, and local working folders. It gives you readable snapshot summaries and intelligent diffs without forcing a developer workflow. If your project is only code, you may not need ProjBox. If your project mixes code with data files, notes, and local working files, ProjBox works well alongside Git. Just add _ProjBox_History/ to your .gitignore so ProjBox snapshots stay local.

You can, if all you need is an old copy somewhere. But good luck quickly understanding what changed inside a messy CSV, note, config, or project folder. ProjBox is designed for understanding changes, not *just* recovering files (even though it does that too). You choose when to run a snapshot, and ProjBox turns that moment into readable project history. It represents your state of mind at that point in time.

If you received an access code, enter it on the access form. If you did not, request access from the same form and we will review your request.

That is the current target.

Yes, ProjBox can help you ask questions about your project history locally. The deterministic snapshot and diff layer comes first; the AI layer is there to make the history more queryable and usable. Please note that you will need to download Ollama at https://ollama.com/ to access chat features. Ollama allows you to download AI models on your local device so nothing ever leaves your device

Each snapshot is intended to preserve a point-in-time project state so you can inspect how work evolved over time.