A design reference tool is an app whose only job is to hold the things you collect for inspiration, screenshots, website captures, app screens, images, and give them back to you when you need them. Not to publish them, not to design with them, just to keep them findable.
That sounds modest. It is also the thing most designers do not have. The average designer has references spread across a desktop full of screenshots, a bookmarks bar, a few Pinterest boards, a Figma file called "inspo" and a camera roll. Each of those stores things. None of them finds things.
What a design reference tool actually does
Strip away marketing and every reference tool for designers does some subset of five jobs.
- Capture. Take a screenshot of a page or an app screen and save it, ideally with the link it came from, in one action. If capture takes more than a click it stops happening.
- Read. Recognise the text in the image, so the words on a pricing page or in a menu become search terms later. This is the difference between a folder and a library.
- Tag. Record what the image is, a login screen, a data table, a dark landing page, without you typing it. Manual tagging is the step everyone abandons by week three.
- Annotate. Let you add one line saying why you saved it. No automatic system can supply your reason.
- Retrieve. Search by describing what you remember: "checkout with progress steps", "dark pricing with toggle". If you have to remember where you filed it, the tool has failed.
Anything that does all five is a design reference tool. Anything that does one or two is a folder, a bookmark bar or a moodboard app wearing the label.
How it differs from the things you already use
Bookmarks save a link, and a link is a promise the site may not keep. Redesigns and shutdowns erase the design you saved. We wrote a longer piece on why bookmarks are not a reference library.
Screenshot folders keep the pixels but nothing else. No link, no text search, no reason. Within a year they become the screenshots folder that is out of control.
Pinterest is a discovery product. It is good at showing you more of what you like and weak at letting you find the one thing you saved in March. Boards are public unless you remember to make them secret, and there is no text search inside images. See Pinterest alternatives for designers.
Moodboard apps such as Milanote or Figma boards are for arranging a curated set to present or explore. They are the output of a reference library, not the library itself. Our guide to making a UI moodboard covers where the two meet.
Figma is where the work happens. It is the worst possible place to store 800 screenshots, because every one of them loads with the file.
What to look for when choosing one
- Capture with the link attached, from a browser extension, not by dragging files around.
- Text recognition on save, so screenshots are searchable by their words.
- Automatic tagging by content and style, with the option to correct it.
- A private library by default. Your references are your competitive taste.
- Search by natural description, not by folder path.
- A price you will still pay when you have 5,000 items.
Where GetRef fits
GetRef is a design reference tool built around exactly these five jobs. The browser extension captures the page and its link in one click, every save is read and tagged automatically, you add one line if you want to, and you find things later by describing them. It is private, it is built for designers rather than for general note-taking, and the free plan covers 50 references so you can test the workflow before paying.
It is not the only option. Eagle is stronger if you want a desktop asset manager for thousands of local files, and mymind is broader if you want one place for articles, quotes and images as well as design. We compared the three honestly in Eagle vs mymind vs GetRef, and rounded up more in the best reference saving tools.
Getting started
- Install one tool and its browser extension.
- Move the best 30 screenshots from your desktop into it. Not all of them, the best.
- Add one line to each saying why you kept it.
- For the next month, save everything worth keeping through the tool and nowhere else.
- Once a week, search for something you remember saving. If you find it fast, the tool is working.
For the full method behind step three onward, read how to save design references.
Common questions
- What is a design reference tool?
- A design reference tool is software for saving visual references, such as screenshots, website captures and images, together with their source links and notes, and finding them again later by search. It sits between a screenshot folder, which has no search, and a moodboard app, which is built for presenting rather than storing.
- Is Pinterest a design reference tool?
- Partly. Pinterest saves images and links, but boards are public by default, you cannot search the text inside a screenshot, and you cannot attach a private note explaining why you saved something. Most designers use it for browsing and a dedicated tool for keeping.
- Do I need a design reference tool if I already use Figma?
- Figma is where you make things. Pasting hundreds of references into Figma files slows the file down and gives you no search across projects. A reference tool holds the raw material and Figma holds the work.
- What should a good design reference tool do?
- Capture a screenshot and its link in one action, read the text in the image so it becomes searchable, tag the image automatically, let you add a one-line note, and find any of it later by description. Everything else is secondary.
