For households and the businesses they run
The inbox for your paper.
Every document you would otherwise have to file, pulled in from wherever it arrives, read and filed for you, turned into what it means and when, and answerable in plain English.
- Email-in address and scanner support
- Import from Evernote, paperless-ngx or a folder
- Keys in AWS KMS, identifiers never in an index
How it works
Pull, don't push.
Every tool in this category fails at the same step: it makes you hand-carry documents in. Thaw watches the channels your paper already uses.
It comes to you
Forward an email, scan to the address, drop a folder, import an Evernote or paperless-ngx export. Nothing has to be moved by hand.
Read and filed
Each document gets a category, a type and a title, its facts pulled out, and links to the people, vehicles and properties it concerns.
A map, not a folder tree
Your household or business drawn from its paper: what is current, what is next, what is missing.
Dates become plans
Every renewal, expiry and deadline arrives with what happens if you miss it and what to do, from the document itself.
One page, read
What Thaw made of a declarations page.
A one-page auto policy declarations sheet, forwarded by email. Fictional carrier, real output. Nothing was typed.
Arrived by email, read in 26 seconds
Northwind auto policy declarations 2026-27
Insurance · Auto policy · 94% sure
- Policy number
- NWM-4471-09283-TX
- Term
- Oct 3, 2026 to Apr 3, 2027
- Premium
- $1,240.00 prior term $1,051.00
- Deductibles
- $500 comprehensive · $1,000 collision
- Bodily injury
- $100,000 / $300,000
People & things: Peter Leonard · 2019 Honda Civic EX · Northwind Mutual · Barton Agency
Sep 26, 2026
Pay Northwind auto premium $1,240.00
If missed: coverage is not in force for the new term.
- Pay the $1,240.00 six-month premium before September 26.
- Reference policy NWM-4471-09283-TX.
- Barton Agency, 512-555-0142.
Prepared: the premium rose from $1,051.00 to $1,240.00, an 18% increase over the prior term.
Apr 3, 2027
Northwind auto policy renews automatically
- Around early March, request the renewal declarations from the agency.
- Coverage to match when quoting: BI 100/300, $500 comp, $1,000 collision.
Closes itself when the next declarations page arrives.
What you get
A place you never have to organize.
Six plain screens: Inbox, Library, Map, Ask, Checkup, Up next.
Inbox and email-in
Every family and business gets an email-in address. Forward a bill, point the scanner at it, or drop a file, and it is read and filed within a couple of minutes.
Read more →First import
Point Thaw at the pile you already have: a folder, an Evernote export, a paperless-ngx export. Come back to a map of your household or business and a list of what is missing.
Read more →Map of people & things
The home screen is not a list of files. It is the people, pets, vehicles, properties, accounts and businesses in your life, each with what is current, what is next, and what is missing.
Read more →Checkup
For every person, vehicle, property, pet and business, Thaw knows what should be on file. The checkup lists what is missing, lapsed, expired or duplicated, worst first, each with what to do about it.
Read more →Up next
A renewal, an expiry, a payment due, a notice period, an appeal window: each is picked out of the document with what happens if you miss it and what to do, including the phone number printed on the page.
Read more →Ask and search
Answers come only from your documents and cite the page they came from. When nothing on file says, Thaw says so and names the document that would.
Read more →Trust
Built like the paper matters.
Because it does. Passports, tax returns, medical records and the deed to the house are the documents people trust to a shoebox. We took that seriously.
Keys live in a key service
Every file has its own key, wrapped by a key for your account, wrapped by a hardware-backed master key in AWS KMS. App servers never hold the master. Every unwrap is logged.
Identifiers never leave encrypted columns
Social Security, account and policy numbers are sealed with a blind index for exact search, and redacted before any text is indexed or sent for embedding.
Deleting is real
Delete a document and its key is destroyed that second, before backups rotate. The bytes are noise from then on.
An audit log you cannot quietly edit
Append-only, hash-chained at the database level, kept for the life of the account and included in your export.
Coming from somewhere
Bring the pile with you.
Thaw was built by someone who went from Evernote to a self-hosted paperless-ngx on a Mac mini and got tired of babysitting it. The import paths are the ones we needed ourselves.
From Evernote
Your .enex export keeps notebooks and tags as hints. Notes with attachments become documents; notes without become notes.
From paperless-ngx
The document exporter's ZIP brings correspondents, types, tags and dates along. Turn the Mac mini off.
Considering Granite?
A fair comparison on ingestion, the type registry, obligations and where the keys live.
Questions
The short version.
Who is this for?
Households that hate filing, and the owner-run small businesses they often also run. The same person, usually. Each gets its own family or business inside one account.
What do I have to do to keep it organized?
Nothing. That is the point. Documents are filed on arrival. Uncertain reads are flagged, not queued. There is no folder to choose and no name to type.
How is this different from a drive folder plus an AI chat?
A chat over a dump folder can answer "what is my deductible". It cannot notice that the Civic's registration lapsed, that 2021's tax return is missing, or that the lease needs 60 days notice by a date. Ingestion, understanding, the map and obligations are the product; the answer is table stakes.
Can I get my documents out?
Yes, as originals in a folder tree named the way Thaw names them, with your facts as CSV and JSON. A continuous mirror to your own Dropbox or Drive folder is on the roadmap so they are already where you can reach them.
Is it available now?
Early access, by invitation, while the first families settle in. Ask for an invitation and tell us a little about your paper.
Point it at the pile and walk away.
Early access is open to a small group of households and owner-run businesses. Tell us a little about your paper and we will send an invitation.