Join the conversation from any desk.
Shared chat, threads, files, tasks, and the member directory. Sign in with Life Science Login once your lab’s service is configured and your access is assigned.
Open in browser →SeqDesk Lab · A shared research workspace
A space for your lab.
Designed for research.
Keep the conversation, the next steps, and the people doing the work together. Chat with your group, share files, and turn a discussion into a task — with your lab’s projects and notes close at hand.
- Group chat
- Shared tasks
- Files & threads
- Projects
- People
- Lab notepad
Browser: shared chat, tasks, files, and members.
Mac: the full workspace, plus mail and calendar.
Lab access and sign-in information
Infection Biology LabExample workspace
WorkspaceChatTasksPeopleChannels# general# sequencing# journal-club
# sequencingRun planning & QC
Shared task · from this conversationUpdate the sample sheet
Ben OkaforDue Wednesday
Message # sequencing
Team collaboration
Where research conversations become shared work.
A channel for each project. A thread for the question that needs a little more discussion. Share the report, mention a colleague, and create a shared task from the message so the next step has an owner.
# resistance-screen5 members · 3 onlineteam chat
CHANNELS# General# resistance-screen# journal-club 2SHAREDProjectsPeopleLab notepad
JS
Sequencing slot is confirmed for Thursday 9:00 — the lane 3 re-run goes in first.
↳ 3 replies · last 09:26AW
BBen can you update the sample sheet before then?
BO
On it — the table is in the lab notepad already.
Message # resistance-screen|
Channels, threads, Markdown, @‑mentions, presence, editable messages — the quick lab questions stop landing in the inbox. And because chat lives in the same app, a discussion sits right next to the projects, people, and tasks it is about.
Open shared chat and tasks in your browser or the Mac app. Files and the member directory are available in both. The Mac app also brings in shared projects, the full People directory, and the lab notepad. Access is controlled by your lab’s membership and permissions.
Keep the discussion together
Channels, threads, and files
Discuss a project in its own channel. Use replies, mentions, and reactions to keep decisions with the conversation, and share the files the group needs.
Make the next step clear
Tasks with an owner
Create a task from a message, assign a colleague, and set a due date. Switch between list and board views to see what is open, in progress, or complete.
Build on shared context
A home for the lab’s knowledge
The Mac app adds shared project planning, a People directory, and the lab notepad. Keep the group’s work connected while personal mail and private notes stay separate.
Browser and Mac
A shared lab. Your own way to work.
Your lab and your working day, together.
The full collaboration workspace alongside mail, calendar, personal tasks, projects, and notes. Optional AI features help with triage and drafting using the endpoint you choose.
Why a front desk
The desk work nobody hands off anymore.
Labs used to have someone who opened the post and chased the deadlines. That position is gone, and the work moved into your inbox: newsletters, system notices, a steady drip of spam, and a handful of things that genuinely need you buried inside. SeqDesk Lab picks it back up.
121emails a day reach the average professional. Most never needed you.
45%of all mail traffic is junk. SeqDesk Lab never puts it on your desk.
1clean list on your desk: replies, decisions, deadlines. Nothing else.put together bySeqDesk Lab
How SeqDesk Lab learns
Swipe once. Teach it forever.
SeqDesk Lab shows you the mail it isn’t sure about, one card at a time. Every swipe is a training example, and the two classifiers behind it run entirely on your Mac. The more you answer, the more SeqDesk Lab settles before you even look.
↑SPAM←NO
ACTION→ACTIONLATER↓
ACTION→ACTIONLATER↓
JS
Julia Sørensen
2h ago
Slides for Thursday's lab meeting?
could you pull together a few slides on the resistance-screen results for Thursday? Ten minutes is plenty.
SeqDesk Labthinks: action · 68% sure
TO‑DO?
Four ways to answer, the same four as in the app: right makes it a task, left clears it, up junks it, and down snoozes it until tomorrow.
Only up and the two horizontal answers train anything. Snoozing costs SeqDesk Lab nothing and buys you a quiet afternoon.
SeqDesk Lab learns to sort your mail — on this Mac
action68%
spam94%
what SeqDesk Lab currently thinks · nothing leaves this Mac
Two on-device classifiers, trained from your answersApple Core ML · on device
Action-item finder
Learns what needs you
Every “action” and “no action” teaches SeqDesk Lab the difference. New mail arrives pre-scored, so what needs a reply rises to the top on its own.
Spam filter
Learns your junk
It learns from the messages you junk, so it fits your mail rather than a shared blocklist. SeqDesk Lab flags the obvious ones and can move the worst offenders out of sight.
Both models are trained and stored on your Mac with Apple's Core ML. No message text is ever uploaded to train them.
Quick capture
SeqDesk Lab, one button away.
Hit ⌘L anywhere on your Mac and a small box floats over whatever you are doing. Write down what happened in the lab and SeqDesk Lab files it: the @people, #projects and to-dos are picked out as you type. ⌘A opens the same box in Ask mode.
works outside the app · logs to your notepad
Log⌘LAsk⌘A
quick captureFinished QC on run 2417. AAnna to re-run lane 3 for #Resistance-screen. /todo book seq slot tomorrow|
DETECTEDTo-do · due tomorrowAAnna Weber#Resistance-screen
↵ to log · esc to dismissLog
The model behind SeqDesk Lab
Any LLM that speaks the OpenAI API.
Tagging, task extraction, summaries, and reply drafting all run through one endpoint you configure: POST {base-url}/chat/completions with a Bearer token. If a service speaks that format, SeqDesk Lab can use it. Swapping models is a single field, and secrets live in the macOS Keychain by default.
SETTINGS · INTELLIGENCE
Service URLhttps://api.blablador.fz-juelich.de/v1/
API key•••••••••••• in the Keychain
Modelalias-fast
Embeddingsoptional, turns on semantic search
Blablador
At a Helmholtz center? Blablador runs open models at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Its published documentation states that request content is not retained in usage logs.
Managed local
On supported Apple Silicon Macs with 32 GB of memory, SeqDesk Lab can install its reviewed chat and embedding models. Downloads are pinned and checksum-verified before use.
Ollama · vLLM
Use another compatible model on your own Mac or a server you control. A local endpoint needs no API key.
Any provider
OpenAI, Azure, or anything else exposing the compatible API. Your endpoint, your key, switch anytime.
AI starts only with your consent. After the endpoint test succeeds, SeqDesk Lab asks you to confirm that the mailbox and related workspace data contain no information with elevated security or privacy requirements, such as patient data. AI features remain disabled until you agree.
Data protection
Know what is private. Choose what to share.
Personal mail and lab collaboration have different destinations. The Mac app connects to your mail server; shared work goes to your configured collaboration server. Optional AI requests go to the endpoint you choose. Joining a lab does not upload your mailbox.
Place one
Your Exchange server
Mail and calendar over EWS, using the server your organization already runs.
Home
Your Mac
SeqDesk Lab lives here: isolated local workspaces, Keychain by default, spam & action classifiers trained on-device.
Place two
The LLM you choose
Blablador, a local model, or any compatible endpoint, for tagging, tasks, and drafting.
Shared collaboration uses your lab’s server. The browser interface communicates directly with that service for chat, tasks, and files. Shared content can be accessed by authorized members and server operators; it is not end-to-end encrypted. Removing access does not erase downloaded copies. Read the collaboration privacy notice (draft) for details.
On-device classifiers
Spam and action filters train with Core ML on your Mac. Zero network calls.
Sandboxed reading pane
HTML mail renders with no JavaScript and no remote loads, so tracking pixels never fire.
Explicit secret storage
Secrets use the Keychain by default. You may explicitly choose a less-secure, unencrypted private-permissions file in the app's Application Support folder.
Personal and shared
Private notes and tasks stay separate from shared records. Review the audience before sharing text or files with your lab.
The full Mac workspace
Everything a working day needs, one click apart.
The sidebar switches between the app's spaces while SeqDesk Lab stays available beside your work. Each Exchange account gets its own workspace, so a second affiliation never bleeds into the first. Badges tell you where the day's attention is owed.
Tasks
The list SeqDesk Lab puts on your desk, as urgency buckets or a kanban board. The badge counts what's due today and overdue.
Triage
The swipe deck. Clear the day's new mail in seconds and teach SeqDesk Lab as you go.
The full mailbox: threaded conversations, tag filters, search, and a sandboxed reading pane.
Calendar
Your Exchange calendar, editable: drag to move or resize, RSVP with conflict checks, and see Google feeds alongside.
Projects
Keep related messages, tasks, notes, and people together around the work they belong to.
Notepad
Durable notes inside the same account workspace, including everything you send from Quick Capture.
People
The people connected to your messages and projects, with the context you need before replying.
Chat
The lab's team chat, one keystroke from your mail. It appears once your team workspace is connected.
Ask SeqDesk Lab
Ask about mail, tasks, and calendar context beside any space, using the intelligence endpoint you selected.
And the rest
SeqDesk Lab does the tedious part. You keep the last word.
Tasks
Deadlines it can infer
Tasks carry dates SeqDesk Lab found stated or merely implied, like "before Friday's meeting", and drop the ones assigned to someone else.
Drafting
Replies from templates
Keep templates with placeholders. SeqDesk Lab picks the right one and fills the blanks for you to edit before sending.
Reading
Summaries on demand
One click condenses a long thread to a few bullets, in the email's own language, German or English.
Search
Search that understands
A precise filter language, plus optional semantic search once an embedding model is set, so you can find mail by meaning.
from:weber has:attachment after:2026-05-01
Tags
Your rules, your labels
SeqDesk Lab sorts mail into your own tag set with a confidence score, and learns from every correction you make.
Calendar
Editable Exchange calendar
Drag to move or resize, create on the grid, and answer invitations with a built-in conflict check.
Where SeqDesk Lab sits
Smart, sovereign, and native, without trading one away.
Mail clients tend to be built around a different set of priorities than a research group has. SeqDesk Lab is built for three at once: it triages your mail into tasks, it sends AI requests only to the endpoint you configure, and it runs as a native Mac app on the Exchange account you already have. The table below sets out how we read other tools' published feature lists on those same points, so you can see what SeqDesk Lab is and is not designed for.
| App | Platform | Works with your Exchange | AI triage to tasks | Choose your LLM endpoint | On-device / local AI | No vendor cloud (data local) | Team collaboration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SeqDesk Lab | macOS native | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● self-hosted |
| Superhuman | Mac/iOS/Win/web | ● | ● | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Shortwave | Mac/iOS/Android/web | ○ Gmail only | ● | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Spark | Mac/iOS/Android/Win | ● | ◐ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Missive | Mac/iOS/Android/web | ● | ◐ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● shared inbox |
| Canary Mail | Mac/iOS/Android/Win | ● | ◐ | ◐ own key | ◐ | ○ | ◐ |
| Outlook + Copilot | Mac/Win/iOS/web | ● native | ◐ | ○ | ○ | ○ | ● |
| Apple Mail + AI | macOS/iOS native | ● | ◐ | ○ | ● | ◐ | ○ |
| Proton Mail | Web/Mac/iOS/Android | ○ own service | ○ | ○ | ◐ | ● | ● |
| MailMate | macOS native | ◐ via IMAP | ○ | ○ | ● | ● | ○ |
● yes ◐ partial ○ no
Compiled in 2026 from each vendor's own public documentation and pricing pages, and limited to the criteria above, which are the ones that matter to us. It reflects our reading at that time, not testing of every product, and “partial” is a judgement call rather than a measurement. These products are actively developed and several are strong at things this table does not ask about, such as shared inboxes and mobile apps. Please check current documentation before drawing conclusions, and tell us at pmu15@helmholtz-hzi.de if we have something wrong and we will correct it. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.
What's new in 0.7.0
Your lab
A workspace the whole group shares
Invite the lab, set roles and per-device access, and work in one place: shared tasks on synchronized boards, shared notes, people and projects. Helmholtz single sign-on gets everyone in without another password.
Chat
Public channels and private threads
Team chat with public and private channels, editable threads, mentions and unread badges. A browser workspace mirrors the Mac app over the same sign-in, so nobody is locked out on the wrong machine.
At the bench
Tools that belong in a lab
Sequence exploration, plasmid maps, pairwise alignment, protein annotations, cell counting, dilution and CFU calculators, and plate maps — alongside the Timesheet and Invoice trackers in the add-on store.
Give your lab a shared space.
SeqDesk Lab is developed at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and is free to use. Open the browser companion for shared chat and tasks, or download the Mac app for the full workspace alongside your mail and calendar.
macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later · universal Apple Silicon and Intel build · Developer ID signed and Apple-notarized · signed, user-confirmed in-app updates · SHA-256 checksum