Changelog

What's new in BriefScholar

New features, improvements and fixes, newest first. Each month lists what went live for everyone.

May 2026

Released 21 May. You can now chat with a paper, organize your Library into folders and tags, and get around the app from a new sidebar.

A Chat tab in the PDF viewer ("Ask About This Paper") answers your questions from the paper's text and your notes, with page citations that jump to that page. Each answer starts in plain language, then goes "In depth" and ends with "Why it matters".
Your chat history is kept for each paper, and a Clear button starts the conversation over.
On the Free plan, chat can also look at the page itself when you ask about a figure, table or chart.
Chat is limited to 30 messages an hour and 100 a day.
The Library has a sidebar with All papers, Unfiled, References, your folders (with subfolders you can rename or delete) and your tags.
Each paper's menu offers "Move to folder…" and "Edit tags…", and you can pick a folder and tags when you upload.
"Add as reference only" saves a paper's details without generating a summary, flashcards, quiz or chat. A "Generate study materials" button on the paper page processes it fully later.

Library, Upload, paper and review pages use a collapsible sidebar for navigation and your account menu instead of the top bar.
After signing in, you land in your Library instead of the Upload page.

A feedback button, and fewer real papers turned away at upload.

A round feedback button in the bottom-right corner of every page opens a short feedback form.

Fewer genuine research papers are rejected as "not a research paper": the check now reads the first four pages instead of two and recognizes headings such as "Key words" and "Literature review".

If a page hits an unexpected error, you now see a "Something went wrong" message with a "Try again" button instead of a broken page.

BriefScholar went live on 7 January 2026.

Add a paper by uploading a PDF or pasting an arXiv link. Uploads are checked up front: only readable research papers between 50 KB and 25 MB are accepted, and you see a clear message when a file is refused.
A progress screen walks through each step (Upload, Parse, Sectionize, Summarize, Study Materials) while your paper is prepared.
Every paper gets an AI summary, a list of key claims and a short summary of each page.
The paper page has Overview (abstract, keywords, affiliations), Summary and Key Claims tabs, plus details such as authors and page count and a page navigator.
Flashcards and a multiple-choice quiz with a score are created for every paper, and you choose how many of each (up to 10) before processing starts.
A built-in PDF viewer with zoom shows the summary of the page you are reading beside it.
My Library lists your papers with search, labels each one "From Explore" or "Generated" with a filter for each, and lets you delete a paper after a confirmation.
Explore lets anyone, signed in or not, browse papers uploaded by the community by research field, search them, and add any of them to their own Library.
Create an account with email (confirmed by a code) or Google, sign in, and reset a forgotten password.
Free and Pro plans, with a Pricing page.
Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Contact pages.

Pro uploads are private by default, with a "Share with community" option at upload and a Public/Private switch on the paper page. Free uploads stay public in Explore.
The Free plan has a monthly upload limit, the top bar shows a Free or Pro badge, and the account menu shows how many uploads you have used this month.
Upgrade to Pro through a secure checkout that brings you back to your Library. Pro switches on shortly after payment without signing out and back in, and off when the subscription ends.
Pro members get a "Manage Subscription" link in the account menu.
Pro members can export a paper's flashcards to Anki as a CSV file.
Pro members can add more flashcards or quiz questions to a paper with "Generate More".
The PDF viewer has Summary and Notes tabs: write a note for each page, see all your notes for the paper, and click one to jump to its page.
Flashcards were redesigned: one card at a time with a progress bar, "Got It" and "Need Review" buttons, shuffle, reset, a session summary and keyboard shortcuts (Space to flip, arrow keys to move, 1 and 2 to rate).
Clicking a paper in Explore opens a preview with its summary and key claims. Its flashcards and quiz unlock once you add it to your Library.

Summaries are longer and more detailed, keeping specific numbers, methods and results, and each paper lists more key claims.
Explore, Library, the paper page, upload and the quiz were reworked for phones, including a swipeable one-paper-at-a-time view in Explore and Library.
After you sign in or create an account, you return to the page you came from. Signed-out visitors on Pricing see a "Sign in to Upgrade" button.
The home page has a new hero, a university logo strip, swipeable testimonials and a much lighter hero image that loads faster.