notr

Catch a thought
before it evaporates.

One key opens a see-through drawer over whatever you are doing. Type the thought, press Return, and you are back where you were. Nothing to file, nothing to remember.

Download for Mac

Version 0.1.2 · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon and Intel · 2 MB · free while it's early

Dana 11:52
can you send the invoice for August by Tuesday? the PO number is 4471-B
Seth 11:53
on it
func show(on screen: NSScreen)
  orderFront(nil)
  makeKey()
Sunday, Sep 67 open
invoice Dana by Tue, PO 4471-B
↩ save⌘↩ save, keep openesc keep drafthold ⌥ to peek

How it works

The drawer slides down from the top of whichever screen your cursor is on, over every Space and full-screen app, without stealing focus from what you were doing. It is translucent so you can keep reading the thing that prompted the note. Hold ⌥ and it fades almost away.

Everything you capture lands in a rolling log, newest first. Crossing something off is one key. Carrying a lingering item forward to today is one key. Shortlisting something pins it in an Active section that stays above today until it is done. A sweep walks you through anything older than today, one card at a time, so nothing piles up.

Deleted entries go to a trash you can restore from, every change can be undone, and nothing ever asks "are you sure?"

The keys

anywhere ⌥ Spaceopen the drawer ⌥ ⇧ Vcapture the clipboard without opening anything ⌥ ⇧ Spaceopen your notes in the drawer ↩save and close ⌘ ↩save and keep the drawer open ⌘ ⇧ Vsave the clipboard as its own note escclose and keep the draft for next time ⌥hold to peek at what is beneath ⌘ Ztake back the last capture, for ten seconds in your notes spacedone ashortlist it in an Active section that stays on top →carry to today ⌫trash, with undo ↩edit, or open the link if the note is a link ⌘ Zundo, as many steps as you need ⌘ Ffilter ⌘ Eshow or hide done items on past days ⌘ Ttrash, with restore ⌘ Ssweep everything older than today

Your notes are a text file

notr keeps everything in one Markdown file you own, in a folder you choose. Open it in any editor, sync it however you like, grep it from the terminal. If notr disappeared tomorrow, your notes would not.

## 2026-09-06 Sunday

- [ ] invoice Dana by Tue, PO 4471-B  <!-- 11:53 -->
- [ ] ! book the dentist  <!-- 11:20 -->
- [x] ~~pick up prints~~  <!-- 10:02 -->
- [>] renew passport  <!-- 09:14 carried 2026-09-07 -->

Open, shortlisted, done, carried. Every state is a character you could type yourself.

What it does not do

No tags, folders, notebooks, rich text, accounts, or sync service. No autocorrect. No confirmation dialogs, ever. Every one of those would put a decision between you and the thought, and the thought does not wait.

What it does let you choose: the shortcuts, the text sizes, the drawer's opacity, and the typeface, with Atkinson Hyperlegible by default and OpenDyslexic built in.