User guide

How to use Scratchpad.

Everything the app can do, in one page. Scratchpad is a local-first notes app — every feature below works in your browser, and nothing you write leaves it unless you deliberately create a share link.

First five minutes

Press New note (or ⌘/CtrlN), type a title and some text, and save with ⌘/CtrlS. That's the whole loop. Notes have two modes: view, which shows your Markdown rendered, and edit, which shows the raw text. The Edit button (or saving) switches between them.

While you type, Scratchpad autosaves a draft. If the tab closes before you save, the next visit offers to restore your unsaved edits. Everything is stored in this browser only — see the privacy policy for exactly what that means.

Writing in Markdown

Notes are plain Markdown. The basics:

• # Heading, ## Subheading — up to six levels.
• **bold**, *italic*, `inline code`.
• - item or 1. item for lists; indent two spaces to nest.
• > quote for blockquotes — short ones render as pull-quotes.
• > [!NOTE], > [!TIP], > [!IMPORTANT], > [!WARNING], or > [!CAUTION] on the first line of a quote makes a callout; add a title after the marker if you like.
• ```js … ``` for code blocks; JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, shell, Python, SQL, and YAML are highlighted.
• [text](https://example.com) for links — they open in a new tab.
• Three backticks on their own line open and close a code block.
• Tables, in GitHub style: | col | col | with a |---|---| divider row.

While editing, the toolbar buttons (B, I, code, link) wrap the selected text for you. Images from the web are not loaded — that's part of the privacy promise, not a bug.

Paste from a web page, a Google Doc, a Word file, or an email and it arrives as Markdown: headings, emphasis, links, lists, code, quotes, and tables convert on the way in, and ⌘/Ctrl Z undoes the paste as usual. To paste the plain text instead, use your browser's plain-text paste shortcut: Ctrl Shift V on Windows and Linux, ⌘ Shift V in Firefox on a Mac, or ⌘ Option Shift V in Chrome and Safari on a Mac. Text copied from a code editor is left exactly as it was.

Task lists

Any list item can be a task:

- [ ] pick up groceries
- [x] renew domain

In view mode those render as real checkboxes — click one (or focus it and press Space) to tick or untick it. The change is written straight back into your Markdown and saved, so you never enter edit mode just to check something off. Task lists work nested, in numbered lists, and inside quotes.

If a note mixes real tasks with text that only looks like one (say, a - [ ] inside a code block), and Scratchpad can't confidently match every checkbox to its exact line, the checkboxes go gray and stop responding rather than risk ticking the wrong line. Edit the note normally to make changes.

Find and replace

While editing, press ⌘/CtrlF for a small find bar over the note. Type a query and the count of matches appears beside it; Enter steps through them and Shift+Enter steps back.

The Aa chip matches case exactly; the .* chip switches to regular expressions, where the replacement text understands $1-style capture references. An invalid pattern shows a quiet notice instead of matching anything.

Enter replacement text and press ⌘/Ctrl+Enter (or Replace) to swap the current match, or Replace all to rewrite every match at once. Esc closes the bar and puts you back in the text.

Images

Paste an image, drop one onto the editor, or choose Attach image… from the note's ⋯ menu while editing. Scratchpad stores the image in this browser alongside your notes and writes ![name](attachment:…) into the Markdown, so the note stays plain text. PNG, JPEG, GIF, and WebP are accepted; anything wider or taller than 2048px is scaled down first, and images over 4MB are refused.

Images travel with your JSON backups and the Markdown ZIP (as files under attachments/). They are never uploaded when you share a note; the shared copy shows an image not included placeholder instead.

Daily notes & quick capture

The calendar button in the sidebar — or ⌘/CtrlShiftD, or Open today's note in the command palette — jumps to today's note, creating it the first time. Scratchpad keeps every daily note in the Daily Notes folder, including daily notes restored from an older backup. Renaming or archiving a daily note is fine; Scratchpad tracks the date, not the title. Opening today or using Quick capture finds an archived Daily Note without creating a duplicate or unarchiving it.

Want your own structure for each day? Create a note titled exactly Daily template — its body becomes the starting point for every new daily note. Only an active template applies; archive it to make it dormant.

Quick capture (⌘/CtrlShiftSpace, or in the command palette) takes one line of text and appends it to today's note with a timestamp — even creating the note if needed — without leaving what you're doing. If you install Scratchpad as an app, your OS's icon menu gets shortcuts for New note, Today's note, and Quick capture.

When you choose Daily Notes from the folder switcher, its entries group into collapsible months. The current month starts open; older months stay quiet until you expand them, and Scratchpad remembers your choices separately in Notes and Archive. Search stays flat and looks across every folder when you need a direct result list.

For a month-end reflection, select any daily note from that month and run Create [month] monthly review from the command palette. With no dated note selected, the command targets the previous completed month. The review is an ordinary, movable note with prompts for highlights, decisions, open loops, and next month, followed by links to the daily notes that exist. Scratchpad never copies daily-note bodies or tasks, never creates reviews automatically, and reopens an existing review even if you renamed or archived it.

Any folder named Templates turns its notes into templates: the command palette lists New note from template: … for each one, and choosing it creates a new note with that body and tags in the folder you are viewing.

Linking notes

Type [[ while editing and Scratchpad suggests your note titles — arrow keys to choose, Enter to insert. A link like [[Project Plan]] renders as a working link to that note; [[Project Plan|the plan]] shows custom text.

• Unlinked mentions. Below the backlinks, Scratchpad lists notes that mention this note's title in plain text without linking it. Press Link on a row to turn that mention into a [[link]], keeping the sentence as written.
• Phantom links. A link to a note that doesn't exist yet renders dashed. Click it and Scratchpad creates the note and opens it — write the idea first, fill it in later.
• Backlinks. Below each note, Linked from N notes lists every active or archived note that links here. Archived targets remain resolved and open directly in Archive. It's computed live, so restoring from Trash or importing never leaves it stale.
• Renames stay safe. When you rename a note that others link to, Scratchpad offers to update those links. Each updated note keeps a revision, so the change is reversible.

Folders

Folders group notes the way tags can't: each note lives in exactly one folder. Unfiled notes sit in the built-in Notes folder. Daily notes live in the managed Daily Notes folder. Both are always available and can't be renamed or deleted.

• Daily Notes — Scratchpad creates this folder automatically and moves existing daily notes into it without changing their edited dates. You can select or reorder the folder, but daily notes stay inside it.
• Switch folders — use the Folders button above the note list. It opens a searchable picker with every folder and a note count. Choose Home for pinned and recently edited notes across the whole library.
• Create — choose New folder in the folder switcher, use the list ⋯ menu, or run "New folder" in the command palette. Each folder can take an optional accent color; after creation, Scratchpad opens it for you.
• File notes — start dragging a note and Scratchpad opens the folder switcher; drop it on its destination. You can also use Move to folder… in the note's ⋯ menu, in bulk-select mode, or from the command palette. Moving a note never changes its edited date.
• Current folder — when a folder is open, the list shows only its notes and New note files an ordinary new note there. Daily Notes remains a managed folder; use the daily-note action to create dated entries.
• Manage — the ⋯ button beside a folder in the switcher lets you rename it, set its color, create a note there, move it up or down, or delete it.
• Search — search opens a focused, relevance-ranked result list across every folder in the current lifecycle view, even when one folder is open. Type folder:name to search inside one folder.
• Delete — deleting a folder asks what to do with its notes: keep them (active and archived members become unfiled without changing lifecycle) or move them to Trash.

Archive & Trash

The sidebar separates Notes, Archive, and Trash. Archive is for finished or infrequently needed work: it hides a note from Notes without deleting it or starting a retention clock.

• Archive / Unarchive: use the note's ⋯ menu, selection mode, or the command palette. The action is immediate. Its toast offers Undo, shows the time left as a thin bar, and waits while your pointer or keyboard focus is on it.
• Swipe on a touch screen: swipe a note row left to reveal Archive and Trash, or keep going to archive it in one motion. Swipe right to pin or unpin. Rows in Trash, in search results, and in selection mode do not swipe.
• Archived notes stay useful: edit, tag, move, share, link, check tasks, review history, and export them normally. Pins are remembered but stay dormant until the note returns to Notes.
• Restore is different from Unarchive: Restore removes a note from Trash and returns it to whichever state it had before deletion. Unarchive deliberately moves an archived note back to Notes.
• Trash expires: a deleted note stays recoverable for 30 days, then is removed for good. Delete forever and Empty Trash cannot be undone, so each asks you to press and hold its red button for one second. A screen reader or voice control confirms with a normal activation.

Search stays inside the selected lifecycle view and keeps its query when you switch. Archive supports the same Home and folder-switcher navigation, with folders presented as browse-only note lists.

Finding & organizing

• Search (⌘/CtrlK or /) ranks title matches first, then tags and note text. If there are no direct matches, Scratchpad can show clearly labeled close matches from titles and tags. Use ↑/↓ to move through results, Enter to open one, and Esc to clear search. Narrow with operators: tag:work matches a whole tag, while title:plan and folder:daily match part of a title or folder name. Mix them with ordinary words, and repeat one to require every value.
• Tags — add them under a note's title; click a tag to filter by it. Manage tags renames, merges, or deletes tags across Notes and Archive at once.
• Pins keep important notes at the top of the list.
• Duplicate, in the note's ⋯ menu, copies the current note along with its tags and folder. The copy arrives unpinned, titled "… (copy)".
• Select enters bulk mode: tag, move, archive or unarchive, export, or trash several notes in one go.
• Trash holds deleted notes for 30 days, then removes them for good. Restore, delete forever, or empty it any time before that.
• The command palette (⌘/CtrlShiftP) runs every action, opens Archive, and identifies whether note results live in Notes, Archive, or Trash.

History & drafts

Two safety nets run quietly while you write:

• Revision history — every save stores a snapshot, and Scratchpad keeps the last 10 per note. Open History from the note's ⋯ menu to browse them, and Restore to bring one back. Restoring saves your current version as a revision first, so a restore is always reversible.
• Draft recovery — while you edit, changes autosave as a draft. If the tab closes or reloads before you save, Scratchpad offers the draft back the next time you open that note.

Backups & portability

Because notes live only in this browser, backups matter. Everything is under About (the ⓘ button in the sidebar):

• Export backup (JSON) — the full-fidelity schema-v4 format: Notes, Archive, Trash provenance, folders, and revision history. Use this one for restores.
• Export encrypted backup — the same data, protected by a passphrase. Encryption happens in the browser; a forgotten passphrase cannot be recovered.
• Export Markdown ZIP — readable .md copies of active and archived notes. Archived files live under archive/ and include archivedAt frontmatter.
• Import — accepts a JSON backup, an encrypted backup, or one or more Markdown files. Every import shows a preview first, and you choose how conflicts are handled: keep both, replace, or skip.
• Print or save as PDF — ⌘/Ctrl P prints just the open note: no sidebar, no buttons, print-sized type.

Scratchpad reminds you gently when it's been a while since your last backup.

Linked folder

In Chrome and other browsers with the File System Access API, Your data offers Link a folder…. Pick a directory and Scratchpad writes every note there as a Markdown file with frontmatter, in the same layout as the Markdown ZIP, and keeps each file current as you save. Images are written under attachments/.

Edit those files in any text editor and press Read now, or simply return to the Scratchpad tab, and the changes land in your notes. New .md files become new notes. When a note and its file have both changed, the newer one wins and the other text is kept in the note's History. If the browser forgets its permission, Reconnect restores it; Unlink forgets the folder and leaves your files in place. Nothing leaves your device: the folder is a plain-text copy you own, not a service.

Sharing a note

Open a note, then ⋯ → Share…. The dialog offers three things.

• Copy to clipboard and Open in email happen entirely on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
• Create public link makes a web address anyone can open — no account, no app, nothing to install. Use it when the person you're sending to shouldn't have to care what Scratchpad is.

Images attached to a note are never part of a share. The shared copy shows an image not included placeholder where each image would be.

A public link works like this: your browser encrypts the note, uploads only the encrypted copy, and puts the decryption key in the part of the link after the #. Browsers never send that part to a server, so the key stays between you and whoever you give the link to. Scratchpad cannot read a note you've shared.

Anyone with the link can read the note and forward it. There's no password. Treat the link itself as the secret.

• Links expire automatically — you pick 7, 14, 21, or 30 days when you create one. The dialog shows the date.
• Stop sharing kills a link immediately, before it expires.
• The shared copy is frozen. Editing the note afterwards doesn't change what a recipient sees. To share the newer version, create a second link — the dialog lists every live link for the note, so you can retire the old one.
• Deleting the note revokes its links. So does erasing all your data.

One caveat worth knowing: the link is the only copy of the key, and the record of it lives in this browser. If you clear your site data, you can no longer revoke a link you created — you'd have to wait out the expiry you chose.

When someone sends you a share link, Save to my Scratchpad copies the note into Scratchpad in the browser you opened it in. The copy opens right away with a shared tag. It is yours to edit, and it stays after the link expires. Saving the same note again opens the copy you already have.

On iPhone and iPad, a Scratchpad added to the Home Screen keeps its notes apart from Safari. A note saved from Safari stays in Safari's Scratchpad.

Your data & privacy controls

• Protect local data asks the browser to mark this site's storage persistent, reducing the chance of automatic cleanup. The browser decides; backups are still the real safety net.
• Multi-tab safety. If the same note changes in another tab, Scratchpad stops before overwriting and lets you choose: keep this tab's version, use the saved one, or keep both as separate notes.
• Erase local data removes every note, draft, revision, and preference from this browser. You must type ERASE to confirm — there is no undo.
• Nothing is ever sent anywhere: no accounts, no sync, no analytics, no third-party scripts. The privacy policy has the full picture.

Offline & installing

Scratchpad works offline after your first visit — the app shell is cached, and your notes were always local. Install it from your browser's install prompt (or menu) to get a standalone window and app-icon shortcuts.

Updates are under your control: when a new version is available, Scratchpad shows a notice and you choose when to reload. About → Check for updates looks for one on demand, and Refresh offline copy re-downloads the cached app files.

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