Quick notepad — an online scratch pad that saves itself

How to use the quick notepad

1. Click in the box that says “Start typing — your note saves itself in this browser.” and write.
2. Watch the line under the box. It shows the words, characters, lines and an estimated reading time, and after each save it says “Saved in this browser at” and the time.
3. Press Copy to put the whole note on your clipboard, or Download .txt to save it as a file called note.txt.
4. Press Export JSON for a backup file that can be imported later.
5. To start fresh, press Clear, then press it again within a few seconds when it says “Press again to clear everything”.

What it does and when to use it

This is a scratch pad for the text you need for a few minutes or a few days: a phone number someone reads out, a draft reply you want to think over, a list of things to say in a meeting, or text you are cleaning up before pasting it somewhere else. There is no sign-in, no formatting toolbar and nothing to set up.

When a note turns into a list of tasks, the to-do list maker lets you tick items off. For work that moves through stages, the kanban board is a better fit, and the printable checklist maker turns a list into a page you can print.

How it works

The note is held in the page and written to your browser’s localStorage about half a second after you stop typing. When you come back, it is read from the same place. If the browser blocks storage or it is full, the status line says “Could not save — storage is blocked or full. Export a copy.” instead.

Import… accepts three kinds of file. A .txt or .md file replaces the note with its text. A .json file must be a ToolsRift notepad export, and it is checked before use. A backup looks like this (the exported value, shortened here, is the export date and time):

{
  "app": "toolsrift",
  "kind": "notepad",
  "version": 1,
  "exported": "…",
  "text": "Buy milk"
}

Worked examples

A short note. These three lines:

Call Sam re: invoice #204
Buy printer paper (A4, 2 reams)
Ideas for Friday's team lunch

are counted as 16 words, 87 characters and 3 lines, about 1 minute to read. Numbers such as 204 and 2 count as words.

A longer draft. 460 words is counted as about 2 minutes to read, because 460 ÷ 230 = 2.

Limits and tips

• One note per browser. Typing in a second tab with the same page can overwrite what the first tab saved, so keep one tab open.
• Clearing cookies and site data deletes the note. Download a copy of anything you want to keep.
• Do not keep passwords or other secrets here. Anyone with access to this browser profile can read local storage.