Use 'Type' for Mac to Capture Ideas Before You Forget

An idea pops into your head while you're working on something else. How do you get it down and get back to work?

You could open a document and save the idea there, or quickly open your note-taking app of choice, but both of those things are going to take you out of whatever you're working on now. Apple somewhat solved this with the Quick Notes feature in macOS, which allows you to move your mouse to the bottom-right corner to quickly make a note. The problem: This depends on Apple Notes, which you might not use. Another problem: You have to move your mouse, which can take you out of whatever you're working on.

Type does quick note-taking better than Quick Notes. This $4 Mac app combines the speed of a launcher like Spotlight or one of its replacements with note-taking. Basically: You use a keyboard shortcut to open the application, which pops up over what you're working on the way an app launcher does. Type what's on your mind, then hit enter, and the app will close, allowing you to get back to the task at hand.

You can review all of your notes using the app, if you want, but the really nice part is that everything is date-stamped and stored in a text document on your computer. This means you can see and manage your notes using your text editor of choice.

Credit: Justin Pot

This is particularly useful if you, like me, are a dedicated Obsidian user. Simply store your Type note as a Markdown file in your Obsidian vault and you can quickly add random links to a file you can reference later in Obsidian. You can do the same thing with any note-taking app that uses text files.

Type can optionally store your notes in multiple files, which you can store wherever you like. When you're typing a new note, simply use the up and down arrow keys to make sure your notes are going to the right place.

Credit: Justin Pot

There's not much in the way of settings. You can configure the keyboard shortcut; you can choose which application to open note files in—the default is TextEdit. You can also change the formatting of the time stamp added to each note you add, or remove the time stamp entirely, and decide whether new notes should be added to the top or end of your files. It's not a complex app but it does one job well. I think I'm going to be using it every day.

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