Scratch
A scratchpad that lives one keystroke away.
Local-first. Markdown. Single hotkey. Your notes stay on your machine.
14-day free trial · Apple silicon · macOS
Why scratch
Your notebook should be sacred.
The notebook you keep — or the one you keep meaning to start — is for what you know. Things that earned a filename and a place in the graph. It rewards organization because it's where you go to retrieve.
Thoughts don't start that way. A half-formed idea, a follow-up to remember, a link to read after lunch — none of it warrants a note. Most of it won't survive the day.
But it has to go somewhere. And without a place for the messy and the quick, it ends up in your notebook anyway — untitled, uncategorized, quietly crowding out the things that should be there. Or it ends up nowhere, and you start over next year.
Scratch is the layer in between. A place for what hasn't earned structure yet, and what may never need it.
It isn't a replacement for your notebook. It's a supplier and a filter — so the things that make it in are the things that should.
A scratchpad you reach for.
Built for the thoughts mid-flight — the kind that don't deserve a filename but you can't afford to lose.
# follow-ups
- ping marco re: the q3 forecast
- review pricing draft before friday
- cancel the dropbox renewal
// half-baked
what if pricing pages all moved to a single shared template? would simplify the component story.
Global hotkey
Summon and dismiss with ⌥Space from anywhere. Stays out of the way until you reach for it.
Capture text from screen
Drag a region; Scratch reads the text and drops it into the buffer. No re-typing what's already on screen.
Find anything
Multiple notes when you need them, full-text search across every one, and in-buffer find for the current note.
Send anywhere
Export to a Markdown file, the clipboard, Obsidian, or Apple Notes. Your text is never trapped.
Local only
Notes live as plain Markdown in your user data folder. No account, no sync service, no server-side copy.
A look inside
Built to stay out of the way.
Pricing
Buy it once. Keep it.
A perpetual license for the version you buy. Twelve months of free updates from the purchase date. After that, the version you have keeps working — renewals are optional.
- 14-day free trial, no card required
- One license, two activations (your laptop and a desktop, for example)
- 14-day, no-questions-asked refund
- Local-only — no subscription, no account
Checkout opens with our merchant of record
FAQ
Questions, answered.
- Is my data private?
- Yes. Notes are stored as plain Markdown files in your user data folder on your machine. There is no account, no sync service, and no server-side copy. The full details are on the privacy page.
- Does it sync between machines?
- No. Scratch is local-only by design. If you want your notes on another machine, you can point its notes folder at a directory inside iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or any other file-sync tool you already trust.
- What platforms does it support?
- macOS only, Apple silicon, for the first release. A signed and notarized DMG is distributed through GitHub Releases until a dedicated download host is in place.
- Can I move my license to another machine?
- Yes. Each license can be deactivated from the machine it's on and reactivated on a new one. Lost a machine you can't deactivate? Email [email protected] from the address on the order and we'll help.
- What's the refund policy?
- A 14-day, no-questions-asked refund window from the date of purchase. Email [email protected] with your order ID. Full terms are on the terms page.
changelog
Every release is logged on the changelog.