Quick Capture
A compact floating window to jot into your Inbox or append to today’s daily note using global shortcuts or the menu.
Quick Capture requires a Pro license on desktop. For the iOS sheet experience, see Inbox & Quick Capture on iOS. After you save to the inbox, items show up in the desktop Inbox for triage.
Opening Quick Capture
Quick Capture opens a compact popover window wired to your active workspace (one instance reused on macOS after it is warmed up).
Trigger it from the Octarine menu (Quick Capture) or with the global shortcut when licensed:
| Platform | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| macOS | ⌃⌥ Space (Control–Option–Space) |
| Windows / Linux | Ctrl+Alt+Space |
Inside the window
- Destination: switch between Inbox and today’s Daily note from the header, or toggle with ⌘⇧J on macOS / Ctrl+Shift+J on Windows & Linux. Sending to inbox records metadata suitable for triage (
source: quick_captureamong other fields). Sending to the daily note appends a block—optionally with a timestamp line beforehand. - Title (optional) refines list labels in Inbox and headings when you append to the daily note; Inbox mode focuses the title field first, while daily mode focuses the editor for faster typing.
- Body: full rich-text surface; Inbox mode still supports priorities and tags from the footer row.
- Clipboard: paste with ⌘V / Ctrl+V. When focus is in the capture title field—or anywhere outside the editing surface—Octarine inserts clipboard content programmatically (HTML where available, otherwise plain text capped for safety). When the cursor is inside the capture editor, ⌘V / Ctrl+V uses the native editor paste path so embedded images continue to work. A lone URL shows a subtle hint banner so you remember it lands as literal text unless you embellish it.
- Submit: ⌘Enter / Ctrl+Enter submits when there is body text (same chord as Capture in the footer).
After a successful save to the inbox path, Quick Capture hides and, on macOS, can deactivate the Octarine foreground so whatever app was behind it returns to focus—which makes “dump thought and go back” feel instant.
Settings
Daily-only behavior is tuned under workspace Settings → Quick capture (Timestamp before daily captures).