How to use the online notepad
- Click in the box and start typing. The note saves itself a moment after you stop, and Saved appears below the text.
- To start another note, click New note. The first line of each note becomes its title in the list on the left.
- Click a note in the list to open it. With four or more notes, a search box appears to find text in any of them.
- To keep a copy outside the browser, click Download .txt (or press Ctrl+S, Cmd+S on a Mac).
You can close the tab, turn off the computer and come back days later: the notes are still there, in the same browser.
What it’s for
A notepad in the browser is handy whenever you need to write something down quickly and don’t want to open a program, create an account or sign in to anything:
- jot down a phone number, an address or an order number during a call;
- draft a message, an email or a social media post before sending it;
- paste text from a website to remove formatting before copying it into a document;
- keep a to-do list or shopping list open in a tab all day;
- write meeting or class notes on a computer that isn’t yours (download them as .txt at the end and delete the note).
Features
- Autosave: every keystroke is saved in your browser, with no button to press.
- Several notes: create as many as you need; the most recently edited appear first.
- Word and character count: the bar under the text shows words, characters and lines, and the reading time for longer texts. Useful for essays, social media posts and forms with a character limit.
- Download and open files: save any note as a .txt file that opens in Notepad, TextEdit or any editor, or open a .txt, .md or .csv file to continue editing it here.
- Comfortable to read: larger or smaller text, a monospace font for code and tables, line wrapping on or off, and spell check.
- Full screen: hides everything except the text, for writing without distractions.
- Undo delete: if you delete a note by mistake, click Undo in the message that appears.
How it works
Notes are stored in your browser’s local storage (localStorage) on this device. Nothing is sent to a server: we can’t read your notes, and they don’t go anywhere when you type. That also means:
- the notes are only in this browser on this device. On your phone or another browser, the list starts empty;
- private or incognito windows erase everything when closed;
- clearing browsing data (cookies and site data) also deletes the notes.
For anything important, download a .txt copy from time to time. If you open the notepad in two tabs at once, what you type in one shows up in the other.
Frequently asked questions
Are my notes private?
Yes. They never leave your device and there is no account. Anyone who uses the same computer and the same browser can open this page and see them, though, so on a shared computer, download the note and delete it before leaving.
How much can I write?
Browsers usually allow about 5 MB per site, which is several million characters, enough for hundreds of long notes. If space runs out, the page warns you.
Can I sync notes between my phone and computer?
Not automatically, because nothing goes to a server. Download the note as .txt on one device and open the file on the other with Open file.
Does it work offline?
After the page has loaded, yes: you can keep typing without internet and everything is saved on the device.
Can I format text with bold or headings?
No. It is a plain text notepad, like Windows Notepad. That is on purpose: the text you copy from here comes out clean, without formatting, in any program.