PasteNote Usage Guide

1. 1 Just copy text, links, files, or images as usual — no extra steps, it's recorded automatically.
2. 2 Switch between "History / Favorites / Notes / Custom Folders" tabs at the top of the panel: ⌘← / ⌘→ moves between tabs, ⌘0 jumps straight back to "All History" — the arrow keys here switch tabs, they don't move the selection between items.
3. 3 Filter by type (text / links / files / images) within the panel.
4. 4 Hover over any item to see a fuller preview.
5. 5 Press ⌘1–9 to instantly write the corresponding numbered item back to the system clipboard, then paste it wherever you're working with ⌘V.
6. 6 Hold Shift while copying (default, changeable to another modifier in Preferences) to record that item as plain text, stripping its original formatting.
7. 7 Can't remember the exact content? Type a keyword into the search box to find it.

💡 ⌘1–9 only writes content back to the system clipboard — it does not simulate pressing ⌘V for you. That's intentional: PasteNote doesn't need the Accessibility permission.

1. 1 Select an item in clipboard history and press ⌘P (an in-app shortcut, changeable in Preferences) to pin it as a new desktop note.
2. 2 Notes float on the desktop and can be freely dragged into place.
3. 3 Switch to the "Notes" tab, select an existing note, and press ⌘P again: this time it won't create a new one — it toggles that note's floating window shown / hidden.
4. 4 Want to pin quickly without opening the panel? The global shortcut ⌘⇧P (default, changeable) pins whatever is currently on the system clipboard as a note.
5. 5 Too many notes open? The global shortcut ⌘⇧X (default, changeable) closes all note windows at once.

💡 Image notes additionally support pen / arrow / rectangle / circle annotation — see "Annotate a Screenshot After Pinning It" below.

1. 1 Click favorite on any item to add it to your favorites list.
2. 2 Create custom folders to organize your favorited content.
3. 3 Set a "maximum history size" in Preferences so history never grows without bound.

1. 1 Copy a screenshot that contains text or a QR / barcode as usual (Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English are all supported).
2. 2 Recognition runs automatically on-device (no network access, no uploads) — no settings to open, and it never interrupts what you're copying next.
3. 3 Later, type text that appeared in the image into the search box to find it (recognized text is used only for search, and isn't shown in the preview bubble).
4. 4 Hover over the item — if a QR code or barcode was recognized, the preview bubble lists what was found; press ⌥⌘C to copy the recognized result, or ⌘O to open it directly in your browser if it's a valid link.

💡 Screenshots copied before this feature shipped won't be recognized retroactively. Recognition is on by default, and there's currently no separate toggle to turn it off.

1. 1 Copy a screenshot, then press ⌘P or click the pin button to turn it into a desktop note.
2. 2 Enter annotation mode and choose a pen, arrow, rectangle, or circle from the toolbar.
3. 3 Drag to draw; selecting a shape you've already drawn shows editing handles so you can resize and reposition it.
4. 4 Hold Shift while drawing: rectangles are constrained to squares, circles to perfect circles, and lines to horizontal / vertical / 45°.
5. 5 Once you're done annotating, download the image, or right-click to copy / save it.

💡 v1 only offers vector pen strokes and shapes — no mosaic / redaction tool, and it never modifies the original image's pixels.

1. 1 Password-like content the system recognizes (e.g., passed through the system password manager's clipboard) is recorded and locked automatically — no manual setup needed.
2. 2 To lock an item manually: right-click and choose "Mark as Sensitive" — you can unlock it again anytime.
3. 3 You can also mark an entire favorites folder as a "locked folder," and anything added to it automatically inherits the locked state.
4. 4 Once locked, the content area of the list card is always redacted; by default, the preview bubble shown on hover displays the plain text directly, without requiring verification.
5. 5 Want the preview to also require verification? Turn on "Require verification to preview locked content" in Preferences (off by default) — once enabled, hovering to preview triggers Touch ID / system password verification, and only shows the plain text after you pass it.
6. 6 You can select and paste locked content directly without verification — this doesn't affect everyday use.

💡 Once preview verification is on, it only stays valid "for as long as the panel stays open this time" — close the panel, and you'll need to verify again the next time you summon it; it doesn't remember you indefinitely. Locking is a display-layer barrier, not encryption — it protects against "someone glancing at your screen," not against someone who can already unlock your Mac and inspect the database file directly.

1. 1 One click on the menu bar icon to "Pause Recording" — nothing copied while paused is saved; click again to resume.
2. 2 Just want to skip this one time? Choose "Ignore Next Copy," which affects only the very next copy operation.
3. 3 Want a specific app's output to never be recorded, permanently? Add it to the "Ignored Apps" list in Preferences.

💡 These rules take priority over App Workspaces, favorites, search, OCR, and every other downstream feature — ignored content is never saved and then deleted; it never gets written to disk in the first place.

1. 1 Preferences → General → "App Context" — the master switch is on by default (and can be turned off).
2. 2 Add an app: choose from apps with recent copy activity, or manually pick any .app file.
3. 3 Each added app has three independent toggles. "Enable this app's workspace": pause / enable categorization for just this one app, without affecting any other added app.
4. 4 "Prioritize this app when summoned": summoning the main panel from this app shows only its history first; when off, summoning still shows all history, and you can switch manually.
5. 5 "Auto-show bound notes": when this app comes to the foreground, its bound notes appear automatically, and hide automatically when you switch away.
6. 6 To stop using workspace features for an app, just delete its configuration — history and notes already sorted under it are not deleted.

💡 The latter two toggles only take effect while "Enable this app's workspace" is on — they gray out when it's off, but keep their saved values and restore them once it's turned back on.

1. 1 Filter by type (text / links / files / images) at the top of the panel first, then layer a keyword search on top.
2. 2 Switch to a custom folder or the Favorites tab before searching, and it will only search within that folder / tab.
3. 3 Exact match, prefix match, and tokenized matching are all supported.

💡 Search doesn't yet support Pinyin input — it needs to match the actual characters. Recognition and search both run entirely on-device and never touch a cloud LLM.