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Quick Entry is a capture panel on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Write something down and send it to Craft as a new document, a task, or text added to a daily note or an existing document, without leaving what you are working on.

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Opening Quick Entry

  • Press Ctrl + Space from any app. Craft has to be running, but it can sit in the background.
  • In Craft’s menu bar, choose File → Quick Entry.
  • Right-click the Craft icon in the Dock and choose Quick Entry.
Quick Entry does not open over an app running in full screen. Leave full screen to capture, or use Craft’s own window.
On iPhone and iPad, Quick Entry opens in the mode that fits the screen you are on:
  • In a folder, New Document in that folder
  • In Tasks, New Task
  • In Calendar, Add to Daily Note for the day you are viewing
Everywhere else, it opens in the mode you used last. You can also open Quick Entry from outside the app: from the + on the Starred and Recents widgets, from the Lock Screen widget or the Control Center control, and with the Open Quick Entry action in Apple Shortcuts.

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What You Can Capture

The row of icons at the bottom of the panel switches between four modes: The dropdown at the top of the panel changes that destination: a folder, a document, or a date. Daily notes are not limited to today, so you can send a thought to tomorrow’s note or back-date it to yesterday. If no note exists for that day, Craft creates one. If you have more than one Space or account, the Space icon in the corner of the panel picks which one receives the capture. On Mac, press Cmd + Shift + U to open the Space switcher and Tab to move to the next account. On iPhone and iPad, the Space icon appears when you open Quick Entry from the File menu, the keyboard shortcut, a Lock Screen widget or control, or Apple Shortcuts.

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Sending Your Capture

Return starts a new line, so you can write several lines before sending.
  • Cmd + Return sends the capture (Create for New Document and New Task, Add for the two Add modes).
  • Cmd + Shift + Return sends it and opens the result in Craft (Create & Open or Add & Open).
  • Cmd + Option + Return sends it and keeps the panel open for the next entry (Create & Continue or Add & Continue).
The arrow next to the button sets what the button does by default: send only, or send and open.

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Tasks

In New Task mode the panel gains Schedule and Deadline buttons, so a task can arrive fully dated instead of landing in the Inbox for you to sort out later. On Mac, reminders are available from the Edit menu while the panel is open. Quick Entry is also where you create and edit tasks across Craft:
  • New Task (Cmd + J) and the + buttons in Tasks open Quick Entry in New Task mode, without the mode icons.
  • Tapping a task in Tasks (double-clicking on Mac) opens it in the same panel, with Done and Open buttons. Apple Reminders are the exception: Craft offers to import the reminder as a regular task instead.
See Creating tasks for the other ways to add tasks.

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Markdown

Type Markdown and it arrives as real blocks. Headings, lists, to-dos, quotes, and code blocks are all converted. Each line becomes its own block, so a brain dump comes through as separate paragraphs rather than one run-on block. In New Document mode, a single line becomes the document title.

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Changing the Shortcut on Mac

Ctrl + Space is the default. To use something else, open Settings → Advanced and record a new combination under Quick Entry.
The Quick Entry section of Advanced settings, showing the Keyboard Shortcut field
Clearing the field sets it to None and turns the shortcut off.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

These shortcuts work on Mac and on iPad with a keyboard attached.
Closing the panel keeps whatever you had typed. Reopen it within a minute and your text is still there.

Daily Notes

Plan your day with date-based notes

Creating Tasks

Ways to create and organize tasks

Widgets

Open Quick Entry from your Home Screen and Lock Screen

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcuts for navigating and editing in Craft

Markdown Shortcuts

Format content with Markdown syntax