Scratchpad

A scratchpad, not a notes app

A scratchpad fills a specific gap: the place to dump a snippet for the next ten minutes that doesn't deserve a file, a commit, or a real note. A command you're about to run, an error message you're carrying between two tabs, a chunk of JSON you're reshaping, the three things you need to remember while debugging. Opening a document, naming it, and choosing where to save it is friction; a scratchpad is just there, holding text the moment you type it.

The defining trait is that it's local and persistent across reloads but not synced or backed up. That's the right design for transient working text — it survives an accidental tab close, but it isn't trying to be your long-term knowledge base, and you shouldn't ask it to be.

How local persistence works here

The scratchpad saves to your browser's storage on your own device — typically IndexedDB or localStorage — so the text is still there when you come back to the tab tomorrow on the same browser. Nothing is uploaded; there is no account and no copy on a server. That's the privacy upside, but it has direct, practical consequences you need to plan around, because "saved in the browser" is not the same as "saved" in the way a file is.

Browser storage is tied to one browser profile on one machine and one origin. It does not follow you to your phone, another laptop, or even a different browser on the same computer. And it is comparatively fragile: clearing site data, browsing in a private/incognito window, aggressive privacy extensions, or a browser that evicts storage under disk pressure can all wipe it without warning.

Do not keep these in a scratchpad

• Secrets. Passwords, API keys, access tokens, recovery codes — browser storage is not encrypted at rest and is readable by anything with access to your machine or profile. Use a real password manager.
• Your only copy of anything important. Treat it as disposable: if losing the text would ruin your day, it belongs in a file or a synced note, not here.
• Anything you need on another device. There's no sync — it stays on the browser where you typed it.
• Long-form documents you intend to keep. A scratchpad is for transient working text; for anything you'll edit over days, use proper storage.

Getting the most out of it

Use the scratchpad as a staging area, then move text to its real home. Reshape a config block here, then paste it into your project. Draft a quick list, then move it into your tracker. When you're done with a snippet, clear it — a scratchpad earns its keep by being empty most of the time, not by accumulating a year of stale fragments you'll never reread.

It pairs naturally with the other text tools: dump messy pasted text in, then run it through Text Clean to strip invisible characters and fix line endings, or Remove Duplicate Lines to collapse a repetitive list before you paste it onward.