Jotly

About

Jotly — A simple side panel scratchpad for your browser.

Ever copied something from a chat, a webpage, or a piece of code and just wanted to park it somewhere for a minute, without opening a full text editor or switching apps? That is exactly what Jotly is for.

Click the Jotly icon (or press Ctrl+Shift+Y) and a clean textarea slides in from the right side of your browser. Paste your text. Keep browsing. It is already saved.

That is the whole idea.

WHAT JOTLY DOES

- One click opens a side panel with a textarea, ready for you to type or paste into.
- Multiple notes with tabs at the top, so you can keep different snippets separated.
- Auto-save while you type. You do not need to think about saving.
- Notes are stored as real .txt or .md files on your own computer, inside a folder you choose. No cloud, no account, no sign-up.
- Plain text only in this version, so pasting from anywhere (web page, chat, IDE, email) gives you clean text with no surprise formatting.
- Works offline. Your notes never leave your machine.
- Light and dark theme.

WHY A FOLDER ON YOUR DISK INSTEAD OF SOMEWHERE HIDDEN?

Because your notes are yours. You can open the folder in Finder or Explorer at any time, read the files in any editor, back them up, sync them with your own tool (Dropbox, iCloud, Git, whatever you already use), or just delete them. Nothing is locked inside the extension.

The first time you open Jotly, it asks you to pick a folder. That is the only setup step.

WHO IT IS FOR

Anyone who keeps copying short pieces of text and needs a quick place to drop them while staying in the browser. A few examples:

- You are reading an article and want to copy three quotes before you forget where they were.
- You are chatting with an AI and want to keep a paragraph from its answer.
- You are debugging and need a scratch space for an error message, a stack trace, or a long URL.
- You are in a meeting in the browser and want to jot down a quick action item without alt-tabbing to Notes.
- You are writing a tweet or an email and want to draft it before pasting it back.
- You are moving text between two apps that do not talk to each other, and you need a quick bridge.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Click the Jotly icon in the toolbar, or press Ctrl+Shift+Y. The side panel opens on the right.
2. The first time, pick a folder on your disk where Jotly will store notes. You can change this later in Settings.
3. Type or paste. The note is saved automatically as a file inside that folder.
4. Use the tabs at the top to switch between notes, or open a new one.
5. Close the panel whenever you want. Your text is on disk. Open it again later and pick up where you left off.

You can also open notes in a full-page view if you want more space.

TIPS

- The default shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+Y. If it conflicts with something on your machine, you can change it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
- Because notes are real files, you can open the same .md note in VS Code, Obsidian, or any editor side by side with Jotly. Edit on one side, see it update on the other.
- Empty "Untitled" notes that you never typed into are cleaned up automatically, so your folder stays tidy.

PRIVACY

Jotly does not collect analytics. It does not send your notes anywhere. It does not have a server. Everything happens locally in your browser, and your notes live as plain files in the folder you picked. The extension only asks for the permissions it actually needs to open the side panel and read/write the folder you chose.

WHAT IS NEXT

This is version 1, focused on doing the basic thing well: paste, keep, find again. Planned next:

- Markdown preview and syntax highlighting for code snippets (md, mermaid, sql, html, css, js, ts, vue, php, xml).
- Folders and subfolders for organizing notes.
- Optional self-hosted cloud sync and shareable note links with password and expiry, for people who want it. Staying fully offline will remain an option.

REQUIREMENTS

Chrome 129 or newer (the side panel and file folder features need a recent Chrome).

If you find a bug or have an idea, feedback is welcome.