PLAIN TEXT. PAPER, LESS · 143

You Don’t Need Any of the 6 Drafts App Alternatives I’ve Been Playing With Lately

Because Drafts is still the king of adding notes to a plain text file

Images compiled by the Author. Individual icons are the property of the apps pictured.

Drafts isn’t the cheapest (or the dearest) notes app around, but it’s at the top of the tree for people who like a central place to start their notes. For my use case it beats other capture tools hands down.

This week I experimented (not for the first time!) with ways to append text to a file in an Obsidian vault, without first opening the Obsidian app.

Why? Because I’m easily distracted!

I want a method that takes me as quickly as possible from deciding to write, to words on the screen. Click, write, export.

Bebop, Scratchpad, Apple’s Quick Note, Apple Shortcuts, Funnel, and PopClip are all great options, but each falls short of one or more of the following criteria:

1. Quick to start typing
2. Archives an easily reviewable record of what’s been typed
3. Reliable syncing between devices
4. Template for automatically adding today’s date (and other elements as needed)
5. Quick appending of text to a specific…