Capturing ideas

Everything starts on the Drop screen: one box, one key, and the idea is in your bucket. This page covers the box, tags, dictation, offline drops and how to change an idea after you drop it.

#The composer

The box at the top of Drop ("What's the idea? Add #tags to sort it") gets the cursor as soon as the screen opens.

An idea can have up to 10,000 characters. From 9,000 characters, a counter such as 9,412 / 10,000 replaces the "⏎ to drop" hint, and it changes color in the last 100 characters. The box stops accepting text at the limit.

When the idea is saved, a short message tells you what happened:

If you keep typing while an idea drops, only the text that dropped leaves the box. The text you added stays.

#Tags

Write a #tag anywhere in your idea. When you drop the idea, Idea Bucket takes the tags out of the text, stores them in lowercase, and shows them as chips on the card.

Ask #Mum for mint cuttings for the window box #garden

This becomes the text Ask for mint cuttings for the window box with the tags #mum and #garden. A tag in the middle of a sentence is also removed, so put the word in the sentence once and the tag separately if you want to keep both:

Ask Mum for mint cuttings for the window box #mum #garden

If you type the same tag twice, it is saved once. As you type, the tags appear as chips under the box, so you can see what you'll get before you drop.

#Tag rules

• A tag starts with # at the start of the text, after a space or line break, or after an opening bracket or quote: (, [, {, ", ', “, ‘.
• After the #, a tag can have letters and numbers in any language, - and _. It must start with a letter or number: #side-project, #road_trip, #2027, #café are all tags.
• The tag stops at the first other character, so in Book the venue #party! the tag is #party.
• Tags are always lowercase. #Garden and #GARDEN both become #garden.

Text like this stays as text:

#New tags and colors

A chip with a dashed outline means a tag you haven't used before. Check it for a typo before you drop. When the idea is saved, it is a normal tag.

Tags have the colors you gave them, in the box, on the chips and on every card. To change a tag's color, right-click the tag or long-press it (⇧ F10 or the context-menu key on a keyboard) and pick one of eight colors or Default. Tags has more about colors, cleanup and merging.

A tag with an automation on it shows a small mark. Its tooltip says "Has an automation".

#Autocomplete

Type # and a list of your tags opens under the cursor. Keep typing to narrow the list. It shows up to five tags, with these first:

1. Tags that start with what you typed (#gar → #garden)
2. Tags that contain it (#den → #garden)
3. Tags that look similar, marked similar (#gardn → #garden)

Tags you use more come higher. Each suggestion shows how many ideas use the tag, when you last used it and part of a recent idea with it.

You can also click a suggestion. When the list is closed, Enter drops the idea again. If no tag matches what you typed, the list shows "#name — new tag" instead.

Autocomplete also works when you edit an idea, and in the search box on Find.

#Typo hints

If a tag looks like a typo of a tag you already use, a hint appears above the Drop button: "Did you mean #podcast?" for #podcats, or "Did you mean #tools?" for #tols. Plurals and spelling differences such as #side-project and #sideproject count too.

• Fix changes the tag in your text.
• Keep #podcats hides the hint for that tag.

The hint never stops you from dropping. If you ignore it, the idea is saved with the tag as you typed it.

#Dictation

Tap the microphone button at the bottom left of the box to dictate. Tap it again to stop. Your words appear in the box as you speak.

• Normally, Idea Bucket uses Gemini's live transcription. It removes filler words and corrections you make while you speak, and knows the names of your most-used tags. The box shows Listening…
• If Gemini can't start, for example when you're offline or over the hourly dictation limit, Idea Bucket uses your browser's built-in speech recognition. The box shows Listening… (basic) to tell you.
• Press Enter or Drop while you are still talking, and Idea Bucket finishes the words it is processing and drops everything. Nothing from that dictation goes into the next idea.

The microphone button only shows when your browser supports dictation. If you see Microphone access is blocked, allow the microphone for ideabucket.app in your browser or system settings.

#Saying tags out loud

You can't say #, so say "hashtag" before the word:

"Hash tag" and "hash sign" also work. A tag is usually the next single word. Two or three spoken words join into one tag only if they match a tag you already have, such as #side-project or #road_trip.

#Offline drops

You can drop ideas with no connection at all. When Idea Bucket can't reach the server, a pill at the top says Offline · showing saved ideas, and every drop is saved on your device:

• The idea goes to the top of Latest with a Waiting to sync label.
• It keeps the time you dropped it, not the time it syncs.
• When the connection is back, Idea Bucket sends waiting ideas in the order you dropped them and shows Synced 3 ideas. It tries again when you reconnect, when you return to the app, and every 30 seconds.

Until it syncs, you can open or delete a waiting idea, but you can't edit it. Edit, archive and delete on ideas that are already saved need a connection. Offline, they show You're offline.

If you sign out with ideas waiting, Idea Bucket asks you first. Waiting ideas stay on the device and sync the next time the same account signs in there.

#Ideas that couldn't be saved

If the server refuses a waiting idea, or the idea still fails after five tries, you see An idea saved offline couldn't be saved — see Drop. On Drop, the card shows Couldn't save. Tap the card to see the reason. Then:

• Retry (the circular arrow) sends it again.
• Delete (the bin) removes it from this device. It was never saved anywhere else.

Other waiting ideas keep syncing in the meantime.

#The Latest list

Under the composer, Latest shows your three most recent ideas and how many ideas are in your bucket. Ideas that are waiting to sync are first. If your bucket is empty, it says "The bucket is empty. Drop your first idea above."

Click a tag on any card to see every idea with that tag on Find.

#Surprise me

Surprise me puts one random idea from your bucket on top of Latest. Press it again for another. Archived ideas aren't included. When you're offline, it picks from the ideas saved on this device.

#Edit or delete an idea

Click or tap a card to open it and show the whole text and its notes. The buttons on the card (shown when you point at it on a computer) are:

• Edit (pencil): the text opens in an edit box, with the tags added at the end, as you'd type them. Change the text or tags and click Save, or press ⌘ Enter (Ctrl Enter on Windows). Esc or Cancel discards your changes. Autocomplete and typo hints work here too.
• Archive (box): hides the idea from Latest, Find, Surprise me and tag counts, but keeps it. Click Undo in the message to bring it back.
• Delete (bin): moves the idea to the trash. Click Undo in the "Moved to trash" message to bring it back, or restore it from Profile → Trash within 30 days.

See Notes, archive and trash for notes and what happens to archived and deleted ideas.

#Where an idea came from

Some ideas show a small icon before their tags. It shows where the idea was captured. For example, if you used the Mac app's quick capture while you were in Safari, a globe icon shows. Point at the icon to see the app and page, such as "From Safari · Page title". If there's a page, click the icon to open it. Ideas you drop on the Drop screen don't have one.