A Mac Scratchpad for Code and Notes
How to use a Mac scratchpad for notes and code: plain text on disk, code colouring, smart paste and five copy formats, so a text editor can stay closed.
Sanjeev Maharjan4 min read
A good scratchpad for notes and code on a Mac keeps your text as plain text, colours code without rewriting it, wraps pasted snippets for you, and lets you copy in the format the next app expects. PixoNotes' editor does this, so quick jobs such as a snippet, a log line or a to-do list do not need a separate text editor to be opened.
Plain text you can trust
Notes in PixoNotes are plain text on disk. Marks such as asterisks and hashes stay visible, only dimmed, so what you see is what you copy and nothing is locked into a format. The colouring is only a change of appearance and never changes a character of your text.
Each note has a type: Note, Plain Text or Code. A Note supports light formatting through its format bar, with bold, italic, checklists and code blocks. Plain Text leaves everything as you typed it. Code notes add line numbers. Lists continue when you press Return, an empty item ends the list, Tab indents, and code keeps its indentation.
Click a [ ] box to tick it. Press ⌘F to find. If you paste a picture, PixoNotes pastes the words in it as text. Your notes are not behind a paywall. Export, backup and copying are free, and going back to the free plan hides nothing. Read more on the security page about where notes are stored.
Code colouring and code blocks
Code notes colour 17 languages: Swift, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Shell, JSON, YAML, SQL, HTML, CSS, Go, Rust, C and C++, Java and Kotlin, PHP, Ruby and Dart.
You can start a code block in two ways.
- Type three backticks and a language name, then press Return. The closing fence is written for you.
- Use the code block button in the bottom bar, or paste code and let smart paste do it.
Hover over a code block and you get a one-click copy button. In quick capture you can type !code or a language such as !python to make the whole note a code note from the start.
Smart paste
Paste code into a note and it wraps itself in a block with its language guessed, so you do not type the fences. Pasted code in quick capture becomes a code note by itself. If you would rather insert plain text, ⌥⌘V pastes as a code block on purpose, and Settings lets you turn wrapping of pasted code on or off.
Five ways to copy
The same note can leave the app in five shapes. The Copy button uses your default, and holding it shows the others. ⇧⌘C copies the open note in the chosen format.
| Format | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Plain Text | You want no marks left. This is the default, and it pastes cleanly into Mail |
| Markdown | You are writing in a Markdown tool or a README |
| Rich Text | You are pasting into a document with formatting |
| HTML | You need markup for a web page or an email template |
| Code Only | You want the code and nothing around it |
All five are free. You can set your default copy format in Settings, and a whole board can be exported as Markdown. A card on the kanban board offers the same copy formats from its right-click menu.
Text tools for tidying
With Pro, text tools work on the selection or the whole note: Format JSON, Minify JSON, Sort Lines, Reverse Lines, Remove Duplicate Lines, Trim Each Line, Remove Blank Lines, UPPERCASE, lowercase and Title Case. They suit the small jobs a scratchpad collects, like cleaning a list pasted from a spreadsheet or making a JSON response readable.
Apple Intelligence, also part of Pro, can tidy a note, fix spelling and grammar, make it shorter, turn it into a checklist, summarise it or explain a piece of code. It runs on your Mac, and PixoNotes has no server of its own. It needs Apple Intelligence to be available on your Mac, and answers can take a while. See the AI page for details.
Where the scratchpad fits
You do not need to open a window to start. Press ⌃⌥N from any app, type or paste, and press Return. A note is saved, and the keyboard goes back to where you were. If you want it in sight, keep it as a sticky on the desktop. If it belongs to a project, send it to a column with @doing.
PixoNotes needs macOS 26 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac. Free covers notes, code and every copy format. Pro adds sync, more boards, more stickies, Apple Intelligence and text tools for $2.99 a month or $19.90 a year. Check the features page for the full list and download PixoNotes to try it.
Questions people ask
Are my notes stored in a special format?
No. Notes are plain text on disk, and the marks stay visible but dimmed. With sync turned on, each note is one small file in a folder you own, such as iCloud Drive.
Which languages does the code colouring cover?
Seventeen are coloured: Swift, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Shell, JSON, YAML, SQL, HTML, CSS, Go, Rust, C and C++, Java and Kotlin, PHP, Ruby and Dart. Other text still works, just without colour.
Do I need to pay to copy my notes out?
No. All five copy formats, export and backup are free. Going back from Pro to the free plan hides nothing, so your own notes are never held back.
Can it replace my text editor?
For quick snippets, lists and notes, it can. It is a scratchpad, not a project editor, so keep your usual editor for larger files and whole codebases.
Written by Sanjeev Maharjan
Sanjeev Maharjan builds PixoNotes, stickies, a board and a scratchpad for the Mac. Found a mistake in this guide? Write to [email protected].