Online notepad
A quiet place to write, with the caret already in the paper. Every note is kept in this browser while you write. Notes you type or paste also save privately when signed in. Imported notes stay local.
Start writing. It is saved as you go, and it is here next time.
Notepad is in your dock. Everything you started is still there.
Notes that stay where you left them.
Type and every change saves as you go. Keep several notes in tabs, or open a text file.
0 words0 characters0 sec
Runs in your browser.Typed text and settings save privately.Saving details
How to write a note online
Start writing
The caret is already in the paper. There is nothing to open, nothing to sign into and no button to press first.
It is written down as you go
The browser caches your note as you write. Notes you type or paste also save privately when signed in. Imported notes stay local. Read the account status for pending or confirmed cloud saving.
Come back to it, or take it with you
Close the tab and the note is here next time. Press the download arrow for a .txt file, or the copy button for the clipboard.
Using the notepad
Seven buttons, and they all sit on the two thin rails above and below the paper. Nothing floats over the text you are writing, and the find bar only appears when you ask for it. This section says what each control does and when you would reach for it.
The notes strip
Along the top rail. Each note gets a tab, named after its own first line, so nothing asks you to title a thought before you have had it. Press + for a new one.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| A tab | Opens that note. The one you were in is written down first, so switching never loses a keystroke. |
| + | Starts a new note and puts the caret in it. Called Untitled until it has a first line. |
| The × on the open tab | Deletes that note. Only the open tab has one, so a row of crosses cannot cost you the wrong note by half a centimetre of mis-aim. |
| Undo bar | Appears for six seconds after a delete and puts the note back where it was. There is no confirmation dialog, because this is better than one. |
| Left and right arrows | Move between notes when a tab has focus. |
The paper, and the save state
The note is cached in this browser as you write. Notes you type or paste also save privately when signed in. Imported notes stay local. The bottom rail confirms the local copy. The account status above the editor distinguishes pending cloud writes from confirmed cloud storage. A local save alone does not mean another device can read it yet.
To the left of it sit three figures that move as you type: words, characters, and how long the note takes to read at 238 words a minute. They are read rather than pressed, which is why they are at the far end of the rail from the buttons. On a narrow phone the reading time drops off first.
That pill is on the rail rather than in the small print for a reason. I typed into all seven notepads ranking for this phrase and reloaded them. One came back empty. Another came back holding a draft from 27 minutes earlier, having never saved the sentence I typed five seconds before. A claim you can watch happen beats a claim you have to take on trust, and the guide has the method and every result.
If the dot ever turns red and says Not saved, this browser has refused to store any more. That is nearly always a full storage quota or a locked-down privacy setting. Download the note, because from that point nothing new is being kept.
Aa: typeface, size and line length
One button on the bottom rail, holding the three settings that change how the text reads. Signed out, they are remembered in this browser. Signed in, they save privately to your account. A font picker is used twice and read a thousand times, which is why it is behind a button rather than out on the rail.
| Setting | Options | When you would change it |
|---|---|---|
| Typeface | Sans, Serif, Mono | Serif for anything longer than a screen. Mono when you are lining up columns or pasting a snippet, because every character is the same width. |
| Size | Small, Medium, Large | Large is not an accessibility setting, it is a writing one. Bigger text on a wide screen is the cheapest way to stop skim-reading your own draft. |
| Line length | Narrow, Wide | Narrow holds the line to 68 characters, which is where your eye stops losing the start of the next one. Wide uses the whole panel, which suits lists and code. This is the text column, not the panel: in focus mode the bar at the top sizes the panel and this still sizes the column inside it. |
Dark mode
There is no separate switch on the notepad, because the whole site has one. The moon in the site header flips every page, this one included, and the choice is remembered. Left alone it follows whatever your operating system is set to, so a machine that goes dark at sunset takes the notepad with it.
Find
Press Ctrl + F, or Cmd + F, and a slim bar opens under the notes strip. Type and it jumps to the first match and counts the rest.Enter goes to the next, Shift + Enter to the previous, andEsc closes it.
The two chevrons beside the count step backwards and forwards without touching the keyboard, and the × closes the bar.
This exists because your browser's own find cannot do it. Text inside a text box is a value rather than part of the page, so the browser's search skips it entirely. That is also why the shortcut is worth taking over here and almost nowhere else.
Copy, download and focus mode
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Copy | Puts the whole note on the clipboard. |
| Download | Saves a .txt file named after the note's first line. Plain UTF-8, opening in anything. |
| Narrow, Wide, Full | At the top right of the notepad. Moves the panel into the whole viewport at that width. The page around it has nothing to add while you are writing. |
Copy and download record one completed use. The activity record holds only a count and date. Your current note saves separately as a draft, so it remains ready when you return.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Keys | Does |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + S or Cmd + S | Downloads the note as a .txt file. |
| Ctrl + F or Cmd + F | Opens Find. |
| Enter in Find | Next match. With Shift, the previous one. |
| Esc | Closes Find, then leaves focus mode. |
| ← and → on a tab | Move between notes. |
Three shortcuts and no more. Each one takes over a key your browser already uses, and that is only worth doing where the browser's own version does not work on this page.
What the notepad will not do
The list below is what other tools do that this one does not, said plainly rather than left for you to find out.
| Not here | Why, and what to do instead |
|---|---|
| Bold, italics, headings | It holds plain text. If you want a formatted document, write it in a word processor. Markdown syntax survives a paste into almost anything. |
| Sync while signed out | Local notes stay on this device. Sign in for private account saving, or move a downloaded note with file transfer. |
| Share a note by link | A link means a copy on somebody's server. On one popular notepad your note is public by default unless you register. |
| Replace, as in find and replace | Find is here, replace is not. Bulk editing text is a different job, and doing it badly on a draft is worse than not offering it. |
| Export to PDF or DOCX | Plain text only. One open-source rival, notepad.js.org, does write both, and it is the better tool if that is what you need. |
| Ambient sound or a typing noise | No audio at all. It is a real feature elsewhere and it is not one this page is going to add. |
| Passwords or encryption | Nothing here is encrypted. Anyone with your unlocked machine can read the notes, exactly as they could read a text file on your desktop. |
Why write notes online at all
Because the browser is already open. A note you have to launch an app for is a note you write somewhere worse, usually in a message to yourself. The whole value of a web notepad is that it is one tab away from whatever you were already doing.
You can use the notepad without an account. In that case your notes stay in this browser. Sign in to save typed or pasted notes across devices. Notes opened from files stay local.
Notes are private, including when they save to your account. Your profile shows a short preview of your latest note to you alone. The guide has the full measurement, including how much every other option puts on screen before you can type.
Frequently asked questions
Where are my notes actually stored?
Signed in, notes you type or paste and writing preferences save automatically to your private account. Signed out, they stay in localStorage on this device. No note is published. Notes opened from files stay in this browser’s local storage, including later edits. They do not sync to your account. Interrupted saves retry automatically, and the save status tells you when your account has received them.
Will my notes still be here after I close the browser?
Yes. Signed-out notes use localStorage, which survives closing the browser but can be cleared by you or the browser. Typed or pasted notes saved while signed in return from your private account once their cloud save is confirmed. Download an independent backup of anything you would be upset to lose.
What happens if I clear my browsing history?
Clearing history alone leaves local notes. Clearing site data removes local notes, account caches and pending writes. Notes with a confirmed cloud save remain in your private account and return after you sign in again. Download unsaved work before clearing site data.
Can I open the same notes on my phone?
Yes, when you sign in to the same account. Notes save automatically and follow you once the cloud save is confirmed. Signed-out notes stay on that device and are not imported into an account when you sign in. You can download a .txt backup or use file transfer to move a local note.
How long can one note be?
Browser storage is limited and shared with other floi drafts. Account state also has limits: 1 MB per saved item and 200 items per account. Your collection of notes shares its saved item. If saving fails, the status says so. Download a backup before relying on a very large collection.
Is this Notepad++?
No. Notepad++ is a Windows program with syntax highlighting, macros, plugins and multi-file search, and nothing in a browser tab is a substitute for it. This is a plain writing surface: text in, text out, kept where you left it. If you came looking for Notepad++ online, the honest answer is that no web page is that, and the closest thing is a local install.
Can I make text bold or add a heading?
Not as formatting. The notepad holds plain text, so what you save is exactly the characters you typed. That is deliberate: plain text opens in everything, is never subtly mangled by a paste, and will still be readable in twenty years. Markdown works fine as a convention, so **bold** and a leading # carry meaning to anything you paste into later. Nothing renders it here.
Does it work in a private or incognito window?
It works. Signed-out notes disappear when the private window closes and its storage is cleared. Typed or pasted notes with a confirmed cloud save remain in your private account. Pending writes can still be lost when the window closes. Download work you want to keep before closing.
Something missing? Request a feature