Inside DropNote: One Note That Is Always Open
DropNote is a small Mac utility from 1dot1 that keeps one note in the menu bar. Not a folder of notes, not a list with titles and dates: one note, the same one every time. This teardown walks through it screen by screen and explains the decisions behind each part.
The case for one note is the small decision it removes. A phone number read out on a call, an address, a line to remember before it goes: opening a notes app means choosing where to put it, and that choice is often the reason the thought is lost. A single note has nowhere else for it to go.
One note, already open
Clicking the icon opens the note under the menu bar with the cursor where it was left. There is no list, no title field and no new-note button. Typing starts immediately.
It saves itself half a second after the last keystroke, and the footer says when. The file is plain UTF-8 text at ~/Library/Application Support/DropNote/note.txt, which means the note outlives the app: it can be read in any editor, backed up, or found by Spotlight.
Or just say it
Press Dictate and the words appear as they are spoken, using the speech recognition built into macOS, on the Mac itself wherever the language supports it. Stop and Insert drops the text in at the cursor; Discard leaves the note untouched.
Two details matter. The insert is a single undo step, so one Command-Z removes a whole dictated paragraph rather than unpicking it word by word. And the separator is chosen for you: a new line after a full stop, a space mid-sentence.
Two clicks from a thought
A right-click on the icon starts dictation without opening the panel at all, and the icon grows ripples and a timer while it listens. That is the shortest path from a thought to text: click, speak, click.
Take it with you
Copy All puts the note on the clipboard. Export writes it to a text or Markdown file. Clear Note empties it and asks first, and a single Command-Z restores it. Text Size and Panel Height make room as the note grows.
Built in black and white
Like the other 1dot1 Mac apps, DropNote is greyscale in light and dark mode. The icon is a page with an open corner and a pencil, and the menu bar glyph repeats it at a smaller size, with ripples added while dictation runs.
It is a universal app for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later, needs the microphone and speech recognition only for dictation, and never connects to the internet.
How to use it, feature by feature
The same instructions are in the short PDF inside the download.
Writing
- Click the menu bar icon; the note opens with the cursor where it was.
- Type. The footer counts words and characters, and shows the time of the last save.
- Click elsewhere or press Escape to put it away. Nothing is lost.
- Press Control-Option-N to open the note from any app, if that combination is free.
Dictating
- Press Dictate, or right-click the menu bar icon to start without opening the panel.
- Speak; the words appear as they are recognised.
- Press Stop and Insert to put them in at the cursor, or Discard to throw them away.
- One Command-Z removes the whole inserted passage.
Keeping it tidy
- Copy All copies the whole note.
- Export writes it to a .txt or .md file of your choosing.
- Clear Note empties it after asking, and Command-Z straight afterwards brings it back.
Making it fit
- Text Size offers Small, Medium and Large.
- Panel Height offers Standard and Tall.
- Open at Login keeps the note in the menu bar from the moment the Mac starts.
If something does not happen
- Dictation does nothing: the microphone or speech recognition permission is missing, and the panel links to the right page in System Settings.
- Control-Option-N does nothing: another app already owns that combination; use the icon.
- Undo will not reach far enough: the undo history belongs to the open panel, so closing it starts a fresh one. The note itself is never affected.
Get DropNote
DropNote is available on 1dot1 as a single download, with the guide, a README and the licence inside the zip.