Online Notepad

The reason a browser notepad is worth having at all is that it removes every step between wanting to write something and writing it: no application to launch, no file to name, no account to create, no document to save. That immediacy is the whole feature. What follows from it is the important caveat, and it is worth being clear-eyed about. Because the note is stored in this browser’s local storage rather than on a server, nobody else can read it — but nothing else can reach it either. It will not appear on your phone, it will not survive clearing your browsing data, and a private-browsing window discards it when the window closes. That trade is exactly right for a scratchpad, where privacy and speed matter more than durability, and exactly wrong for anything you need to keep. The download buttons exist for the moment a scratch note turns into something you actually care about; use them at that moment rather than later.

Words are counted as runs of non-whitespace characters, and paragraphs as blocks separated by a blank line. Reading time uses 238 words per minute, the mean silent-reading rate for adult non-fiction found by Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies.

The note lives in this browser’s local storage on this device, which means it does not sync anywhere and will not appear on your phone. Clearing browsing data, using private or incognito mode, or opening the page in a different browser all start you with a blank note. There is no version history and no undo beyond what the text box itself offers, so download anything you would be upset to lose. Storage is capped at a few megabytes by the browser.

A 600-word draft shows around 3,400 characters, roughly 12 paragraphs and about 3 minutes to read — enough to know whether it fits before you paste it anywhere.

1. Start typing — the note saves itself as you go.
2. Watch the live counts under the text box.
3. Use find and replace, or preview Markdown, from the buttons above.
4. Download as .txt or .md when you want a copy outside the browser.

• Treating the notepad as permanent storage rather than a scratchpad.
• Writing something important in a private or incognito window, which discards it on close.
• Expecting the note to appear on another device or another browser.
• Clearing browsing data without downloading the note first.

Somewhere to put text right now. Start typing and the note saves itself in this browser, so closing the tab does not lose it. Live word and character counts, find and replace, a Markdown preview and one-click export to .txt or .md are all there when you need them.

Anyone who wants a blank page immediately — for a draft, a pasted snippet, or somewhere to think.

• No account, no sign-up, no sync — the note is saved in this browser only.
• Autosaves as you type, so a closed tab or a crash does not lose your work.
• Live word, character, line and paragraph counts plus a reading-time estimate.
• Markdown preview and export to .txt or .md when the note becomes something real.

• Drafting an email or message away from the app that will send it.
• Stripping formatting by pasting rich text in and copying plain text out.
• Jotting notes during a call without opening a document editor.
• Writing to a word count with the counter always visible.