StickyTabs
Sticky notes as coloured tabs on the edge of your screen.
Every sticky is a note in your own Apple Notes. They show up in Notes on your iPhone and iPad, and they survive a new Mac — there's no account and no server of ours in between.
Getting started
- StickyTabs lives in the menu bar and has no Dock icon. Look for its icon at the top right.
- The first time it runs it makes a StickyTabs folder in Notes and puts a strip of tabs on the right edge of your screen.
- Click the strip, or press ⌃⌥S from anywhere, and the tabs slide out with each sticky's first line. ⌃⌥S again puts them away.
- Hover a tab to peek at the whole sticky; click it to open it in a popup beside the tab. Type straight away — you don't have to leave the app you're in.
- + New sticky at the end of the strip, or ⌃⌥N from anywhere.
The first time, macOS asks whether StickyTabs may control Notes. That's the permission it needs to read and write your stickies — Notes has no other way in. If it's refused, the strip shows Allow access to Notes, which opens System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
Questions
Where are my stickies kept?
In Notes, in a folder called StickyTabs, one note per sticky. You can open, read and edit them in Notes like any other note, on any device signed into the same iCloud account.
Can I move the strip?
Drag it to slide it along its edge. Pull it well away from that edge towards another one and it moves there — right, left, top or bottom. Screen Edge → Move to the Middle puts it back. With more than one display, Screen in the menu chooses which one it's on, or All Screens puts a strip on each.
Can I put pictures in a sticky?
Yes. Paste with ⌘V — a screenshot, a picture copied from any app, or image files copied in Finder — and it goes in where the caret is. Drop an image file on a sticky to put it where you drop it. Drag a picture's bottom-right corner to resize it, or pick a size from its right-click menu. Double-click one to open it in Preview.
A sticky says "Edit in Notes" and won't let me type
That note has something StickyTabs can't write back safely — a checklist, a table, or a picture or file added in Notes itself. Saving it as plain lines would flatten or lose that, so the sticky is shown read-only and the button opens it in Notes, where everything works.
Can I take a sticky off the strip without deleting it?
Right-click its tab and choose Hide from the Strip. Its note moves to a Hidden folder inside StickyTabs, so it's still there to read and edit in Notes. Hidden Stickies in the menu lists them; pick one to put it back. Because the state lives in Notes, a sticky hidden here stays hidden on your other Macs too.
What happens when I delete one?
Its note goes to Recently Deleted in Notes, where you can recover it for 30 days.
The colours look different in Notes
The colour has to travel inside the note, because Notes has no field for it. Colour in Notes in the menu chooses how: a thin Colour Swatch bar (the default, and the only one that shows a colour in Notes' own lists), a Coloured Square that's exact inside the note, or an Emoji Square that keeps its colour everywhere but comes in nine colours only.
Changes I make on my iPhone take a moment to appear
Notes can't tell an app when something changed, so StickyTabs checks for itself — every few seconds while the strip or a sticky is open, and less often otherwise. Sync Now in the menu checks immediately.
Notes keeps opening
StickyTabs works by asking Notes to do things, so Notes has to be running. It's started hidden, with no window, but it does appear in the Dock. Quitting it just makes StickyTabs start it again.
Can I start it automatically?
Turn on Launch at Login in the menu.
Does anything leave my Mac?
Nothing is sent to us — StickyTabs makes no network connections and collects nothing. Your stickies are notes in your own Notes account, and if that's an iCloud account, Apple syncs them between your devices the way it syncs every other note. See the privacy policy.
What if I remove the app?
Drag it to the Trash. Your stickies stay exactly where they are — they're notes, and the StickyTabs folder in Notes is untouched.
How do I quit it?
Click the menu bar icon and choose Quit StickyTabs.
Contact
Questions, problems or suggestions: support@spssolutions.ca. Telling me your macOS version and what the sticky was doing helps.