Drafts: The App To Capture It All

Actions and more

I’ve seen a few stories recently about Drafts app and how it’s so good at just capturing text.

I’ve also written about Drafts too, and the various ways it’s integrated either in writing my journal, creating notes in Obsidian or creating tasks in Todoist.

But I have to talk about the Actions, and how the Pro subscription of £17.49 ($19.99) is worth every penny.

It’s available on the whole gamut of Apple devices; iPhone, iPad, macOS and Apple Watch

Drafts is an app that is referred to as “the Swiss Army Knife of Text”.

I use it so often that it takes pride of place in my phone dock, next to Mona (for Mastodon) and the Phone and Message app.

This is because Drafts loads very, very, quickly and is always ready to capture my text.

Ready, Steady, Draft

When it launches, the app is ready.

It’s a blank canvas with the keyboard raring to go.

At the top of the screen you have the ability to add tags.

Tags are the means by which to organize the documents. There are no folders, tags is the basis for organization. More on that later.

At the top of the screen you’ll see the character and word count, and the options to open the list of Drafts (on the left) and the Actions pane (on the right).

Above the keyboard you can see some Actions that are quick access.

When you collapse the keyboard, you have access to the general settings, the editor settings, formatting options for blocks of text and a pin; which pins the document to the top of the pile.

There is an abundance of settings you can make to have Drafts work just the way you like it.

Action Stations

This story is about Actions.

This is where the power of Drafts really comes into its own.

Actions are small pieces of code that are designed to do one thing (or chained together to do multiple things).

I’ll run you through some examples and why, even if you don’t use Drafts as the main repository for your notes, it can be the single place to capture everything.

We’ll start by looking at some examples from my own set of Actions.

This is a list of my most used Actions, as displayed in the Action drawer.

1. The first one in the list is posting to my journal in Day One. I wrote about that here.
2. Send to WhatsApp. Yes, all you need to do is create your message here then click the WhatsApp button to open the app and send it to your recipient. You can edit the message in WhatsApp before sending.
3. ‘Create note in Notes’ will actually run an Apple shortcut to create a new note in Apple Notes. The Draft has a tag added, so I know it’s been exported successfully. It’s also moved to the Archive.
4. The next one will create a reminder in the Inbox in the Reminders app.
5. The next two are about posting into Obsidian. The first one is a new note in the root of the vault. The second one is to a specific folder, called INBOX.
6. Share does as it says. It opens the Apple share sheet to take further action.
7. ‘Copy’ speaks for itself.
8. ‘Save to files’ also does what it says on the tin. The filename is preset to the first line of the document, but this can be changed when exporting. It’s saved as a text file.
9. The final one above is similar to the WhatsApp Action already mentioned, except this time the message is already in a draft, so it’s a one-stop method to get the draft and open up WhatsApp,, ready to send a recurring message.

More…

These are just a few examples, but there are hundred of Actions available, and you can find them all in the Drafts Directory.

Draftodon is a complete suite of Actions to post to Mastodon.

ChatGPT is integrated beautifully, so you can have a conversation, or set up a prompt, with the outputs posted to a Draft.

You can also create snippets; pre-written text that you can insert into documents.

I should point out that most of the Actions are available across iOS and macOS, but there are some that require AppleScript to run, and therefore are not compatible with iOS.

Organization

The fun doesn’t stop there, as you can automatically set the end of an Action to archive or delete the Draft after it’s Done. Adding a tag can be done automatically too.

Tags are the way to organise Drafts, and are usually used in conjunction with Workspaces.

Workspaces are, essentially, high-powered filters.

You create simple queries based on Tags, along with dates, sort settings and more and display them in a Workspace.

It’s powerful stuff and allows you to create various views of your notes quite easily.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Drafts isn’t just a note-taking app.

1. Capture everything in a single place.
2. Organise with tags (not folders)
3. Query Drafts using filters and queries
4. Extend Drafts to do other things

Negatives

It would be remiss of me not to point out a couple of shortfalls within the capabilities of Drafts as a complete note-taking app.

1. Images are a no-no. You can’t add any sort of image. If you’re a visual person, then Drafts won’t cut it. Although I would argue that it’s ideal for starting the note then ‘sending’ it to your preferred app to edit and enhance.
2. Tables are also not well supported. It is possible to create a table in markdown and there are Actions to do this, but it’s quite fiddly.
3. One that puts many off; the notes are stored in a proprietary Drafts database. They can be exported and then used elsewhere. The Action ‘Save to files’ will do that for you.

Support

There is a great community available to find hints and tips as well as to ask and answer questions.

Drafts Pro

Drafts is free to download and use.

And it’s a belter without paying for the Pro service. You will definitely feel the benefit of Drafts as the basic service.

Upgrading to Pro gives you more:

• A single Pro subscription unlocks all Pro features across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. (Requires the same iCloud account be used on all devices sharing a subscription). Drafts Pro supports Family Sharing.
• Create and edit Actions – Unlimited flexibility to create, customise and extend actions. Pre-configure recipients for messages, integrate with third party apps, or take advantage of advanced scripting.
• Themes, syntaxes and Icons – Make the editing experience suit your tastes. Dark, solarized and themes with automatic switching. Customize the app home screen icons on iOS. Install and use custom syntax highlighting definitions.
• Workspaces – this is like filters on steroids, to keep track of your Drafts
• Mail Drop – Get a unique email address that can be used to send email to Drafts. Just send or forward emails, and they will appear in your Drafts library.
• Widgets and Sharing – Access drafts directly from enhanced widgets. Append and prepend to drafts in the Share extension (iOS) or capture window (Mac).
• Enhanced Automation – Access Drafts actions and features as services utilising advanced Shortcuts on iOS and incoming URL schemes from other apps.

Note: this is not a sponsored post. I am not being paid, and the links are not affiliate.

Drafts is just a great app, and I believe in sharing the magic where it’s worth it.

Finally

I realise this is quite a rambling story, and it’s impossible to do Drafts justice in a relatively short space.

I recommend you check out this story by Simon Theakston

Also, check out this video by Chris Lawley who really shows the nuts and bolts about Drafts. This is a terrific walkthrough. However, this is from May 2022. There have been a ton of updates since then.

Thank you for reading

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