I’ve been struggling with something that sounds simple but is surprisingly annoying:
capturing content quickly across devices in a self-hosted environment.
On Android there’s share, on iOS shortcuts, on desktop copy/paste… but everything feels fragmented.
I often end up losing things or postponing them just because capturing isn’t frictionless.
Curious how others handle this.
I have started using nextcloud talks
note to self, your chat app of choice will have something similarYeah I tried similar approaches too (notes to self, chat apps etc.)
They kind of work, but I always felt they weren’t really designed for this use case — more like a workaround.
What I was missing was something more “frictionless”, where capturing is basically instant and doesn’t depend on context.
what sort of stuff are you looking to capture? images, text, code, thoughts?
Pretty much everything 😄
The problem (for me) wasn’t what to capture, but how fast and from where.
I tried things like Linkwarden too — great tool, but still feels tied to specific entry points (browser extension, app, etc.).
What I kept missing was something more “universal”, where capturing is always one step away regardless of device or context.
I find that just texting myself does the trick for things like this. But that’s how I operate. I’m curious to see how you tackle this puzzle.
Yeah I used the “message to self” approach for a while too — it works surprisingly well 🙂
What I ended up building is basically a very minimal “capture layer”, where no matter the context (share, paste, shortcut, etc.), everything goes into the same place instantly, without deciding upfront what it is or where it belongs.
It’s not really a note-taking tool — more like a universal entry point.
If you’re curious: https://github.com/oldany/dropmind