Notepad

Your text stays in this browser

• Autosave keeps the text, its file name and the line-ending choice in this browser’s local storage, a moment after you stop typing. Reload the page or come back later and it is still here. Nothing is uploaded or sent anywhere.
• The copy exists only in this browser on this device. A private window forgets it when you close the window, and clearing this site’s data removes it.
• On a shared computer, press Clear when you’re done, or switch Autosave off in the status bar: both remove the stored copy.
• Very long texts may not fit in the browser’s storage. The status bar tells you when that happens, and Download still saves them as a file.
• With the notepad open in two tabs, an idle tab picks up what you type in the other one.

Files

• Download saves the text under the name in the file name field, with any extension: notes.txt, README.md, data.json. Names without an extension get .txt.
• Choose CRLF in the status bar for Windows programs that expect it; opening a CRLF file selects it for you.
• Open reads UTF-8 and UTF-16 text files of up to 20 MB. You can also drop a file onto the editor.
• Clear starts over: it removes the text, its file name and the stored copy. It asks first, and Undo brings everything back right afterwards.

Zen mode

• Zen mode gives the whole screen to the text: the toolbar steps aside and a quiet status line keeps the line and word counts. Where the browser allows it, the page also goes full screen.
• Ctrl + Shift + Enter (⌘ + Shift + Return on a Mac) turns it on and off from anywhere on the page. Browsers and screen readers leave this combination alone, it never types a character on any keyboard layout, and F11 stays your browser’s own full screen.
• Esc leaves zen mode. With the find panel open, the first Esc closes the panel and the second leaves zen mode.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Ctrl + F (⌘ + F on a Mac): find. A selected word becomes the search.
• Ctrl + H (⌘ + ⌥ + F on a Mac): find and replace.
• Enter / Shift + Enter in the search field, F3 / Shift + F3 or Ctrl + G / Shift + Ctrl + G: next / previous match.
• Enter in the replace field replaces the current match; Ctrl + Enter replaces all. Esc closes the panel and returns to the text.
• Alt + C, W, R while in the panel: match case, whole word, regular expression. On a Mac, ⌥ + the letter works while one of the panel’s buttons has focus, so you can still type characters such as ç in the search fields.
• Ctrl + S: download. Ctrl + O: open a file.
• Ctrl + Z undoes typing, single replacements and Clear (file name included). The Undo button that appears after Replace all or Clear works for long texts too.

Regular expressions

Turn on .* to search with JavaScript regular expressions. Some examples:

• \d+ — any run of digits.
• ^[ \t]+$ — lines that contain only spaces or tabs (with ^$ on).
• [ \t]+$ — trailing spaces and tabs at the end of each line; replace with nothing to remove them.
• colou?r — “color” or “colour”.
• \p{Lu}\p{Ll}+ — capitalised words in any language, including Turkish (Çağrı, İstanbul).
• ^ with the replacement > — adds a prefix to every line.

Replacement patterns

In regular-expression mode the replacement can refer to what was found:

• $& — the whole match, e.g. "$&" puts quotes around it.
• $1, $2… — capture groups. Find (\w+) (\w+) and replace with $2, $1 to turn “Ada Lovelace” into “Lovelace, Ada”.
• $<name> — a named group such as (?<year>\d{4}).
• $` and $' — the text before and after the match; $$ — a literal dollar sign.
• Without regular expressions the replacement is inserted exactly as typed, dollar signs included.