Support

Scratchd for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch

Before you write in

Please include your build number, which is in Settings → About, and what you were doing when the problem happened. If a particular note is involved, attaching the file is more useful than describing it, since every note is a plain text file you can attach to an email. Only do that if you are comfortable sharing what is in it. A redacted copy, or a small note that reproduces the same problem, works just as well.

System requirements

Some features need more than the minimum. Voice notes and the journal’s generated reflection use Apple’s on‑device models, which need macOS 26 or iOS 26 on hardware that supports Apple Intelligence. Voice notes need both that and on‑device speech recognition, so on other devices Scratchd tells you rather than sending your audio away. CarPlay needs iOS 26.4, because that is the version in which Apple opened CarPlay to voice‑first apps.

Common questions

Where are my notes?

In the folder you chose when you first opened Scratchd — by default a Scratchd folder in your iCloud Drive. Open it in Finder or the Files app and you’ll see your notes as ordinary files. Tasks are in tasks/, saved links in links/, journal days in journal/, and deleted notes sit in a trash/ folder inside the library for 30 days before they’re removed.

I edited a note in another app and Scratchd didn’t notice

It should. Scratchd watches the folder and reconciles from disk. If a change does not appear, reopening the app forces a full rescan. If the file is in iCloud Drive, check Settings → Sync Health first. A file that has not finished downloading looks present but is still a placeholder.

Something isn’t syncing between my devices

Settings → Sync Health shows the iCloud state of every file, flags uploads stalled for more than ten minutes, and lets you request a download for anything still in the cloud. Syncing is iCloud Drive, so the usual causes apply: different Apple Accounts on each device, iCloud Drive switched off for Scratchd, Low Power Mode, or no space left.

The Mac shortcut ⌃⌥ Space doesn’t open anything

Which permission you need depends on which build you have, and granting the wrong one changes nothing.

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, switch Scratchd on in the pane your build uses, then quit and reopen Scratchd. The permission is not picked up until it relaunches.

The two builds also behave differently once it works. The App Store build only listens, so ⌃⌥ Space still reaches the app you are in and another app bound to the same chord will fire too. The direct‑download build takes the keystroke, so the frontmost app does not see it.

The mouse shake gesture does nothing

It is off until you switch it on, in Settings → General. The gesture is four quick left‑and‑right reversals inside about three quarters of a second, each one moving the pointer a reasonable distance, and it deliberately ignores movement that drifts too far vertically so that ordinary mouse use does not set it off. There is also a one‑and‑a‑half second cooldown between triggers.

macOS has its own shake‑to‑locate behaviour that enlarges the pointer, and it responds to roughly the same movement. If the pointer growing is distracting, you can turn that off in System Settings → Accessibility → Display → Shake pointer to locate.

Voice notes say Apple Intelligence isn’t available

That message is accurate rather than a bug. Voice notes need two things locally: on‑device speech recognition for the transcript, and Apple’s on‑device models to write it up. Scratchd will not fall back to a server for either, so on a device that cannot do the work locally it declines instead.

I deleted something I needed

Check the Trash view. Deleted notes are recoverable for 30 days. The trash is a folder inside your library, so a note deleted on the Mac can be restored from your iPhone.

Can I move my notes folder?

Yes. Move the folder, then point Scratchd at the new location in Settings. Nothing is stored anywhere else — the folder is the library.

How do I export?

There is no export step. Copy the folder. Every note is already in a format other apps can read.

Scratchd does not appear in CarPlay

CarPlay support requires iOS 26.4 or later, and it will not appear at all on earlier versions. If you are on 26.4 and it is still missing, check that Scratchd is enabled in Settings → General → CarPlay for your car. Dictation from CarPlay also needs Microphone and Speech Recognition access, which you have to grant on the iPhone first.

The version requirement is not arbitrary. Apple has no notes category for CarPlay, and its guidance bars most apps from recording while CarPlay is active. iOS 26.4 added a category for voice‑first apps, which is the one Scratchd ships under, so there is no earlier version it could have worked on.

Feature requests and bugs

Both go to the same address. Feature requests that describe the problem you ran into are more useful than ones that describe a solution.

Privacy

Scratchd has no account, collects no analytics, and keeps your notes in your own iCloud Drive. The privacy policy lists every network request the app can make.