# Quick Capture > Jot a thought into one note with a single keystroke, without leaving what you were doing. Source: https://docs.docgraph.app/editing/quick-capture/ Press ⌥Space from any app — or ⌘⇧N inside DocGraph — type one line, press Enter. The thought is saved and you are back where you were. *[Screenshot: The quick capture dialog open over a note, with a one-line input and Cancel and Capture buttons.]* No folder to pick, no filename, no tags. That is the entire point: a capture that costs you a context switch is a capture you don't make. You can also start it from the brain icon in the title bar, or from the command palette (⌘K → *Quick capture*). ⌥Space is a system-wide shortcut, so it only works while DocGraph is running (a window, or just the menu-bar icon, is enough). You can rebind it or switch it off in **Settings → General → Vault** — see [System-wide shortcuts](https://docs.docgraph.app/getting-around/overview/#system-wide-shortcuts). ## Starting from the clipboard If you've just copied some text, the capture and todo panels open with it already in the box, selected: press ⏎ to save it, or start typing to replace it. A **from clipboard** chip in the footer says where the text came from and disappears on your first keystroke. - Each copied text is offered once, shared by both panels — open a panel again with the same clipboard and it starts empty. - Whitespace is ignored. Text over 4 KB isn't filled in; the chip shows its size and ⌘V still pastes it. - A copied link is offered as text; nothing is fetched. Turn it off with **Prefill from clipboard** in **Settings → General → Vault → Quick capture** (on by default). ## Capturing a todo ⌃⌥T, from any app, opens a one-line panel that adds an unchecked todo to the same capture note. It has no visible timestamp, but it counts as a real task everywhere — the [Todo panel](https://docs.docgraph.app/panels/todo/) included. Write it the way you'd say it — *call adam tomorrow 6pm*. The line under the box shows what DocGraph read before you press ↵ (*@adam · due Fri 9 Oct 18:00*): a word becomes a person only if it is a name already in your vault (or you type `@`), and the date is read on your clock. The todo is written with the person and due date as real task properties. A line with neither is added as written. ## Where it goes Everything lands at the **top** of one note, so the newest thing is the first thing you see. In an HTML capture note, entries are grouped under one heading per day, newest day first, and each entry's time shows in the margin beside it (in your date and time format) rather than as text in front of the thought. Captured todos stay above the day headings. A Markdown capture note gets a plain `**time** — text` line instead, with no day headings. *[Screenshot: A capture note showing three timestamped entries, newest first, under the note's own heading.]* The note is created on your first capture — you don't need to make it first. Its own heading stays at the top; entries stack underneath it. Every entry also carries a `captured` property saying how it arrived: `panel` (the capture panel, including ⌘P), `clipboard` (Clipboard to Today's Note) or `ai` (the AI's `capture` tool). It isn't shown as a chip, but the [properties window](https://docs.docgraph.app/editing/block-properties/) lists it, and a query on the `blocks` source can filter on it — `captured` is not empty finds everything you ever captured, wherever you filed it. To review, just scroll. Old entries sink on their own, and anything you scroll past without caring has answered its own question. When something turns out to matter, move it into a real note. ## Adding properties End a capture or a todo with `key:value` words and they're saved as properties rather than text: *call the bank priority:high project:hydra*. Only a run at the very end counts, so a colon in the middle of a sentence stays as written. - Keys are the built-in [block properties](https://docs.docgraph.app/editing/block-properties/#built-in-properties) (`status`, `priority`, `owner`, `estimate`…) plus keys you've declared under **Settings → Organize → Ontology** — a name that merely appears on some page doesn't count. A value for `status` or `priority` must be one of its options. - In the capture panel, a date after *due*, *by* or *before* — *send the deck by friday* — becomes a `due` property; the words stay in the text. - In the todo panel, `due`, `start`, people and `from:` stay [task tokens](https://docs.docgraph.app/panels/task-tokens/) in the text; other keys become properties on the todo. - An inbox entry or todo gets them as block properties, which needs an HTML capture note. A ⌘⏎ note gets them as page properties. The footer previews what will be written (*due Fri 9 Oct · priority high*). If a property isn't valid, nothing is saved and your text stays in the box. ## When the thought is a whole note Not every capture is a fragment. Some are the first paragraph of something you mean to come back and write — and sending those to the inbox only means digging them out again later. So the capture box has more than one destination: | key | where it goes | |---|---| | ⏎ | the top of your capture note | | ⌘⏎ | its own new note under `Capture/` | | ⌘P | the end of a note you pick — see [below](#adding-to-a-note-you-pick) | In the in-app dialog you can also click **New note** instead of Capture — the shortcut is for speed, the button is so you never have to know it exists. The **first line becomes the title**, and the filename is made from it (a long single line is trimmed at a word boundary). Everything you typed is kept in the note; the first line is only removed from the body when it was used as the title exactly as written. Press ⇧⏎ in the capture panel to start a second line. The choice is never remembered — every capture starts on the inbox, so pressing Enter without thinking always does the ordinary thing. ## Adding to a note you pick Press ⌘P in the capture panel and a note picker opens under your text. With nothing typed it lists the five notes you've captured into most recently; type to search note names. ↑ / ↓ move, ⏎ adds the text to the **end** of that note, timestamped, in the note's own format, and closes the panel. Esc closes only the picker and keeps your text. The note must already exist — the picker never creates one — and it must be an unencrypted `.html` or `.md` note in the vault; otherwise nothing is written and a message says why. Like ⌘⏎, the choice isn't remembered. ## Finding your seeds again A note made with ⌘⏎ records two properties of its own: | property | value | |---|---| | `created` | the moment you captured it | | `captured` | `panel` | They are why a pile of seeds stays reviewable. Ask the vault for `captured = panel`, sort by `created`, and you have every half-thought you started and never came back to — see [Tables and queries](https://docs.docgraph.app/tables-charts/overview/). The `captured` property is the part that keeps working. Filing a seed into the project it belongs to is exactly what you're meant to do with it, and the moment you do, a query that looked in `Capture/` stops finding it. The property travels with the note, so the same query keeps answering. The note also shows its capture time under the title, in the note itself. That one stays with the file even if it leaves your vault entirely. ## Reviewing unprocessed captures Run **Show Unprocessed Captures** from `⌘K` to see every captured line, wherever it now lives, that is more than a week old and not yet filed — oldest first. A line counts as filed once you've moved it with the block handle's [Move to note…](https://docs.docgraph.app/editing/documents/#move-a-line-to-another-note) (or set `filed` on it by hand). The command pins and opens a saved query called *Unprocessed captures*, creating it on first use (and again if you deleted it). ## Recording which app you captured from Switch on **Record the app you captured from** in **Settings → General → Vault → Quick capture** (off by default, per vault) and a capture made in the system-wide capture box records the app that was in front when it opened, as a `from-app` property — on the entry, or as a page property on a ⌘⏎ note. Captures made inside DocGraph never get one, and nothing else about the app (a browser's address, say) is recorded. ## Choosing the note By default captures go to `Capture/Inbox.html` — the same folder that holds the notes ⌘⏎ creates, so everything you capture lives in one place. The folder and the note are created on your first capture. Change it in **Settings → General → Vault → Quick capture**; clearing the field goes back to the default: *[Screenshot: The Vault section of DocGraph settings, showing a Quick capture group with a Capture note path field set to Inbox.html.]* The path is per-vault, so a work vault and a personal one can capture to different notes. **New note folder** in the same group is where ⌘⏎ puts a capture that becomes its own note (`Capture` by default; a single dot means the vault root). Those notes use the same format as the capture note above, so one choice covers both. The format follows the file extension: point it at `Daily.md` and entries are written as Markdown; point it at an `.html` note and they are written as HTML. An existing note is always written in its own format, so changing the path never mixes the two inside one file. ## Clipboard to today's note **Clipboard to Today's Note** adds whatever you've copied to the end of today's daily note as a timestamped entry, creating the note if needed — without opening anything. A notification says where it went, or why nothing was saved (an empty clipboard, or more than 64 KB). Run it from the menu-bar icon, from `⌘K`, or give it a system-wide shortcut under **Settings → General → Vault → Templates & daily notes** (it has none by default). ## Notes - **No AI involved.** The capture panel never calls a model, so it works with AI turned off. Separately, the AI has a `capture` tool (it asks before writing) that adds a note or a todo to the same capture note when you ask it to in [chat](https://docs.docgraph.app/ai/chat/). - **It doesn't open the note.** Writing something down and going to read it are separate acts; jumping to the note would undo the point. - Captured text is stored as ordinary content — indexed, searchable and linkable like anything else in your vault. If you want to build on this, see [Build a Second Brain](https://docs.docgraph.app/guides/second-brain/), which uses quick capture as the front door to a larger note-keeping method.