Empty your head with Dump mode

Before you start

• Nothing. The button is in the board header.

Steps

1. Press Dump

   It is in the header beside the sort control. The whole board — cards, composer and all — is replaced by one big text box, which is the point: there is nothing else on screen to look at.

   It is not offered in the archive, or while you have an item open in the editor.

2. Type or paste, with a blank line between each note

   A blank line is the separator. Everything between two of them becomes one note, so a paragraph stays whole and a list of one-liners becomes a note each.

   The counter at the bottom says how many notes it can see, live, so you can check the split before saving.

3. Tag with hashtags

   There is no tag box here, on purpose — this is the same rule as texting in. Write #work inside a block and that note is filed under it, and the hashtag comes out of the text.

   Tags apply per block, not to the whole dump, so each note can be filed differently in one pass.

4. Save the lot

   Ctrl+Enter saves (⌘+Enter on a Mac), Esc leaves without saving. Everything lands at once and the board comes back.

What happens next

• One note per block, all created together, each with whatever tags its own hashtags named.
• Everything arrives as a plain note — dump mode makes no checklists, files or encrypted notes.
• Tags that did not exist are created, exactly as they are when a text comes in.

If something goes wrong

Each row is what you see on screen. Symptoms are worded the way the app words them, so the sentence in front of you should be findable on this page.

It made one enormous note

The blocks were separated by single line breaks rather than blank lines. Watch the counter at the bottom — it tells you the split before you commit to it.

It made more notes than you expected

Pasted text often carries blank lines you cannot see. Check the counter, and join the blocks back up before saving.

The Dump button is not there

You are in the archive, or you have an item open in the editor. Neither is a place to dump into. Go back to the board.

You wanted checklists out of it

Dump mode makes notes only. Use the composer, where a leading - starts a checklist.

Next

• Put something in the sack — The box at the top of the board, the four kinds of item, and the two keystrokes worth knowing.
• Hashtags become tags — Write #work in a text or a dump and the note is filed under that tag. The exact rules, and what is deliberately not a hashtag.
• Text a note in — Send a text to your BrainSack number and it lands on the board as a note. What arrives, what does not, and why there is no reply.

Still stuck? Email [email protected] and tell us what the screen said. All the help articles are at Help.