Text a note in

Before you start

• A registered phone number — see Register your phone number. Texts from any other number are not recognised.
• The BrainSack number itself, from the Texting in section of the Phone page. Save it in your contacts; that is the whole setup.

Steps

1. Copy the BrainSack number into your contacts

   It is at the top of the Phone page under Text BrainSack at. Save it as a contact called whatever you will think to look for at speed — the point is not to have to find this page again.

2. Text it anything

   Whatever is in the message becomes the body of a note on your board. There is no format to learn and no keyword to lead with.

   Add #work or #ideas anywhere in the message and the note is filed under those tags — see Hashtags become tags.

3. Expect no reply

   Silence means it worked. We deliberately do not text back: a confirmation for every note would double the traffic on your handset for something you can see on the board in seconds.

   The one exception is a code when you are registering a number, and that comes from a different number anyway.

4. Find it on the board

   It arrives as an ordinary note, and can be edited, tagged, pinned, archived or deleted like anything else. Nothing marks it as having come from a text on the card itself.

What happens next

• Anything you text lands on the board within seconds, tagged if you used hashtags.
• The Texts this month figure on the Phone page counts what you have sent in.
• That figure counts texts, not notes — a message you texted and then deleted the note from still counts, because it is a record of what arrived rather than of what survived.

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.

The text never turned into a note

Check it went to the BrainSack number and came from the number registered on your Phone page — those are the only two the routing recognises. A text from a second handset, or from a work phone you never registered, is silently ignored.

The note is there but the hashtags are missing from the text

That is deliberate — a hashtag becomes a tag and is taken out of the body so the card does not show it twice. Look at the tags on the card.

A message that was only hashtags made an empty note

Also deliberate. The tags were the content, so the note carries them and nothing else. Open it and type a body in if you meant to send one.

You texted STOP by accident

That removes the number from your account and stops texting entirely. Adding the number back on the Phone page is the way in again — see Stop texts.

A long text arrived split in two

Your carrier split it, and each part reaches us as its own message and so becomes its own note. Nothing on our side reassembles them.

The same note appeared twice

A rare consequence of a delivery being retried after an interruption. We would rather occasionally duplicate a note you can delete than silently discard a text you sent — delete the spare.

Next

• Register your phone number — Add your mobile to your account so you can text notes in. Takes a consent box, a one-time code and about two minutes.
• 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.
• Stop texts by texting STOP — Reply STOP to opt out. What it removes, what it leaves alone, and how to start again afterwards.
• Organize with tags — Tags are typed, never picked from a list. How to make one, rename it, recolour it, and why empty ones vanish.

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