Capturing and Importing

Ideas rarely arrive while you are looking at the right thought. These topics cover the ways to capture something quickly and file it later, such as Quick Thoughts, BrainBox, the web capture form, browser extensions, pasting, and adding files. They also explain how to import whole collections of notes from other apps.

• Quick Thoughts — A cloud inbox for notes you jot down anywhere — in the app, from a browser extension, a desktop hotkey, or a phone widget — with optional links and attached files, which you then file into a brain as a child thought, an addition to a thought's notes, or an attached file.
• Quick Thoughts Capture Shortcuts — The capture tools that feed your Quick Thoughts inbox from outside the app — the browser extension, the desktop global shortcut and tray, the Android and iOS widgets, tiles, and shortcuts, and the iPhone and iPad Quick Thought Lite action and how to use it in your own shortcuts. Sharing from other apps has its own topic.
• Sharing to Quick Thoughts — Send text, links, photos, and files to your Quick Thoughts inbox from another app's Share menu on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Mac, from File Explorer's Send to menu on Windows, or from a file manager on Linux; files keep uploading after you send.
• BrainBox — BrainBox is a quick-capture inbox — send notes, links, and files in now, from your browser, from another app on your phone, or from your computer, then file them into a brain later with Attach Item or Create Child from Item.
• BrainBox Ultra Web Capture — A web capture form for sending a note or link to your BrainBox — or straight into a brain as a child of, or appended to, a chosen thought.
• Copying and Duplicating Thoughts — Duplicate a thought, copy thoughts and paste them under another thought in this or another brain, or copy a thought's web or local link to share or reference it elsewhere.
• Adding Attachments — Attach files, web links, and (on desktop) external files, folders, and files made from templates to any thought, from the Add Attachment menu, by dragging files or links in, or by pasting a file, image, or web address from the clipboard.
• Importing Brains — Bring content into TheBrain from brain archives, Markdown, Obsidian, Evernote, Notion, Joplin, Bear, OneNote, Apple Notes, Google Keep, Workflowy, Dynalist, OPML, mind maps, text outlines, and folders — as a new brain or added to the brain you have open.