v. 15.0.645

Files in Quick Thoughts, Sharing from Any App, and Standalone Markdown Windows

October 16, 2026

Files in Quick Thoughts

• Attach PDFs, photos, videos, documents or any other file to a quick thought: click Attach file in the strip above the note (on phones it offers Photos & videos or Files), or drag files from your computer onto the Quick Thoughts panel or the desktop capture window
• An image dropped onto the note's text goes into the text as a picture; drop it on the strip above the text to attach it as a file instead
• Each file starts uploading as soon as you attach it, so you can keep writing. In the desktop and mobile apps, uploads carry on after you close the panel, and they pick up where they left off after you go offline or quit
• Once a file has uploaded, click its name to open it, or its pencil to change the name it will have on the thought
• Move to brain turns the files into attachments on the thought, and Undo puts the quick thought back in your inbox, files and all
• A file still on its way from another device shows as "Uploading from" that device. Move to brain then offers Move without it, which files the note now and brings the file in later as a quick thought of its own
• The panel's Filter box and Cerebro both find a quick thought by the names of its files
• Browser extension 1.1.0 allows file attachments from the popup
• Update TheBrain on all your devices: a quick thought with files appears only in versions that support them

Share to Quick Thoughts

• Send a web page, a quote, photos or files to your Quick Thoughts straight from other apps, and add a few words of your own before sending
• On iPhone and iPad, tap Share in Safari, Photos, Files or any other app and choose TheBrain: a Quick Thought sheet opens over the app with what you shared
• On Android, choose "Quick Thought" from TheBrain in any app's Share menu (it may be listed under TheBrain's icon): the capture card opens over the app, and anything already in the card stays
• On a Mac, turn on "Quick Thought" once in System Settings (search for "Extensions"), then choose Share > "Quick Thought" in Finder, Safari, Notes, Preview and other apps
• On Windows, select files in File Explorer, right-click and choose Send to > "Quick Thought" (on Windows 11, choose Show more options first)
• On Linux, thebrain --quick-thought <files> opens the capture window with the files; ask Cerebro how to add it to the right-click menu of Files (Nautilus) or Dolphin
• A shared link becomes a link chip named with the page's title, shared text becomes the note, and photos and files are attached
• Tip: in Safari, select text first and then use the page's own Share button to get the quote and a link to the page together. In Chrome on Android, sharing a selection adds a link that jumps straight to the highlighted passage
• Files keep uploading after you send, without TheBrain being opened; on Android a notification shows the progress (allow notifications when the card asks)
• In the desktop capture window and the Android capture card, Send no longer waits for files: the note arrives right away and its files follow
• BrainBox keeps its own entries: on iPhone and iPad it is now Send to BrainBox in the list of actions below the row of apps, and on Android it is "BrainBox" in the Share menu

Quick Thought Lite for iPhone and iPad

• The fastest way to jot down text: a small text box appears over whatever app you are using, and TheBrain never opens. Tap Done and you're right back where you were
• Start it with the Action button (in the Settings app, set it to Shortcut and choose "Quick Thought Lite"), Back Tap (Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap), Siri ("Quick Thought in TheBrain"), Spotlight, its own Home Screen icon from the Shortcuts app, or Apple's Shortcut control in Control Center
• It's a Shortcuts action, so your own shortcuts can prepare text and send it to your inbox
• Markdown you type, such as a # heading or - list, becomes formatting, and the heading becomes the note's title
• Offline or signed out, the note waits on your device and is sent later

Open Markdown Files in Standalone Windows

• In the desktop app, open a Markdown file from anywhere on your computer, such as a README or a document you also edit in Obsidian or VS Code, and edit it with the notes editor in a window of its own. The file stays where it is and isn't added to a brain
• Open one with Main Menu > File > Open File... or New Markdown File, by dropping .md files on a window's title bar, or with Open With in Finder or File Explorer. Set TheBrain as the default app for Markdown files in Settings > Markdown Files makes double-clicking them open TheBrain
• Switch between Rich Text, Text and Split views, and save with Ctrl/Cmd+S. The file keeps its frontmatter, encoding and line endings, and pasted images are saved to an images folder beside it
• Click the file's name to save, rename, show it in Finder or File Explorer, copy its path or move it to the Trash, and drag its icon onto a thought to attach the file
• Links to other Markdown files and to thoughts open in the same window, with Back and Forward
• Unsaved edits are kept when you quit and come back with the window. If another app changes the file, the window reloads it, or lets you choose when you have edits of your own
• Settings > Markdown Files can warn when a file has content the editor can't keep as written, and make a backup copy before saving

FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS(28)

Quick Thoughts: Markdown pasted into the browser extension, the desktop capture window or the phone capture cards now becomes formatting, as it does in notes, instead of showing the Markdown symbols

Markdown: Hard-wrapped Markdown files now show each paragraph whole and are wrapped at the same width again when saved, in .md attachments and Markdown imports as well as file windows. Choose Detect, Always join or Keep lines in Settings > Markdown Files, or use Join Wrapped Lines in a file's view options

Markdown: Reference-style links ([text][name] with a [name]: address line elsewhere) now work as links in .md attachments, imports and brains that save standard Markdown, and are kept when saving instead of turning into plain text

DESKTOPDrop images from your computer onto a note to put them in the note at that point, with a bar showing where they will go. Other files in the drop are attached as before

DESKTOPFixed: Dragging an image from the attachment list into the note did nothing

Notes: Renaming a file or folder that the note shows as an image now updates the note, so the image keeps showing

DESKTOPMoving a file or folder out of the brain now keeps the note's images of it

Deleting an attachment that the note shows as an image now asks first, since the note would show a missing image

Notes: Content copied from a note keeps its colors when pasted into a note, even with "Exclude color information when pasting HTML content" turned on

Notes: Fixed: After switching to or from Edit as Text, the first Undo jumped to the top of the note

DESKTOPFixed: Files inside a folder added with Copy Folder into Brain or Move Folder into Brain could not be found by search and did not sync. For a folder added before this fix, move it out of the brain and back in

DESKTOPFixed: Dropping a folder with Move deleted hidden files and folders inside it, such as .git. Files that TheBrain doesn't list now move along with the folder

DESKTOPFixed: When a folder dropped with Move had to be copied instead because a file in it was locked or read-only, its files were still deleted from the original folder

DESKTOPTheBrain no longer follows symbolic links inside folders, and shows "Can't Add a Link" instead of adding a link or a folder that contains one. Before, a link back to a parent folder could make a drop or Copy Folder into Brain fail, or add the folder's contents many times over

DESKTOPFixed: When Copy Folder into Brain failed, the thought lost its link to the original folder and got an empty folder instead

DESKTOPFixed: Attached files whose names start with $ or ~ were not updated when they changed on disk

DESKTOPFixed: A Notes.md file in a subfolder of a thought's folder replaced the thought's note, and files in a subfolder named Notes were not kept up to date

macOS and iOS: Fixed: A thought whose attachment is a folder showed a blank file icon instead of a folder icon

Import: Fixed: An Obsidian Vault import made child links while "Create plex links from note links as" showed Jumps, and a choice on one import tab applied to the other

Import: Obsidian Vault imports now keep a note's first-line heading when it differs from the thought's name, instead of losing its text

Fixed: Using TheBrain on Windows, Linux or the web could turn shortcuts that use the Mac Control key into plain keys (such as Tab and Shift+Tab for Next Tab and Previous Tab) and save them to your account. Leftover single-key shortcuts like these are now removed

WINDOWSThe shortcut editor no longer records the Windows key. A shortcut recorded with it was saved without it and ran on the plain key

WINDOWSFixed: Updating from 15.0.640 or earlier could leave TheBrain stuck on its splash screen

Fixed: Automatic sync of a brain could stay stopped after repeated failures, even after a later sync succeeded

DESKTOPFixed: Settings, keyboard shortcuts and the toolbar layout from guest mode were not carried over to an account made with the Create Account form, as they are with Google, Apple or Microsoft sign-in

DESKTOPFixed: New Window or New Tab in a content window opened a window stuck on the loading screen

DESKTOPFixed: The Offline Activation dialog showed placeholder text instead of its title

Fixed: Closing a dialog, popover or menu could scroll the page back to the control that opened it