Show HN: A texting-yourself-style note app for capturing unstructured thoughts

My note-taking habit has always been to write things down the moment a thought occurs. For a long time, that meant sending messages to myself in chat apps, or quickly jotting things down in text editors like Emacs with org-mode — scattered, unstructured, and immediate.

Over time, I realized that this unstructured way of writing was simply how I think. I wasn’t looking for structure upfront; I just wanted a fast, free-form way to write things down as they happen. So I built a note-taking app that could naturally embrace this style.

Strflow lets you capture unstructured thoughts quickly in a chat-style, chronological timeline, and organize them later if needed. Features like tagging, todos, and reminders are integrated directly into the timeline-based UI. They’re there when you need them, but they don’t interrupt the core flow of just writing something down and pushing it forward.

I put a lot of effort into making sure the system never blocks writing things down: the textfield is always focused, global shortcuts are available, and the app prioritizes native, coherent UI as a first-class citizen in the Apple ecosystem.

As a heavy user myself, I have 20,000 notes in Strflow, and it still runs smoothly.

I shared an early version two years ago, and I’ve been iterating on it based on feedback and day-to-day use.

Please give it a try and share your feedback — I’m happy to answer any questions.