Ephemeral Notepad

Write it down. Then let it go.

A quiet, single‑window scratchpad for the Mac, for the things you need to think through but don’t want to keep. It never writes your text to disk, text can be pasted in but not copied out, and it clears itself when you lock your screen or walk away.

macOS 27Apple siliconNeeds FileVault

Nothing is kept

Designed never to keep your work.

Most apps are designed never to lose your work. Ephemeral Notepad is designed never to keep it. Your text lives only in the app’s memory while the window is open.

No files: The app never writes your text to disk, so there is nothing to recover later.
No autosave or restore: It won’t reopen your last session; every launch starts blank.
No undo history: The app keeps no record of earlier edits in memory.
Quit to clear: Closing the app ends the session, and the text is gone from the app.

Out of the way

One column, and nothing else.

A borderless window that floats above the others, with nothing in it but your words.

No window chrome: No title bar, no buttons, no toolbar, no status bar.
One column: A single centered column of text, with room around it.
Light and dark: It follows the Mac’s appearance.
A short right‑click menu: It offers Paste and Select All.

Nothing gets out

Text comes in. The everyday routes out are closed.

Copy and cut are off: They’re grayed out in the menu and do nothing from the keyboard.
No drag and drop out: Selected text can’t be dragged into another app.
No Share, Services, Print or Speak: These are disabled in the pad.
Paste still works: You can bring text in. Anything you paste stays on the clipboard after you quit.

It clears itself

If you forget to quit, it doesn’t wait for you.

Screen lock: Locking the Mac empties the pad.
Walking away: About 90 seconds with no keyboard or mouse input anywhere on the Mac empties it.
Closing a window: With more than one pad open, closing one clears only that pad.

No helpers reading along

Helping means reading, so the help is off.

Modern text fields offer to help. In Ephemeral Notepad, autocorrect, spell check, text completion and Writing Tools are off in the pad.

No autocorrect or spell check: Your words aren’t checked or learned from.
No text completion: The app doesn’t suggest words.
No Writing Tools: Apple Intelligence Writing Tools are switched off in the pad.
Hidden from accessibility tools: The pad’s text isn’t exposed to them, so screen readers such as VoiceOver won’t read it aloud. That is a trade‑off: someone using VoiceOver can’t read back what they type.

It refuses to run unprotected

FileVault first.

The app’s protection depends on the Mac’s own disk encryption, so it requires FileVault before it will open. If FileVault is off, it explains why and quits.

A macOS warning dialog titled “FileVault Required”, explaining that the app won’t launch unless FileVault disk encryption is on, with a single Quit button.

Without FileVault, it won’t open: The app itself encrypts nothing, because nothing is saved. The disk it runs on has to be.
Hardened: Other software can’t attach a debugger to it, and it turns off core dumps.
Crashes checked: Testing found its crash reports contain no note text.

Honest about its limits

If a protection couldn’t be proven, it was cut.

Pasting: Pasted text stays on the clipboard after you quit.
Screen recording: Current screen recording and cameras can still capture the window.
App history: macOS notes that it ran, never what you typed.
Memory: Quitting can’t guarantee memory is erased.