Native · Menubar-resident · macOS 15+

Sticky notes that live in your menu bar.

Native macOS sticky notes and quick capture — global hotkey, multi-window floats, Markdown, and optional iCloud sync. No Dock icon, no clutter.

Download for macOS View on GitHub

Requires macOS 15.0 or later · Free & open source · Auto-updates via Sparkle

Perch manager window — sidebar groups, search, note list

Floating sticky notes

A 6-color palette and three layout modes. Pin a note and it auto-restores on next launch — quit the app without losing your working set.

Free — place anywhere on screen.
Stack — cascade; selecting a note slides it to the bottom for full visibility.
Tile — auto-arranged grid; drag a note to reorder.
Float-on-top (toggle from the menu bar or bind a global shortcut), double-click to collapse, inactive-note fade.

Tile, reorder, glance

Tile mode auto-arranges every open note into a grid. Drag one and the rest reflow around it — your whole board at a glance.

Everything, one keystroke away

Perch lives in your menu bar — no Dock icon, no main-menu noise. One click for a new note, your recent notes, show/hide all stickies, the manager, layout, and settings.

Recent notes listed right in the menu — jump to any of them instantly.
Show / Hide All Stickies to clear or recall your whole working set at once.
100% native AppKit + SwiftUI — fast, light, no Electron.

Perch menu bar dropdown — recent notes, new note, show/hide all, manager, layout, settings

Quick Capture, anywhere

A global hotkey (default ⌘⇧N, fully customizable) opens a capture window from any app. Pull in the selected text via the Accessibility API, the clipboard, or start blank.

AX + whitelist — grab the frontmost app's selected text (per bundle ID).
Clipboard only — pre-fill with clipboard contents, no AX call.
Disabled — a blank window for a fresh thought.

Perch quick-capture window opened by global hotkey, with Save / New line / Cancel

Live Markdown editor

Markdown styles itself inline as you type — no mode switch, no double-click to edit. The surface you edit is the one you read. Plain text works just as well; no markup, no styling.

WYSIWYG — headings, bold, lists, and quotes render as you type.
Syntax-highlighted code blocks, inline images, and LaTeX math.
Task lists — - [ ] checkboxes with a live completion ring on the title bar.
Global font size (12–24), applied live to every open window.

Perch editing a Markdown note — headings, task list, and fenced code

Manager window

A native sidebar — groups, Ungrouped, Archive, Trash. Drag notes into groups, full-text search, right-click rename/move, and multi-select bulk actions.

All Tasks in one place

A built-in view that gathers every unchecked task from across your notes, grouped by note. Check one off and it writes straight back to the source — open windows update live. A completed parent stays visible while a sub-task is still open, so nested to-dos keep their context.

Soft delete & Trash

Deletions go to Trash. Items older than N days (default 30, configurable 7–365) are purged on launch — same as macOS Notes and Mail.

Import · Export · Backup

Single-note or batch Markdown export, plus whole-library export/import (SQLite or Markdown). Restore is non-destructive — dedupes by UUID.

Optional iCloud sync

Off by default. Once enabled, live cross-Mac sync via NSPersistentCloudKitContainer. Verified with China iCloud.

Bilingual

Bundled English and Simplified Chinese. Follows the system locale, or force it in Settings → General.

Data safety first

On a store-load failure Perch never silently wipes — it backs up the sqlite/shm/wal triple to your Desktop and alerts before quitting.

Free & open source

Signed, notarized, and fully open source. Auto-updates itself via Sparkle. macOS 15+.

Get Perch

Free and open source. Download the signed, notarized build — it auto-updates itself from then on.

Download for macOS All releases

Requires macOS 15.0 or later · Free & open source · Auto-updates via Sparkle