Slates is eight color-coded scratchpads for your Mac.
Write to
mikedovale@pm.meIt is the same address as Help → Ask Question via Email in the app. Mention your macOS version and what you expected to happen. Every message gets a reply from a person.
Stored locally by default; optional iCloud sync. Out of the box, Slates keeps your slates in one file inside its Application Support folder on your Mac. If you turn on iCloud sync, that file is also kept in your iCloud account so your other Macs can open it.
Slates does not send your text to us. There is no Slates server to send it to.
It keeps your eight slates the same on every Mac signed in to your iCloud account. Sync is off until you turn it on: open Settings → Data and choose Turn On… under iCloud Sync.
Your text travels through Apple’s iCloud, not through us. App settings stay on each Mac. Turning sync off on one Mac does not remove slates from your other devices.
Slates takes automatic snapshots on your Mac: at most once an hour while you are changing things, and again when you quit. It keeps the latest 40, for up to 90 days. You can turn this off in Settings → Data.
No. Slates has no analytics, no usage tracking, no crash-reporting service, and no ads. If you email support, your message is used only to reply. The details are in the privacy policy.
Each slate’s header has a Copy button, which copies all of its text, and a Clear button (the trash can), which empties it.
For one-time codes, open the ⋯ menu in the header and choose Copy & Clear. The text goes to the clipboard and the slate is empty again.
Click into the slate and choose View → Slate Appearance… Command-J, or pick Slate Appearance… from the ⋯ menu in its header.
To restyle all eight at once, choose a palette in Settings → Appearance.
Open Settings → General and set Activate With to one of:
Each slate holds up to 100,000 characters, roughly 15,000 words. If a paste or edit would go past that, Slates keeps the first 100,000 characters and shows a Maximum Text Capacity Exceeded alert. Text past the limit is not kept.
Very large slates also slow editing down. Long documents are happier in a document app.
Choose Help → User Manual. It opens in its own window and does not touch your slates.
Two things do replace your text with example content: the Load These Examples Into Your Slates button on the manual’s last page, and Help → Load Example Slates…. Both ask before replacing anything. If you want to try the examples, choose File → Save Backup… first so you can come back.
macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
Because eight is a desk, not an archive. Eight colors are easy to tell apart at a glance: the yellow one, the blue one. When a slate has done its job, copy it out and clear it. If you need a library, you already have a notes app for that.
Tot, from The Iconfactory, is why Slates exists. Tot is a tiny text companion of seven colored dots. Slates is eight pads in one list: plain text, rich text, code in 41 languages, smart bullets, multi-cursor, and twenty built-in palettes, or one you make yourself.
Slates