MindDrawer
Mac · iPhone · iPadEverything a project collects, filed by itself.
Notes, links, pictures, recordings, videos and files drop into a drawer and land in their own compartments. There is no canvas to tidy and no folder tree to maintain.
MindDrawer is included in my bundles, along with over 30 other apps.
What it does
Drop it and it’s filed
A screenshot goes to Pictures, a voice memo to Recordings, a YouTube link to Video, a PDF to Files. You never choose a compartment, because the thing itself decides. The only question the app ever asks is which drawer. For a link, choose Add Link… and type the address; it’s named after the page’s own title.
Nothing to arrange
No canvas, no free placement, no layout to keep tidy. Just three views of the same drawer: Tray for cards, List for compact rows, and Bento for everything at full size.
Search reaches inside things
The words in a screenshot, the text in a PDF, what was actually said in a recording. All read on your own device and never uploaded — so searching for a phrase you half remember finds the picture it was printed on.
Color labels on everything
Cabinets, drawers and the items inside them can all carry a color label. Name them, color them, and add as many as you need — rename one and everything wearing it updates at once, on every device.
Ask Claude about it
Press ⌥⌘F and ask about the drawer you’re in, a cabinet, or everything; answers link to the items they came from. Ask it to file, move or relabel things and the whole answer undoes in one step. Ask for “a CSV of every link” and the file appears under the answer, ready to drag out.
Bring your own Anthropic API key. It’s off until you turn it on, and changes can be switched off to keep it to answers. On Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Notes to yourself
Cabinets, drawers and individual items each have a note field for your own comments — why you saved something, what to do with it next. Notes on items are included in search.
Your files stay files
Drag anything out to the Finder, to Mail, to anywhere, and you get the real thing under a readable name — not an export, not a copy of a copy.
In from anywhere
Turn on the menu bar icon and drag a file up toward it: every drawer drops open beneath, and you let go on the one it belongs in. On the Mac, iPhone and iPad, Add to MindDrawer sits in every Share menu.
Screenshots
On iPhone and iPad
The same drawers, wherever you are.
MindDrawer is a native iPhone and iPad app too, running the same library over iCloud — every drawer, every compartment, the same search that reads inside your pictures and PDFs. A change made on one device arrives on the others by itself, and each drawer syncs as its own record, so a note added on the phone and a file added on the Mac both survive.
Most filing on a phone happens from somewhere else, so Add to MindDrawer sits in every Share menu: pick a drawer and it’s put away. Reordering is a mode you enter deliberately, because a long press on a touchscreen already means something.
Get MindDrawer
On the App Store for Mac, iPhone and iPad, or free to try as a direct download for the Mac — with nothing held back. A license for the direct build removes the occasional reminder and supports the work. Requires macOS 15, or iOS 17 on iPhone and iPad. Buying more than one app? MindDrawer is included in my bundles.
Support
Questions or bug reports? Email ben.dansby@gmail.com and you’ll get a reply, usually within a day or two.
For how-to documentation, see the MindDrawer documentation.
For privacy questions, see the privacy policy.