Capturing on Android

Why it is a tap and not automatic

On a computer, Relic watches the clipboard and keeps everything you copy without being asked. Android does not allow that. Since Android 10 only the app you are looking at, or your keyboard, may read the clipboard. An app sitting in the background cannot.

So on a phone, capture is something you do rather than something that happens. There are two ways to do it.

Share to Relic

This is the one to learn first, because it needs no setup at all. In any app, tap Share and pick Relic. Text, images, PDFs, links and files all land in your vault.

It is also the only way to get in things you cannot copy as text. A photo from your gallery, a PDF from your mail, a page from your browser: share them and Relic keeps the file itself.

Add the Quick Settings tile

The second route is a button in your Quick Settings panel called Capture to Relic. Pull the panel down, tap it, and whatever is on your clipboard goes into your vault. You add it once.

On most phones

1. Open Quick Settings

   Swipe down from the top of the screen twice to open the full Quick Settings panel.

2. Tap the edit (pencil) icon

   Open the tile editor. It is usually a pencil or a plus button.

3. Find Capture to Relic

   Look through the available or inactive tiles for the Relic gem labelled Capture to Relic.

4. Drag it into your active tiles

   Press and hold it, then drop it among the tiles you use.

5. Save

   Tap done or back to keep the layout.

On a Samsung

Samsung phones run One UI, whose editor works a little differently:

1. Open the Quick panel

   Swipe down from the top right corner of the screen. If your notifications and quick settings are combined, swipe down twice from the top instead.

2. Tap the pencil (Edit)

   The pencil is at the top of the panel. On older One UI it hides behind the overflow menu as Edit buttons.

3. Find Capture to Relic

   Scroll the available buttons. The Relic gem is labelled Capture to Relic.

4. Add it

   Tap its plus button, or press and hold and drag it into the buttons you use.

5. Tap Done

   Your layout is saved and the tile lives in your Quick panel.

Using the tile

Once it is there, the whole thing is three moves:

Copy anything, pull down Quick Settings, tap Capture to Relic. You do not have to open the Relic app, and it works from inside any other app.

The tile answers with a short message so you know what happened:

• Captured to Relic what was on the clipboard is now an item in your vault.
• Clipboard was empty there was nothing to take. Copy something first.

The share sheet answers too. It says how many items it added, and if you share the same thing twice it tells you rather than adding it again:

Where a capture lands

On a phone, everything you send to Relic is a deliberate act, so it goes straight to your Vault and never expires. That is what this switch does, and it starts on:

Turn it off and captures go into history instead, alongside what your computers picked up. The rest of the sheet is in Settings on your phone.

Anything that looks like a key or a token is still hidden behind dots in the list. See Secrets. On an iPhone or an iPad the routes in are different again: see Capturing on an iPhone.