Relic
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In this section: Capture
Capture

Save something and name it

Press Ctrl + Shift + E anywhere and Relic saves what you have selected, or what you last copied, to your Vault with the editor open on the title.

· Windows, Mac, Linux

What the shortcut does

Most of what Relic keeps arrives on its own, unnamed, in the order you copied it. Sometimes you know at the moment you copy something that you will want it back in a month. Ctrl + Shift + E is for that moment.

Press it in any app and Relic copies what you have selected, saves it to your Vault, and opens the editor so you can name it while you still remember what it is. If nothing is selected it uses the last thing you copied, so it works just as well a second after an ordinary copy.

Save and annotate shortcut
Capture the selection or clipboard to your Vault and label it.
Settings › General › Shortcuts › Save and annotate shortcut: shortcut, default Ctrl + Shift + E. Mac: Ctrl + Shift + E. Linux: Ctrl + Shift + E

Two things about it are deliberate:

  • It ignores your blocklist. You asked for this one by name, so Relic saves it even from an app it would normally leave alone. If the text looks like a key or a token it is still hidden behind dots, as any secret would be.
  • In a terminal, Relic does not press copy for you. Ctrl+C in a terminal with nothing selected stops whatever is running, so there it saves what you had already copied.

With nothing selected and nothing on the clipboard, it tells you so and does nothing:

Nothing to save
Select or copy something first.

Save and name a clip

Say a supplier letter has your client's tax number in it and you will need to type it into three different forms this month.

  1. Select it, or copy it

    Highlight the number in the letter. Do not copy it. Relic will do that part.

  2. Press Ctrl + Shift + E

    Press Ctrl + Shift + E. The Relic editor opens over whatever you were doing, with the number already saved and the title box waiting.

  3. Give it a name

    Type something you would actually search for. "Maplewood EIN" beats "number".

    The Relic editor over a letter. The header shows the number that was just captured. Inside are four labelled boxes: CONTENT with the text, TITLE with a cursor in it reading Maplewood EIN, NOTE, and TAGS holding two tags. At the bottom are a delete, share and copy icon, then Cancel and a gold Save button. The editor as it opens: the item is already saved, and the title box has the cursor.
  4. Press Save

    The editor closes and Relic confirms it. The number is in your Vault on every device you have signed in, and you can get it back by typing "maplewood" into the search box.

Saved to Vault

What you can fill in

The editor is the same one you get when you double-click any row. Four things are worth filling in:

  • Content. The text itself, which you can correct here. Images, files and secrets show the thing instead of an editable box.
  • Title. What you would call it out loud. This is what the list shows.
  • Note. Room for the context you will have forgotten by next month.
  • Tags. Type a word and press Enter. Tags are how you get a whole group back at once.

Title, note and tags are all searchable, so anything you type here is another way back to the item. See the Relic window for what a row looks like once you have named it.

If your Vault is full, Relic keeps the item in your history instead and says so. The editor still opens and everything you type is kept:

Saved to history. Vault is full

On a Mac

Grabbing your selection means pressing copy for you, and macOS asks permission before any app can press keys. Until you give it, the shortcut still works, it just falls back to the last thing you copied yourself.

Turn it on with Settings › General › Let Relic paste for you, or read Accessibility on a Mac for the walk through System Settings.

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