NoteMinder Support

A blank white page you draw on with your finger.

Questions, problems, or ideas? Email wjfrench@proton.me and you'll get a reply, usually within a couple of days. Answers to the most common questions are below.

Getting Started

How do I start a new note?

Tap the + button on the home screen. You get a blank white page straight away — there's nothing to name, choose, or set up first.

How do I get back to a note I was working on?

The home screen is a grid of everything you've drawn, newest first, and each tile shows a preview of what's actually on that page. Tap one to open it full-screen and carry on. Nothing is ever finished; you can keep adding to a note for as long as you like.

Do I need an Apple Pencil?

No. NoteMinder is built to be drawn on with a finger on every device, which is the whole point of it. If you do have an Apple Pencil paired, it works too, with pressure and tilt — but nothing in the App requires one.

Drawing

What tools are there?

The palette across the bottom of the page is Apple's own, the same one used elsewhere in iOS: pen, pencil, marker, highlighter, and eraser, plus a lasso for selecting and moving what you've drawn.

How do I change the colour or the line width?

Tap a tool that's already selected and its options open — a width slider and a full colour picker. Tapping a tool once selects it; tapping the selected tool again is what opens the settings.

Where did the palette go?

It can be collapsed out of the way, and on iPhone it will move if you rotate the device. Tap near the bottom of the page to bring it back. If it's genuinely missing, closing the note and reopening it will restore it.

How do I undo something?

Undo and redo are in the bar at the top of the page. Clear page wipes the sheet completely — and is itself undoable, so clearing by accident is recoverable as long as you undo before leaving the page.

Saving

Where is the save button?

There isn't one, deliberately. A note saves itself about a second after you stop drawing, again when you leave the page, and again if the App goes to the background. There is no state in which you have drawn something and it has not been kept.

I closed the App suddenly — did I lose anything?

Almost certainly not. The last strokes you drew are written out roughly a second after your finger leaves the page, so the only work at risk is whatever happened in that final second. Switching apps, locking the phone, and closing the note all force a save immediately.

Are my notes backed up?

NoteMinder has no cloud service of its own, so there is no NoteMinder account holding a copy. Your notes are stored in the App's own storage on your device, which is included when you back up that device to iCloud or to a computer — so restoring a backup onto a new phone brings them along. What it does not survive is deleting the App, which removes its storage and every note with it.

Appearance

Why is the page white when my phone is in dark mode?

That's deliberate. If the page followed dark mode, iOS would invert your ink to keep it visible against a dark background, which turns a black pen into a white one and makes the drawing you saved look nothing like the one you made. Pinning the page to white keeps every note looking the same as the day you drew it, whatever the phone is set to. The rest of the App follows your usual appearance setting.

Managing Notes

How do I delete a note?

Swipe across it in the home-screen grid, or use the edit control there. Deleting a note removes its drawing from the device; it does not go to a recycling bin and cannot be undone afterwards.

Can I export a note or send it to someone?

Not in this version. If that's something you'd use, it's worth telling me — it's the most likely next addition, and hearing that people want it is what decides the order.

Privacy

NoteMinder has no accounts, no servers, no analytics, and no advertising, and it does not use the network at all. Nothing you draw leaves your device. The full details are in the privacy policy.