01 What TackNote Lite is
TackNote Lite puts sticky notes on web pages. Tack a note to a page, or to a whole site, and it stays there. Leave the page and the note steps aside. Come back and it is waiting, right where you left it.
It is a separate, lighter app from TackNote for Mac and Windows, which sticks notes to any app, file or folder on your computer. TackNote Lite lives only in your browser.
02 Installing it
- Open TackNote Lite in the Chrome Web Store and click Add to Chrome.
- Chrome asks to let it read and change data on all websites. That is so a note can appear on whatever page it belongs to. TackNote Lite only reads a page's address and title, and it never sends anything anywhere. See Privacy.
- Pin it: click the puzzle piece in Chrome's toolbar and pin TackNote Lite, so its icon and note count are always in view.
03 Your first note
- Open the page you want to write about.
- Press Option+Shift+N on a Mac, or Alt+Shift+N on Windows. Or right-click the page and choose Tack a note to this page. That is the way on a Chromebook, where Alt+Shift+N opens notifications; you can also pick another shortcut with Change the shortcut in TackNote Lite's options. Or click the TackNote Lite icon and choose + Note on this page.
- Start typing. There is nothing to save; every word is kept as you type.
The icon in your toolbar shows how many notes the page you are on has.
04 Everything on a note
- Move it by dragging its top bar. It remembers where you put it.
- Colours: hover over the note to see five colour dots along the bottom. One click changes it.
- Checklist: click Checklist to turn each line into an item you can tick. Press Return for a new item, and Backspace on an empty item to remove it. Text turns it back without losing a word.
- This page or the whole site: a new note belongs to the exact page you are on. Click Whole site to show it on every page of that site, and Just this page to undo that. The label on the note's bar tells you which it is.
- Fold it away: the – button collapses a note to its bar. Click it again to open it.
- Delete it: the ✕ button. If the note has anything written on it, TackNote Lite asks first.
05 Which page a note belongs to
A note belongs to a page's address. A few details decide what counts as the same page:
- Anything after a ? in the address is ignored, so tracking tags and sort orders do not split one page into many.
- A # that jumps to a heading is ignored too. But in web apps that keep the real page after the #, like web email, each message or view gets its own note.
- A note set to Whole site shows on every page of that site.
06 The board
Click the TackNote Lite icon in your toolbar to open the board: every note you have, grouped by site, newest first.
- Type in Search every note to find any word, in any note, along with its page's title and address.
- Click a note to go straight back to its page. If that page is already open in a tab, TackNote Lite switches to it.
- + Note on this page tacks a note to the page you are on.
07 Free notes and unlocking
Your first 25 notes are free, for as long as you like. Every note you make counts toward the 25, including ones you later delete. The board shows how many you have used.
To add more, unlock TackNote Lite once for $4.99. No subscription. At the 26th note, TackNote Lite shows an unlock card instead; every note you already have keeps working.
- Click Unlock at the bottom of the board, or open the extension's settings.
- Buy the unlock from tacknote.app/lite. Your key arrives by email.
- Paste the key into License key and click Unlock. The key is checked on your computer, offline.
Lost your key? Resend it here with the email address you bought with.
08 Backups and a new computer
Your notes live only in Chrome on this computer, so a backup is the only copy anywhere else. Chrome does not sync them between computers.
- Save a backup: open the settings and click Save a backup. You get one file with every note.
- Restore it: on the new computer, or after reinstalling, click Restore a backup and choose the file. Restoring adds its notes; it never deletes any you already have.
09 Changing the shortcut
Open the settings and click Change the shortcut. Chrome opens its own shortcuts page, where you can set any keys you like for Tack a note to this page.
10 Privacy
TackNote Lite has no account, no analytics and no servers, and it makes no network requests of its own. Your notes, the address and title of their pages, and your unlock key are stored in Chrome on your computer and nowhere else. They are not encrypted by TackNote Lite; they are protected by your computer account, like the rest of your Chrome profile.
The one thing kept in Chrome's sync storage is a single number: how many notes you have created, so the free count survives reinstalling the extension. If you use Chrome sync, Chrome keeps that number with your Google account. No note, page address or title is ever in it, and it never reaches us.
It runs on every page only to check the page's address against your saved notes. It does not read or record anything else on the page. The full details are in our privacy policy.
11 If something is not right
- The shortcut does nothing on a page that was open before you installed TackNote Lite. Reload the page once. Pages opened after installing work straight away.
- A ✕ shows on the icon and no note appears. That page is one of Chrome's own, like Settings, the New Tab page or the Web Store. Chrome does not let any extension draw on those.
- A note is missing. Open the board and search for it. If its page's address changed, click the note to open where it was. A note set to Just this page will not show on other pages of the site.
- The same note shows on several pages. Those pages differ only after a ? in the address, which TackNote Lite treats as one page (see Which page a note belongs to), or the note is set to Whole site.
- The shortcut clashes with another extension. Pick different keys; see Changing the shortcut.
12 Getting help
Email [email protected]. We read every message.