A daily timeline
Today sits at the bottom next to the composer. Finished days roll into history above it, in the order you actually lived them.
Your whole day on
one timeline.
Today's work sits at the bottom of the window, right next to the box you type into. Finished days roll up into history above it. Nothing else gets in the way.
v1.3.4 · Apple Silicon & Intel · free and open source · all releases
Opening it the first time on macOS
macOS blocks it the first time. On macOS 15 and later the dialog says “Apple could not verify Stepler is free of malware” and offers only Move to Trash and Done; older versions say “Stepler is damaged”. It is not damaged — anything downloaded from a browser is quarantined, and Stepler is signed ad-hoc rather than with a paid Apple certificate.
macOS 15 (Sequoia) and later: click Done, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, and click Open Anyway next to the message about Stepler. Apple removed the old right-click shortcut in this version.
macOS 14 and earlier: right-click Stepler in Applications, choose Open, then Open again.
Once only, either way: updates installed from inside the app are
never quarantined. From a terminal, on any version:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Stepler.app
Windows warns you the first time — this is expected
Windows shows a blue “Windows protected your PC” screen for any app it has not seen before. Click More info, then Run anyway, and the installer carries on as normal.
Stepler is not yet signed with a paid Microsoft certificate, so SmartScreen has no record of it. Every release is built from the public source in this repository — you can check the code, or build it yourself, before running it.
The whole app: projects on the left, the day's timeline in the middle, and the composer always within reach at the bottom.
What it does
Small app, no ceremony.
Write the thing down, tag it if you feel like it, and get on with your day.
Capture in a keystroke
A global shortcut brings the window up from anywhere, Esc sends it away again. It never becomes a thing you have to go and open.
Subtasks, projects, reminders
Tag a note with a project, give it a day, set a time and get a notification when it comes round.
Attachments that stay files
Paste or attach images and documents. They are kept as real files in the data folder, so you can open, copy or save them anywhere.
Search that reaches everything
Task text, subtasks, project names and attachment filenames — all from the keyboard, without lifting your hands.
Trash and history
Restore anything you deleted, or pull a finished note from a past day straight back into today.
Keyboard first
Four keys and you're done.
⇧ ⌘ Space
Show or hide Stepler from anywhere
⌘ N
Jump straight to the composer
⌘ F
Full-screen search
Esc
Send the window away
Local first
Your notes never leave the machine.
Everything lives in a plain folder on your own disk. Writes are atomic and batched, so a crash or a forced quit cannot leave the file half written — and the previous good copy is kept as a backup at every successful start.
Google Calendar, Jira and Apple Reminders are all there if you want them, and all switched off until you turn them on.
-
stepler-data.jsonTasks, history and trash -
stepler-data.backup.jsonThe last known-good copy -
attachments/Every image and file you attached -
stepler-settings.jsonPreferences and the local API token
Start with today.
Download it, hit the shortcut, and write down the first thing on your mind.
On Windows, SmartScreen asks first: click More info → Run anyway.