I’ve been struggling with something that sounds simple but is surprisingly annoying:
capturing content quickly across devices in a self-hosted environment.
On Android there’s share, on iOS shortcuts, on desktop copy/paste… but everything feels fragmented.
I often end up losing things or postponing them just because capturing isn’t frictionless.
Curious how others handle this.
I dunno if it would help, but between my phone and my computers (and one of my local servers) I use KDE Connect. Read about whatever I’m working on with the phone, share > kde > device, boom the clipboard is filled with whatever, or the link is automatically opened. Then proceed with the thing on my computer. Need to think or read about something but need to step away from the computer? Just copy it on the desktop, and again the clipboard is filled on the phone.
And of course sharing tabs on Firefox/derivatives.
Yeah KDE Connect is great for device-to-device flow, I’ve used it too.
What I always found tricky is that it works really well once you’re already “in the flow”, but not so much as a quick capture entry point.
Like, it helps moving things around — but not necessarily deciding to capture something instantly in the first place.
That’s where I always felt something was missing.
What exactly do you mean by “capture”?
Good question — I don’t mean organizing or saving things long-term.
I mean that moment when you see or think something and don’t want to lose it.
Like:
The problem for me is that if capturing that takes more than a second, I often just don’t do it — or I postpone it and forget.
So “capture” is really just that instant: taking something from wherever you are and storing it somewhere with zero friction.
For this I just send a message to myself on Signal (or sometimes WhatsApp). I know, it’s not a perfect solution, but for these simple things it’s good enough and pretty much content agnostic.
Yeah I used that too for a while — it works surprisingly well, but I always felt it’s more of a workaround than something designed for capturing.
You probably want linkwarden: https://github.com/linkwarden/linkwarden
I’m not sure if it handles non-link content like a random thought. Maybe a note-taking app for that; plenty of previous discussions on those if you search.