Sticky Notes, Automated With Shortcuts

How to Create a Sticky Note With Shortcuts on Mac

1. Open the Shortcuts App and Make a New Shortcut

   Peel & Stick’s actions are there once it’s installed. There’s nothing to turn on.

2. Search the Actions For “Peel & Stick”

   You’ll see “Create Note”, “Pin Note” and “Set Reminder”.

3. Add “Create Note” and Type The “Text”

   Leave the “Text” empty for a blank sheet. Choose a “Paper” if you like. Otherwise the sheet takes the next color of the pad you’re writing on; on the “Classic pad”, it takes the paper you chose last.

4. Add “Pin Note” to Put a Note on the Desktop

   Choose the “Note”. The picker suggests up to 30 notes, those “On your pad” first, then those “On your desktop”. Type a few words of a note’s first line to find any other. A locked note is listed only as “Locked note”, so its words don’t show and can’t be searched.

5. Or Add “Set Reminder”

   Choose a “Note” and a “Date”. At that moment, Peel & Stick plays a chime and macOS shows a notification, once, as long as Peel & Stick is running.

6. Run the Shortcut, or Ask Siri

   Run it in the Shortcuts app. Or, without building anything, say “Create a note in Peel & Stick” to Siri. The reply is “Written down.”

Create a Sticky Note With Shortcuts: The 3 Actions

To create a sticky note with Shortcuts on your Mac, you use “Create Note”. The other two actions pin a note to your desktop or give it a reminder. In a shortcut, each action reads as a sentence:

• “Create Note” reads “Create a note that says [Text]”. It rests a new sheet on top of the pad you’re writing on, ready to peel off, and brings the pad forward. It passes the note’s title, its first line, on to the next action.
• “Pin Note” reads “Pin [Note] to the desktop”. The note lands near the middle of your main display, and the reply is “It's on your desktop.” A note that’s already pinned stays where it is.
• “Set Reminder” reads “Remind me about [Note] at [Date]”. It gives the note a one-time reminder, and the reply is “That note will ask for you then.”

Siri: Create a Sticky Note on Mac by Voice

Peel & Stick’s Siri phrases are built in, so you can create a sticky note on your Mac by voice without making a shortcut. They are in English, so they work when Siri is set to English. The Shortcuts app also lists them as ready-made shortcuts named “New Note”, “Pin Note” and “Set Reminder”. Say one of these to Siri:

• “Create a note in Peel & Stick” or “New note in Peel & Stick”. You get a blank sheet on top of your pad, ready to write on, and Siri replies “Written down.”
• “Pin a note in Peel & Stick” or “Stick a note to my desktop with Peel & Stick”. Siri asks “Which note?”
• “Set a reminder in Peel & Stick”. Siri asks “Which note?”, then “When should the note ask for you?”

Set a Reminder on a Note With Shortcuts

When a reminder comes due, Peel & Stick plays a chime and macOS shows a notification titled “A note is asking for you”, with the note’s title, its first line, underneath. For a locked note, it shows only “Locked note”. The first time you set a reminder, macOS asks whether Peel & Stick may send notifications; if you don’t allow them, you hear only the chime. The chime is silent when “Mute Peel & Stick's sounds” is on, or when “Play user interface sound effects” is off in System Settings ▸ Sound.

Write your tasks on a to-do list sticky note on your Mac desktop, then give that note a reminder.

• A reminder fires only while Peel & Stick is running. If Peel & Stick is quit at that moment, the reminder is skipped and doesn’t come later. Turn on “Open Peel & Stick when I log in” in Settings.
• If your Mac is asleep at that moment, the reminder fires once when it wakes.
• It doesn’t repeat. Each note holds one reminder, and setting a new one replaces the old one.
• A date that has already passed is refused, and the note stays as it was.

Pin a Note to the Desktop Automatically

To automate notes on your Mac, let a shortcut run these actions. If Peel & Stick isn’t open, Shortcuts opens it in the background. The action waits up to 8 seconds for your notes to load; if they aren’t ready, you see “Peel & Stick is still finding your notes. Give it a moment and run this again.”

Peel & Stick can’t start a shortcut at a set time by itself. For that, use an automation in the Shortcuts app; whether automations are available, and which kinds, depends on your version of macOS. A few ideas:

• Keep a note whose first line is Today on your pad, and let a morning automation run “Pin Note” on it. When you’re done, double-click the note to send it back to the pad for the next day.
• Pin several notes in a row: each lands a little offset from the last, so they don’t sit exactly on top of one another.
• For a note right now, without a shortcut, press ⌥⌘N in any app for a fresh sheet on your pad: see the sticky note keyboard shortcut for Mac.

Papers and the 3-Note Limit in a Shortcut

The 3 actions work without Peel & Stick Pro and follow the same rules as the app. More on what you can do without Pro.

• Without Pro you can keep 3 notes pinned at once. At the limit, “Pin Note” stops and says why, and your pinned notes stay where they are.
• The “Paper” picker lists only papers you can use: “Canary”, “Soft Pink”, “Mint” and “Vellum Blue” without Pro, all 16 papers with it.
• If a shortcut names a Pro paper you don’t have, “Create Note” stops with a sentence naming that paper, and no half-made note is left behind.

Questions