How do you use Drafts?

For me, I use it mostly these days to compose longer iMessages. I can’t stand the tiny text-entry box in Messages, and I sometimes accidentally would Send a text while I was still composing/editing, which was very annoying. With Drafts I get a nice big screen to compose and draft and hold messages which can then be easily sent as a text from within the app.

Since I already owned the previous version of Drafts, which did this already, I haven’t really found a use-case to pay for a subscription of the new app. A shame - I’d have been willing to pay for the updated app, but the free version (and the earlier full version, which still gets occasionally updated) does most everything I need already.

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Another reason to start a text in Drafts instead of a target app is that sometimes I‘m interrupted or for some reason the app reloads or crashes and what was written is lost. In Drafts you can start, maybe edit and then do what you like.

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This discussion made me want to use Drafts for all the good reasons cited: capturing an idea, composing text bound for Mail or Messages, avoiding inconsistencies of other apps’s editors, etc.

So I set up a function key in Keyboard Maestro to quickly give me a new note file in iA Writer. Problem solved.

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Thanks for this. I think this is probably one of the more compelling use cases for Drafts (e.g., the larger text field). However, that said, you can do the same thing in Apple Notes… that is, start with some text in a Note, then hit the share sheet to send it as an iMessage, email, or whatever.

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For those who want a text scratchpad on iOS and for whom Drafts is overkill, there’s Edit:

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I use Drafts for quick inputs of text that I just need to jot down. I also use it for really, really long documents that I keep appending to. But I only keep about 5-10 documents in Drafts at a time

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I use Drafts for group emails while on the go. I’m a university prof who has to connect with groups of students on a regular basis. I can compose a message in Drafts, send it to one group of students, modify the message, then send it to another. It’s the best group emailing/texting solution I’ve found.

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I use it to capture thoughts when I can’t use a device. Siri usually has no idea what I’m talking about (domain-specific language), but I can read it phonetically and remember what I was thinking.

I’ve also just created an action that will create a task in OmniFocus with a link back to the Drafts note. I’m still thinking about this. At the moment, I plan to use Drafts as the note repository, so when the OmniFocus task is completed and long gone, I’ll still have the reference material(note). It looks like this contrived example:

- Read Fagg & Arbib, 1998
A good explanation of affordances, visual streams, and
the role of AIP in feature extraction and grasp selection. 

The action treats each line that begins with a dash as a task, adding the link back in the note field in OmniFocus.

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Per another thread I had resurrected the other day about a place to brain dump, I decided to try to use Drafts in a more powerful way. After some digging around, I found this very old thread.

5 years later, I’m wondering what your favorite use cases with Drafts is. I assume more features have been added.

Historically, I have used it as a dumping ground. A long time ago, I did use some actions but they never caught on so I stopped. But nothing compares to the ability to jot down something quickly.

Drafts is where I store all my notes and read-later. I don’t use it as an intermediary anymore.

In theory, I want to use it as the Place Where Text Starts. In theory, I will start writing in Drafts, then quickly do something with the text. Within hours or days, I will move that text to Obsidian, or send it as a message or email, and then delete the note in Drafts.

In reality, Drafts has become for me an unholy junk drawer.

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I’ve had the same experience. I was thinking of trialing using the notes field in Things to catch some temporary text which will be moved elsewhere and Obsidian to catch everything else. I have an “inbox” in Obsidian (which is at the root level of the vault). It stares at me when I open it so I’m reminded to move things to where they belong.

I need fewer inboxes.

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I have a daily Task to “Check Drafts” which reminds me to get stuff out of the Drafts inbox and put it where it belongs.

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How is the experience with Drafts for Read It Later items? Is there a way to strip out the ads and clean it up like using Instapaper or Readwise Reader?

Honestly, that is what I will have to do until I get in a rhythm although it could probably be weekly.

It does not save the content of the article, unlike Evernote web clipper. It saved the title of the article, URL and also the highlight that you made.

Here’s an example.
image

What I like about it is that the effortless way to save this. Highlight a paragraph, tap on the Share Sheet and tap Drafts and bom, you have it.

In my case I clear Untagged weekly - as part of my weekly planning. (I also keep a “The Point Of The Week” draft in Drafts, as part of the same process.)

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Thanks for sharing how it looks.

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Drafts is where I begin writing anything for public consumption that’s longer than two sentences, including this post. (And if those two sentences need to be crafted carefully, they’ll likely get their start in Drafts as well.) It’s not necessarily where I’ll finish writing, but it’s where I’ll go first to get my thoughts in order.

Here’s something I didn’t see mentioned elsewhere in this thread: If I need to scan something from hard-copy printed matter and convert it to plain text using my phone—e.g., if I want to capture a quote from a print source and import it into Obsidian—I’ll do that using Drafts. I scan the text into drafts with my phone, clean it up on my Mac, and use the “Send to Obsidian” action to get it into my notes.

Drafts is where I start almost any writing project. It doesn’t matter what it is, research for a class I’m teaching, shopping list, a short story, or notes that I’m taking while doing genealogical research. Really, anything. I often start emails in drafts. I even do a good amount of editing there as well.

Some items stay in drafts, others get moved to other applications. Regardless, it generally starts in drafts.

Review the Drafts app a couple times a week to see if there’s anything that I need to either move or delete, but it is my go to text app