Stickies by Coduo keeps the stickies you are not using on the right edge of the screen, each one reduced to a thin strip called a sliver. Hover a sliver and that one sticky peeks out far enough to read; click the peek and the sticky opens. Stickies by Coduo is a separate Mac app from Apple's Stickies, it never reads or changes Apple's notes, and it is not released yet.
Everything below comes from the app's source code, so the numbers are the ones the app uses, not rounded ones.
What does stashing a sticky do?
Stashing moves a sticky off the desktop and onto the right screen edge as a sliver 12 points wide and 84 points tall. Every sticky is in exactly one of two places: pinned, where it floats on the desktop as its own window, or stashed, where only its sliver shows.
A sliver shows the sticky's title-bar and body colors and none of its text. A stashed sticky with an empty body gets a shorter sliver, 42 points tall, so blank stickies are easy to tell apart from ones you wrote in.
The slivers stack in one column with 4 points between them, and the column sits centered on the right edge of the screen's usable area. The sticky you edited most recently goes on top. Editing a stashed sticky moves it to the top; dragging or resizing a sticky's window does not change its place.
When nothing is stashed, the app removes the edge panel entirely, so there is no invisible strip catching your pointer at the side of the screen.
How do you read a stashed sticky without opening it?
Hover it. Each sliver has a hot zone 20 points deep from the screen edge, reaching 4 points above and below the sliver. Keep the pointer in that zone for 0.10 seconds and the sticky peeks out as a card 264 points wide and 176 tall, lined up with the top of its sliver.
The peek shows the title and the start of each paragraph, up to two lines per paragraph, and the rest fades out at the bottom. The other slivers stay slivers. Only the hovered card comes out, and moving straight to a neighboring sliver switches the peek at once, with no second wait.
Move the pointer off both the sliver's zone and the card and the peek retracts after 0.20 seconds. That grace period lets you cross from the sliver to the card without it snapping shut.
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Sliver | 12 × 84 pt; 42 pt tall for an empty sticky |
| Gap between slivers | 4 pt |
| Hover zone | 20 pt from the edge, 4 pt above and below the sliver |
| Hover time before a peek | 0.10 s |
| Peek card | 264 × 176 pt |
| Peek appears | spring, response 0.32 s, damping 0.82 |
| Delay before it retracts | 0.20 s |
| Peek retracts | spring, response 0.28 s, damping 0.90 |
| With Reduce Motion on | a 0.15 s fade instead of either spring |
| Stash starts scrolling | past 7 stickies |
How do you open or pin a stashed sticky again?
Click the peek card and the sticky opens in its own floating window, while its sliver disappears from the edge. Opening it does not pin it. Click anywhere else and the window closes, and the sticky goes back to being a sliver.
To keep it on the desktop, click the pin in the sticky's title bar. It stays open as a pinned sticky until you click the pin again, which closes the window and returns the sticky to the top of the stash. The pinned side is covered in pinned floating stickies.
Does the stash show on every display and every Space?
Yes. The app puts one edge panel on the right side of each connected display, each showing the full stash, and rebuilds them when displays are added, removed or rearranged. Each display tracks its own hover and peek.
The panels float above ordinary windows and join every Space. They never take keyboard focus, so hovering or peeking does not pull you out of the app you are typing in.
What happens when you stash more than seven stickies?
Past seven stashed stickies, the column turns into a scrolling list with a thin scroll indicator that fades after you stop scrolling. You can scroll it and click any sliver to open that sticky. Hover-peek does not work in the scrolling list yet: the code carries it as an open follow-up.
When a different sticky becomes the newest, the list scrolls back to the top so the latest one is in view.
Why the stash sits at the edge, and where its numbers came from, is told in why our notes hide at the screen edge.
What are the stash's limits?
Four limits in the current code are worth knowing before you rely on the stash:
- Right edge only. There is no left-edge or top-edge option.
- No peek past seven. A scrolling stash opens stickies on click but does not peek them.
- No drag-to-stash. You stash a sticky with its pin button. Dragging a window to the edge or flinging it there does nothing special; the motion prototype tried it and the shipping stash left it out in favor of the pin.
- Slivers carry no text. You find a sticky by its place in the column, newest on top, or by peeking. Every new sticky currently uses the same default colors, so color alone will not tell stickies apart.
Stickies by Coduo is not released yet. What it will cost is on the plans page.
Frequently asked questions
Can Stickies by Coduo hide sticky notes at the edge of the screen?
Yes. An unpinned sticky in Stickies by Coduo is stashed as a 12 × 84 pt sliver on the right edge of the screen. Hovering the sliver peeks the sticky, clicking the peek opens it, and pinning it puts it back on the desktop as a floating window.
Can I stash stickies on the left edge instead?
No. Stickies by Coduo stashes on the right edge only, and there is no setting to change the edge.
What happens with more than seven stashed stickies?
Past seven, the stash in Stickies by Coduo becomes a scrolling column. You can scroll it and click any sliver to open that sticky, but hovering a sliver in the scrolling column does not peek it yet.
Does the stash respect Reduce Motion?
Yes. With Reduce Motion turned on in macOS, the peek and the stash's scrolling animations in Stickies by Coduo become a 0.15-second fade instead of a spring.
Is this the same as hiding Apple's Stickies?
No. Stickies by Coduo is a separate app from Apple's Stickies and never reads or changes Apple's notes. The stash only holds stickies written in Stickies by Coduo.