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Obra Todo

Capturing

GTD starts with capture: get the thing out of your head and into the system, instantly, without deciding anything yet. Obra Todo gives you three doors in, all of which land in the Inbox.

The Inbox

Section titled “The Inbox”

Tasks with no project live in the Inbox. It’s an outline like any project list — press Enter on a row to add the next one, indent with ⌘]. Clarify later by giving tasks a project and context.

Quick Add (⌘K)

Section titled “Quick Add (⌘K)”

The bar in the toolbar, from anywhere in the app: a text field plus a project picker. The picker autocompletes your existing projects — or type a name that doesn’t exist yet and the project is created on the spot. Leave it empty and the item goes to the Inbox. It’s sticky across adds, so dumping five tasks into one project means picking it once.

The text itself takes two inline tokens:

Call the plumber about the boiler @private !tomorrow
TokenEffect
@wordTags it with the first context whose name starts with word
!today / !tomorrowSets the deadline
!2026-08-15Sets the deadline to a specific day

Tokens that don’t match anything stay in the title — capture never silently drops your words. Enter adds the item and keeps the bar focused, so you can drain your head in one sitting.

Quick Capture from anywhere (⇧⌘U)

Section titled “Quick Capture from anywhere (⇧⌘U)”

Press ⇧⌘U in any application and a small floating panel appears — one input, for one item, with the same project picker below it:

  • Enter writes the item to disk before the panel disappears, then hands focus straight back to the app you came from. Obra Todo never comes forward.
  • Esc (or clicking away) dismisses without capturing.
  • The same @context !date tokens work here; the picker starts at Inbox on every summon.

This is why closing the main window doesn’t quit the app: Obra Todo stays alive in the background so the hotkey always answers. Click the Dock icon to bring the window back; ⌘Q really quits.