BetterStickies Free v1.2.1

A hotfix release, shaped by user feedback on v1.2. Alongside the fixes it brings quality-of-life improvements to reminders and to launching the app when the hub is hidden.

What's New

Starting the app again brings the hub back

When the hub is hidden in the system tray, clicking the app's icon in your taskbar, Start menu or launcher used to say that BetterStickies was already running. On Windows 11 the tray icon usually sits behind the taskbar's overflow arrow, so it was easy to conclude the app was broken.

The new launch now hands off to the running app and the hub reappears, with the extra copy closing itself quietly. Whether it also takes focus is up to your desktop. The "already running" message still appears when the running copy genuinely cannot be reached: while it is still starting up, if it has stopped responding, or sometimes when the two were installed in different package formats. If it keeps appearing and the hub never comes back, the running copy is stuck: quit it from your system's task manager and start again.

Linux: a show-hub command

betterstickies-cmd.sh show-hub asks the running app to show the hub, so you can bind it to a desktop keyboard shortcut. It also doubles as a recovery path when the hub is hidden and your desktop has no system tray.

The helper script in the configuration folder now updates itself when the app starts, so upgrading is enough to get the new command. It is not available in the Snap and Flathub builds.

Changed

• A caution about syncing the data folder across computers. Syncing it with your own cloud service still works, but use BetterStickies on one computer at a time until a planned storage update. The whole note collection lives in a single file, so if two computers edit notes at once, the sync service can settle the clash by replacing that file and one computer's changes overwrite the other's. The "Backing Up Your Notes" guide now describes the safe routine

Fixed

• On Linux Mint and other Cinnamon desktops, notes no longer float above every other application once the hub is open. They still stay out of Alt+Tab, and windows stack normally again: always-on-top notes stay on top, the rest go behind whatever you are working in
• Windows: notes no longer disappear for good after Show Desktop or Win+D. They now restore themselves without stealing focus, so you still get the desktop, just with the sticky notes on it. Hiding notes deliberately is unchanged
• A reminder whose notification cannot be shown is no longer lost. It stays armed and retries every minute, including after a restart, instead of counting as delivered the moment it was attempted
• Quitting any way other than the tray's Exit no longer risks losing your last edits or forgetting where you put the hub. Every quit now runs the same cleanup
• An image set to Medium or Small now keeps that size after you restart the app. Existing images are converted automatically at the size they were shown
• Photos dragged in from a phone or camera are no longer inserted sideways. Their embedded rotation is applied before the image is stored
• Theme, language, notification, image and keyboard-shortcut settings can no longer be corrupted by a crash mid-save
• Re-picking an image's current size no longer adds an invisible step to the undo history
• TXT and Markdown exports now use the same wording for their headers, and an untitled page reads "Page 2" instead of "Page: Page 2"

BetterStickies Free v1.2.0

A note is no longer a single sheet. This release adds pages behind tabs, search that reads every one of them, an image lightbox, and a hub that can stay out of your way. It also carries a long round of fixes across formatting, file shortcuts, dates, translations, and Linux desktop integration.

Version 1.1.0 was never published here, so this is the first update since v1.0.0 and folds in that release as well. One item under Changed needs action if you wired up KDE shortcuts by hand.

⚠️ Before you downgrade

If you go back to an older version after using note tabs, opening and saving a tabbed note there permanently removes its other pages. Older builds understand only one page per note: they will show the page that was open and, the next time that note is saved, write it back as the whole note. The other pages are not recoverable afterwards, not from Trash, and not by upgrading again.

If you plan to downgrade, export any multi-page notes first (Menu → Export handles all pages), or copy their other pages into notes of their own.

What's New

Note Tabs: up to three pages per note

Add a page from the Add Page button in the note's footer (or its right-click menu) and a slim tab strip appears, one tab per page. A shopping list, a set of meeting notes and a scratchpad can share one window instead of three. Each page keeps its own text, scroll position and undo history. Tabs name themselves after the first line and rename as you type; double-click to pin a name of your own, and drag to reorder.

Notes you already have are untouched and show no tabs at all. The strip only appears once you add a second page, and disappears again when you close back down to one. Closing a page moves it to Trash as a note you can restore, so nothing is ever thrown away.

Page shortcuts (Ctrl+PgDown / Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+Shift+N)

Move to the next and previous page, or add a page to the note you're in. All three appear under a new Pages section in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts and can be rebound or switched off.

Search reads every page

Search used to see only the page a note happened to be showing, so anything on your second and third tabs was invisible to it. It now covers every page of every note, including hidden notes and pages you have never opened. A note matching on two pages appears as two results, each labeled with its note and tab name (Groceries › Weekend), and opening one takes you to that page with every occurrence tinted in the note's own color. The highlight is purely visual and never becomes part of the note.

Double-click an image to enlarge it

Double-click an inline image (or right-click and choose Open Image) to open it centered at original resolution, scaled down only if it is bigger than your screen. Small text in pasted screenshots becomes readable without resizing the note. Dismiss with Esc, Space, Enter, a click anywhere, or by switching windows.

Start with the hub hidden

Hiding the hub used to last only until you quit. A new Start with the hub hidden option in Settings → Appearance keeps it in the system tray from launch, so BetterStickies can sit quietly in the background. This is particularly useful if you add it to your startup applications. Notes still open as normal.

Changed

• The free version now has exactly one limit. The separate caps on reminders and animated GIF backgrounds are gone, so you can set both on every note you have. What remains is a shared budget of 4 slots, with each extra tab using one. Existing users over the limit lose nothing: extra notes become read-only, and deleting a note (or closing a tab) unlocks them again
• Reminders are now a strip on the note instead of a chip in your text. A reminder used to sit inside your content as a small image, so it could be selected, copied and deleted like ordinary text. It now has its own row between your text and the footer, so it cannot be edited away by accident, never lands in an export, and never travels with copied text. The footer bell shows its status by color, and Edit and Remove live in the reminder's own menu. Existing reminders are migrated automatically
• The footer steps out of the way while you type. The formatting row used to sit on top of the line you were writing. It now stands down as you type and returns the moment you move the mouse. Arrow keys and shortcuts do not hide it
• A color picker built for the app. About half the size of the old one and identical on KDE, GNOME and Windows. It offers a grid of 40 colors, a row of your recent picks, a saturation and brightness square with a hue slider, and a hex field. It works fully from the keyboard and announces itself to screen readers, and unlike the old one it is translated into all 11 languages
• File shortcuts use crisp, theme-matched icons instead of emoji. File types are recognized the way your file manager recognizes them, so images, audio, archives, documents, programs and source code each get their own icon, where 42 common types used to collapse to a single paperclip. The icon is no longer part of the shortcut's name, so it stops turning up in exports, search results and reminder titles. Shortcuts you already have keep working; drag the file in again for the new look
• A Help window replaces the first-run guide notes. It never counts against the note limit, so a new free user starts with the whole allowance. It shows the app's real button icons rather than emoji stand-ins, covers this release's features, and names the shortcut you actually have bound, saying nothing about one you have switched off
• All dialogs share one visual design system. The same spacing grid, type scale and flat button style everywhere, with destructive actions (Delete Forever, Empty Trash, Remove Image) shown in red so they are recognizable before you click. Search and Reminders get card-style tables with whole-row hover, and Reminders shows status as tinted pills with a count summary ("3 overdue · 5 upcoming")
• The app introduces itself as "Better Stickies". Window titles, the hub, tray tooltips, About and Help, launcher entries and store listings, in all 11 languages. Nothing technical changes: your data, launchers and scripts keep working untouched
• Text copied between notes adopts the destination note's style. Plain text takes on the destination's font, size and color instead of dragging the source note's along. Deliberate styling such as custom colors, highlights, titles, links and code blocks still travels. Text copied into other applications lands in that app's own defaults
• The footer color button is purely a highlight tool. It now colors only what you select or type next, exactly like the bold button. A note's default text color is changed in Note Settings only
• You can now donate by PayPal. Buy Me a Coffee and PayPal sit side by side. Community → Reddit opens r/BetterStickies, and Developed by links to the developer's Reddit
• Menus and dialogs use themed icons instead of emoji. Emoji rendering depended on whichever font your system had, and looked different or broke across platforms
• Button labels are no longer heavy. Button text was bold everywhere, which read as noticeably heavier than intended with some desktop fonts
• The hub's font setting is labeled "Hub Font". It used to say "UI Font", which suggested it changed the whole interface when it only ever set the hub's own font
• Arabic: the app is called Better Stickies. The Arabic interface titled the hub and tray icon with a generic "sticky notes" while note windows already used the product name
• The Insert Link window has been tidied up. The two fields are now the same width and the window is smaller for it. Whether an address is usable is still obvious, but the field only turns red once you click away, instead of flashing at every half-typed address
• The Snap launcher entry and the Flathub listing are fully localized. Launcher search keywords were expanded too, across AppImage, Snap, Flatpak and Arch (sticky notes, post-it, memo, checklist, to-do)
• The user guide has been refreshed. Two new pages, Note Tabs and Pasting Content, cover features that had no documentation at all, and Getting Started is now a genuine overview that links out instead of re-teaching every topic
• ⚠️ Hand-wired KDE shortcuts need updating. The app's D-Bus service name changed from org.betterstickies.App (path /org/betterstickies/App) to com.betterstickies.BetterStickies (path /com/betterstickies/BetterStickies). The bundled command script and the app's own global shortcuts were updated automatically, but a KDE custom shortcut wired by hand against the old name has to be pointed at the new one
• Windows: cleaner Task Manager grouping. The note window title and the executable's file description now carry the product name instead of generic text

Improved

• Notes, reminders and trash are all protected the same way. Automatic backup copies and safe writes now cover every kind of data the app stores, not just notes, with daily snapshots as a longer-term net. A damaged, truncated or emptied file is set aside as a rescue copy instead of overwriting the last good version
• Every date in the app reads in your language. Note headers, search results, reminders and exports now use your own month names, your region's clock, and the day and month in the order your language writes them. They used to be English month names on an English 12-hour clock, with a month-first short form that reads as the wrong date nearly everywhere outside the United States
• Exported files are no longer half in English. The header, the Created and Modified labels, page headings and the image list all follow your app language
• Titles, fonts and colors stay in proportion permanently. Text that is not deliberately styled now follows t...

BetterStickies Free v1.0.0

BetterStickies v1.0.0 Release Notes

This release started as OpenStickies v3 and is shipping instead as BetterStickies v1.0.0 — a full rebrand with rich text paste, Quick Capture, redesigned reminders, and a smoother, faster note-taking experience.

---

A note on the name change

The name OpenStickies kept leading some people to think the app was open source. That was never the intent, so the project is now BetterStickies — clearer, closer to how apps are usually named, and free of the ambiguity.

The rebrand touched config paths, packaging, store listings, the website, GitHub repo, payment provider, Discord, logo, Buy Me a Coffee, email addresses, domains, and a lot of smaller things. Your notes, settings, and reminders migrate automatically on first launch.

---

What's New

Rich Text & Markdown Paste

Pasting from emails, web pages, or documents preserves bold, italic, links, lists, and highlights while normalizing fonts and sizes to match your note. Pasting markdown text auto-converts headings, task lists, and code blocks. External images become clickable placeholders. Use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste plain text instead.

Quick Capture (Ctrl+Alt+V)

Global shortcut that creates a new note pre-filled with whatever's on your clipboard — text, HTML, or screenshots — without switching windows.

Show On All Virtual Desktops

Notes automatically follow you across all desktops on Windows and KDE Plasma, no per-note configuration needed.

Redesigned Reminders

• Visual chips instead of plain text tags
• Quick presets (30min / 1h / 3h / Tomorrow 9AM)
• Right-click chip to edit or remove
• Removing a chip auto-deletes the reminder
• Single grouped notification on launch shows all overdue reminders at once
• New Edit button updates reminders in place
• Color-coded bell icon shows status at a glance (green/orange/red)
• Ctrl+R opens the date/time picker directly

Clear Formatting (Ctrl+)

Strip all formatting from selected text back to the note's defaults — links are preserved.

Sync-Safe Data Storage

Notes and reminders now live in a dedicated data/ subfolder you can point Dropbox or OneDrive at without syncing machine-specific config.

Other Additions

• Skip delete confirmation — optional setting to delete notes without the dialog
• Smart paste toast — brief notification after auto-detected pastes showing what happened and how to undo
• Structured logging — rotating log file and --verbose flag for troubleshooting

---

Changed

• Hub redesign — dark glass background with drop shadow, high-contrast green text, count shows only unhidden notes
• One reminder per note — existing notes with multiple reminders are auto-migrated
• RTL is now note-level — toggling RTL switches the entire note at once (matches Windows Sticky Notes / Google Keep)
• KDE Activities — notes appear on all Plasma Activities automatically
• New notes no longer float above all windows by default
• Trash keeps up to 300 notes with no time limit (was 100 notes / 30 days)
• System tray notification only shows once on first hide

---

Improved

• Faster startup — hidden notes defer content loading until shown
• Smoother typing — reduced per-keystroke work for RTL detection and reminder scanning
• Live preview sliders — opacity and line spacing update in real-time as you drag
• Note Settings dialog opens beside the note instead of covering it
• Search dialog shows 4 results, sorts by last modified, more compact
• Reminders dialog redesigned as a flat sorted list with colored status dots and sortable columns
• HiDPI toolbar icons render at native resolution
• Deleted notes show content preview on hover in the Trash
• Notification sounds work reliably in Snap and Flatpak sandboxes
• About dialog redesigned with clean SVG icons

---

Fixed

• Notes now pin correctly to all desktops on KDE Plasma 6.3+ and on non-English locales
• Pasting rich text with <br> line breaks no longer lands as one giant paragraph
• Pressing Enter after a formatted checkbox line no longer carries bold/link formatting into the new line
• Line spacing changes apply to existing text and persist across restarts
• Closing a note from the taskbar no longer makes it disappear — it hides properly
• App no longer hangs on exit under GNOME/Wayland
• Code blocks update colors correctly when switching themes
• Restarting after a crash reclaims the D-Bus service without needing a reboot
• Wayland app identity fixed — taskbar icons, Alt+Tab grouping, and compositor rules now work regardless of how the app is launched
• "Modified" timestamp no longer updates from hide/show, drag, or pin actions — only real edits count
• RTL notes restore their direction correctly when loaded from a hidden state
• Settings dialog no longer truncates labels at standard DPI or with longer translations
• Pasting into existing code blocks no longer creates extra line spacing gaps
• Hub window shrinks correctly after hidden notes are removed
• Audio backend crash fixed on systems using Qt 6.11+ with the FFmpeg multimedia backend
• Object replacement characters (U+FFFC) no longer appear in note titles, search results, or exports

---

Removed

• Per-note "Show on All Desktops" toggle — notes always appear on all desktops now
• "Reset All Defaults" button from the Settings dialog

---

Download

Free tier limits: 5 sticky notes · 1 reminder · 1 GIF background

Platform	File
Windows	BetterStickies_Free.exe
Linux (AppImage)	BetterStickies_Free.AppImage

For unlimited notes, reminders, and GIF backgrounds, get BetterStickies Premium.

Update: Fixed a Windows SmartScreen-related launch issue that prevented some users from opening the app, if you faced this issue, please re-download the windows exe file.

OpenStickies v2.8.0

OpenStickies v2.8 Release Notes

This release introduces inline images, collapsible notes, CJK input method support, nested todos, and much more.

---

What's New

Inline Image Display

Pasted and dropped images now render directly inside your notes — no more external viewers!

• Resize options: Full, Medium (50%), Small (25%) via right-click context menu
• Toggle display: Switch between inline and link display modes
• Drag-and-drop: Drop images directly into notes
• WebP compression: Efficient storage without quality loss

Collapse & Expand Notes

Save screen space by collapsing notes to header-only view.

• Click the new arrow toggle in the header to collapse/expand
• Collapsed header shows note color with rounded corners
• Search results auto-expand collapsed notes
• Works with pinned notes

CJK Input Method (IME) Support

Full input method support for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian languages.

• Works with fcitx5 and ibus input frameworks on Linux
• Automatic IME detection and preservation on Wayland sessions
• Proper IME context for frameless translucent windows on Linux and Windows

Editable Note Titles

Give your notes custom names! Double-click the header to rename notes with a title separate from content. Auto-saves on blur or Enter.

Nested Todo Checklists

Advanced checklist behavior with Tab/Shift+Tab indentation, word wrapping, and multi-line selection support.

Snap Store Support

Official Snap packaging for easy installation on Ubuntu and other Linux distributions.

UI Improvements

• Header visibility: Semi-transparent pill background for header icons — better visibility against varied note colors
• Trash dialog: Completely restyled with theme-aware borders, backgrounds, and hover effects
• Remove Link: Dedicated context menu action for easier link management

---

Improvements

• Code detection: Improved auto-detection accuracy with better heuristics for YAML and SQL
• Performance: Dramatically faster show/hide for large numbers of notes (30+) using batched processing
• Translations: Completed missing translations for shortcuts, help dialog, and settings across all languages

---

Fixes

• Code block backspace: Empty code blocks now properly clear formatting instead of getting stuck
• Formatting toggles: Bold, italic, strikethrough now work reliably when selecting entire lines
• Font sync: Fixed font family sync when moving cursor between code blocks and regular text
• Color palette: Fixed selections not applying correctly in packaged builds
• Note close behavior: Closing a note from the taskbar/window manager no longer causes it to disappear — notes now hide properly and stay managed by the hub

---

Download

Platform	File
Windows	OpenStickies_Free_2.8.0.exe
Linux	OpenStickies_Free_2.8.0-x86_64.AppImage

Want unlimited notes, reminders & GIF backgrounds? Get Premium at openstickies.com — pay once, use forever.

---

Community

• Website: openstickies.com
• Discord: Join community
• Reddit: r/OpenStickies

OpenStickies v2.7.0

OpenStickies v2.7 Release Notes

🎉 We're excited to announce OpenStickies v2.7! This release brings powerful new features, improved usability, and complete language support.

---

✨ What's New

⌨️ Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts

Take control of your workflow! You can now customize both system-wide hotkeys and in-app shortcuts to match your preferences.

• System-wide shortcuts: Create new notes, search, or toggle visibility from anywhere — even when OpenStickies isn't focused
• In-app shortcuts: Customize formatting shortcuts, content actions, and navigation
• Smart conflict detection: Warns you before creating conflicting shortcuts
• Per-shortcut control: Enable or disable individual shortcuts as needed

💻 Code Blocks — A Brand New Feature

Keep your code snippets neat and readable! OpenStickies now supports code blocks with professional styling and smart detection.

Beautiful, Theme-Aware Styling

• Monospace font with distinct background
• Automatically adapts to light/dark theme
• Respects your note's transparency settings

Smart Auto-Detection
OpenStickies includes a new lightweight detection algorithm that instantly recognizes pasted code — in under 50ms, right on your device. It covers most code pasting scenarios and works with:

• Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, SQL, HTML/CSS
• Shell scripts, JSON, YAML, and many more
• Detection will continue to improve in future updates

Easy Manual Control
For the rare cases where auto-detection doesn't get it right:

• Press Ctrl+M to toggle code block formatting on any selection
• Works to add code formatting OR remove it
• Shortcut is fully customizable in settings

Tip: If pasted text is incorrectly detected (or missed), just select it and press Ctrl+M to fix it instantly!

🎨 Redesigned Hub Interface

The Notes Hub got a fresh new look with modern SVG icons that scale beautifully at any size.

• Clean, professional icon set
• Better visual hierarchy
• Improved reminder badge visibility

🔗 Better Link Management

• Remove Link option: Right-click any link to quickly remove the hyperlink while keeping the text
• Preserved web links: Copy content from websites and links stay intact

� Redesigned Search Dialog

The search experience got a complete overhaul! Find your notes faster with a modern, intuitive interface.

• Hover previews: See note content in tooltips without opening the note
• Relative dates: "2 days ago" instead of cryptic timestamps
• Sortable columns: Click any column header to sort by title, date, or content
• Cleaner layout: More space for results, better readability

🖥️ KDE Plasma Integration

For KDE users: Notes opened from search now automatically switch to their assigned Activity, keeping your workspace organized.

🖌️ Modernized UI Across the App

All dialogs and windows now feature a fresh, modern look with updated styling.

• Consistent modern design: New CSS styling applied across all dialogs
• Settings dialog overhaul: Reorganized with tab-based navigation for easier access
• 720p screen support: Settings and dialogs now work well on smaller displays
• Better visual hierarchy: Cleaner layouts and improved spacing throughout

---

🌍 Complete Language Support

All 11 supported languages now have 100% translation coverage:

🇸🇦 Arabic • 🇩🇪 German • 🇪🇸 Spanish • 🇫🇷 French • 🇮🇳 Hindi • 🇮🇩 Indonesian • 🇯🇵 Japanese • 🇰🇷 Korean • 🇧🇷 Portuguese • 🇷🇺 Russian • 🇨🇳 Chinese

---

🐛 Fixes & Improvements

• Smoother undo/redo: Paste operations now undo in a single step
• Better checkbox handling: Improved undo/redo for todo items
• Faster startup: License dialogs now appear at the right time

---

🐧 Linux Compatibility

This release brings major improvements for Linux users, especially on GNOME and older distributions:

✅ GNOME Desktop Support

OpenStickies now works properly on GNOME without a taskbar extension! Previously, the app could fail to launch or become inaccessible on GNOME setups without system tray support. This is now fixed.

� Smaller, Faster AppImage

We've optimized the AppImage build:

• 35% smaller: Now 75 MB instead of 115 MB
• Wider compatibility: Works on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and newer
• Cross-distro: Compatible with Debian 12+, Fedora 36+, and Arch Linux

⚠️ Helpful Error Messages

If Qt libraries are missing on your system, OpenStickies now shows a clear warning message explaining what's needed — no more silent failures or cryptic errors.

---

💝 Get Premium

Love OpenStickies? Upgrade to Premium for unlimited notes, reminders, and GIF backgrounds!

Thank you for using OpenStickies! Your feedback helps us make it better. 💛

OpenStickies v2.5.0 - First Public Release

OpenStickies Free v2.5.0

The first public release of OpenStickies Free — Stick anything to your desktop.

---

Core Features

File Shortcuts
Drag any file or folder into a note to create a clickable shortcut. 70+ file types supported with automatic icons. Stop hunting through folders — your files are one click away.

Smart Reminders
Color-coded reminders that live inside your notes:

• Green = upcoming
• Orange = due soon
• Red = overdue
• Gray = completed

System tray notifications when reminders are due.

Screenshot Paste
Ctrl+V to paste images directly from clipboard. Screenshots auto-save to a dedicated folder with hover previews.

Todo Checkboxes
Interactive task lists with auto-strikethrough when completed. Create with Ctrl+T.

Rich Text Formatting

• Bold (Ctrl+B), Italic (Ctrl+I), Strikethrough
• Headings (H1, H2)
• Clickable hyperlinks (Ctrl+K)
• Text color picker

Customization

• Background images (PNG, JPG, SVG, GIF)
• Background opacity control (0-100%)
• Custom text, background, and accent colors
• Note size controls (200-800px width, 150-600px height)
• Light/Dark theme for dialogs

---

Productivity Tools

Snap-to-Grid
Toggle grid-based positioning for perfectly aligned notes. Visual grid overlay during drag.

Pin and Lock
Lock both position AND editing — perfect for reference notes you don't want to accidentally change.

Always on Top
Keep important notes visible above other windows.

Hide/Show All
One click to minimize all notes to hub or reveal them all.

Multi-Monitor Support
Stable drag behavior across screens. Per-screen grid snapping.

---

Languages

Full support for 12 languages with instant switching:

English | Arabic (full RTL support) | Chinese | German | Spanish | French | Hindi | Indonesian | Japanese | Korean | Portuguese | Russian

---

Reliability

Auto-Save
Your notes save automatically. No manual saving needed.

Crash Protection
Atomic write operations protect against data loss from crashes and power failures.

---

Free Version Limits

• 5 notes maximum
• 1 active reminder
• 1 GIF background
• All other features included

Want unlimited? Get Premium at https://openstickies.com

---

Download

Platform	File
Windows 10+	OpenStickies_Free_2.5.0.exe
Linux	OpenStickies_Free_2.5.0-x86_64.AppImage

---

Links

• Website: https://openstickies.com
• Discord: https://discord.gg/8gGZSUJjZd
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenStickies/