iOS

Cleft on iPhone is built for the seconds before a thought slips. Hit the Action Button, tap the lock screen widget, or just say “Hey Siri, new Cleft note.” Talk for a minute, and the formatted note is waiting next time you look at your phone.

Start fast

Five ways to start a note without unlocking or opening the app: Once a recording starts, the timer runs in the Dynamic Island and a Live Activity sits on the lock screen. Tap to expand and stop or save without opening the app.

Record a note

For mic technique and language settings, see Recording Voice Notes.

Everything within thumb reach

On iPhone with iOS 26, the controls you use most sit at the bottom of the screen where your thumb already is. This needs Cleft 1.15.0 or later. In your library, the Views strip steps through Inbox, your saved Views in saved order, and All. It never lists tags, and it shows even when you have no saved Views. The menu button at the top left of your notes list holds Favorites, Archived, Shared, Manage Views…, and Settings. With a left-hand layout, the menu button is on the right. Search and New Note sit in two capsules below the strip. Search is in one. The other holds the pencil and voice mark, on your thumb’s side. Choose Left hand in Settings > General > Handedness to swap their sides. Search collapses to a glyph until you want it. It fills the row while you type, and it expands on its own when a search is already running. Tap Cancel to bring both capsules back. On a folded iPhone Duo, the library keeps every control under your thumb. The top shows only the Cleft name, and the Views strip stays at the bottom. In your right hand, the voice mark, the pencil, Search, Select and the menu button sit in one run beside the camera, with the voice mark at the top where your thumb tip reaches. In your left hand, the same controls sit in one bottom row, with the voice mark nearest your thumb. While you search or select notes, the bottom bar holds the search field, or Merge and Archive. The menu button and Select stay within reach. In a note, that note’s actions sit below the note rather than above it, in two capsules shaped like the ones in your library. Continue and Edit sit together in one on your thumb’s side, with Edit at the very edge. Play, tags, Share and Send sit evenly in the other. While you edit, the bar holds Save on its own at the very edge, so there is one way out of an edit, and Find in text (the magnifying glass) in a separate capsule beside it. Find in text opens a search bar with a replace field, so you can change a word throughout the note without leaving it. Share has its own control instead of living inside the Send menu, so handing a note to another app takes one tap. Back stays at the top, where the swipe-from-the-edge gesture and every other iOS app put it. Previous Note and Next Note appear beside the overflow menu when there is history to walk. Both bars are Liquid Glass, so your notes stay visible through them as they scroll. If you turn on Reduce Transparency in iOS Settings, the bars stay solid. Both bars rise with the keyboard and settle when it closes, and nothing is hidden underneath. On earlier iOS versions, and on iPad and Mac, these controls stay where they were.

New Note is two buttons

On iPhone, New Note is two buttons: the pencil starts a text note and the voice mark starts a voice note. Tap the one you want. To add to your last note instead, touch and hold the voice mark and choose Continue Note. On iOS 26 both buttons sit in the bottom bar. On earlier iOS versions they sit together at the bottom of your notes list.

Put the buttons under your thumb

Open Settings → General and set Handedness to Right hand or Left hand. The bar under your notes and the bar under an open note mirror as a whole, so the buttons you use most sit under the thumb holding your phone and nothing changes place relative to its neighbours. Right hand is the default.

On iPhone Duo

Folded, iPhone Duo keeps the library, the recorder, and an open note’s controls under your thumb in either hand. Unfolded, your notes sit in a sidebar beside the note you have open, as on iPad. Hide the sidebar and show it again whenever you like; Cleft keeps your choice through folds. Held like a book, a note with both a summary and a transcript shows them as two pages, one on each side of the fold, and each page scrolls on its own. Unfolded, you can open a note in its own window and keep a reference note beside the one you’re writing, as on iPad: choose Open in New Window or Keep as Reference from the note’s More menu. The reference note steps aside while a note shows as two pages. A finished note has a Copy button under your thumb. Tap it to copy the note’s text, or drag it into another app in Split View. Fold or unfold while you record and the recording carries on. The note you had open stays open, and text you were typing comes with you.

What iPhone is best at

iPhone moments worth stealing

Catch a thought before it slips

You’re walking. An idea lands. Press the Action Button (or tap the lock screen widget), talk for 30 seconds, lock the phone. The note is formatted and tagged by the time you’re at your desk, no app to open, no unlock to do. Pair with Writing Style so quick brain-dumps come back as decisions and follow-ups, not a wall of text.

A daily note you add to all day

Pin one note (a daily journal, a project log, a travel diary) with Pin Note, then add the Pinned Note widget to your Home Screen. The widget follows the note you pinned most recently. Tap it every time you have something to add and Cleft appends to that note instead of starting a new one. Setup: Pinned Note widget · Appending to Notes · Daily Capture Routines

Hands-free in the car

Plug into CarPlay and Cleft appears on the dashboard with a voice control template: start, pause, save, all without touching the screen. The audio transfers back to your phone for transcription as soon as you disconnect. No CarPlay? “Hey Siri, new Cleft note” works the same way over your car’s speakers. Full setup in CarPlay.

Between meetings, before you forget

Step out of a call, hit the Action Button, talk through what just happened. The Live Activity in the Dynamic Island lets you stop recording from any app. By the time the next meeting starts, Cleft is formatting it in the background. Repeatable structure: Meeting Notes System.

From wrist to vault

Record on Apple Watch when your phone isn’t out. The audio hands off to your iPhone for transcription, then Local Export can save the finished note to your Markdown folder on iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Apple Watch · Exporting to a folder

Pull a thought back via Spotlight

Forgot which note had the quote you wanted? Swipe down on your home screen, type a phrase, and Cleft notes appear right alongside Mail, Messages, and Files. Tap to jump straight to the note.

Send straight to where you actually work

Once a note’s done, send it on without leaving Cleft:

• Notion, with Plus able to auto-send every note
• Drafts or Bear, keeping the title and tags you already have
• A folder of Markdown files through Local Export
• Mail, Messages, Slack, or any other app through Share

See Sending Notes for the full list.

Lock screen, Dynamic Island, and widgets

Audio

Settings

Open Cleft, tap the menu button at the top left of your notes list, then tap Settings. With a left-hand layout, the menu button is on the right.

• General. Theme, Note view labels, Handedness, date and time format, and Keyboard Shortcuts
• Recording. Recording language, on-device transcription options, and Audio Storage
• Writing Style. Your Rules, output styles, copy format, and custom styles
• Sharing. Notion, Zapier, and other destinations
• Local Export. Save notes as Markdown files, flip the audio companion, check your storage, and choose a folder with Plus
• Widgets. In-app guide for adding lock and home screen widgets
• Account, Privacy, and Help & Support, which opens the user guide inside Cleft

System-level controls (microphone permission, Siri phrase, Focus filters, and Action Button mapping) live in the iOS Settings app.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

• Recording Voice Notes. Mic technique, languages, recording length
• Widgets and Action Button. Every widget, every entry point
• Focus Filters. Shape Cleft around work, rest, and capture
• CarPlay. Hands-free recording from the road
• Apple Watch. Capture on your wrist
• Apple Shortcuts. Automate Cleft anywhere on iOS
• Writing Style - shape how Cleft formats your notes
• iPadOS. What changes when you move to a tablet
• macOS. The keyboard-first sibling