Keyboard Shortcuts

​

See what works here

Hold Command (⌘) on Mac or iPad to see the shortcuts available in the view you are using. The list changes as you move between your notes, the editor, and recording, and it shows any shortcuts you have changed. On Mac, the keys appear beside the controls they belong to, including the formatting strip. On iPad, the list includes the sidebar, filter, and note history shortcuts, and they keep working while a note is open. On both Mac and iPad, a shortcut acts only on the window you are using, so it never reaches into another Cleft window.

​

Make shortcuts yours

The shortcut list lives in a different place on each platform:

• Mac. Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts, which holds both the recording shortcut and the keyboard reference.
• iPad. Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts.
• iPhone. Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts.

Either way you land on the same Keyboard Shortcuts screen, where you can search the full list and see what each key does. With Cleft Plus, choose the edit button beside most actions to record a new shortcut. Your choices follow you across devices, and you can reset one shortcut or restore every default at once. A shortcut you change applies everywhere Cleft uses it: menus, recording controls, editor formatting, Send to Notion, the sidebar toggle, and Done actions. Cleft warns you before saving a shortcut that is already used, reserved by the system, or likely to interfere with typing.

​

The pattern

• Just one key (N). Start your most-used capture action
• Command key combos (⌘N, ⌘L). Standard Mac conventions
• Control and Command (⌃⌘E, ⌃⌘T). Note actions, kept clear of the keys Mac apps already use
• Shift variants (⇧N, ⌘⇧N). Variations on the base action
• Global shortcut (⌥⌘N). Start or stop recording even when Cleft is hidden
• Standard Mac shortcuts (⌘Z, ⌘B, ⌘I). Writing tools you already know

​

Global Recording

Change or clear the global shortcut in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts on Mac.

​

Creating and Recording Notes

​

View and Note Management

​

Sharing

​

Searching and Views

​

Text Editing

​

Moving Between Notes

Cleft remembers the notes you viewed since you opened it, on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Go back to the note you were reading, then forward again. Each note reopens on the Notes or Transcript view you left it on, and a note you deleted in the meantime is skipped. Without a keyboard, use the back and forward buttons in the Mac toolbar or Back and Forward in the Note menu, or Previous Note and Next Note in the ••• menu on iPhone and iPad.

​

Zoom (Accessibility)

​

App Settings and Navigation

​

On iPad

A hardware keyboard on iPad supports the creating, filtering, moving between notes, text editing, and recording shortcuts above, apart from N, which would interrupt typing. Continue, edit summary, editing a note, the notes and transcript switch, tags, archive, ⌘1 to ⌘9, sharing, Send to Notion, find, zoom, Settings, and window shortcuts are Mac only. Hold ⌘ to see exactly what works in the view you are using.

​

Find every command in the menu bar

On Mac, every action in a note window also has a place in the menu bar, and an item greys out when it can’t act, such as when no note is open.

• File. New voice and text notes, Continue Note, the Share menu, and Save Audio.
• Edit. Copy Note, and Find with Search Notes.
• View. Show Notes or Show Transcript, the sidebar, your views, Refresh, and zoom.
• Note. Back and Forward, editing, tags, playback, pin, archive, duplicate, merge, rewrite, details, cue card, delete, and the recording controls.
• Format. Bold, headings, lists, quotes, and code.
• Help. Search the User Guide from the Help menu’s search field, or open it with ⌘?.

In Cleft 1.15.0, shortcuts that clashed with keys other Mac apps use moved: Open Writing Style is ⌥⌘,, Share note is ⌃⌘P, Show notes or transcript is ⌃⌘T, Edit note is ⌃⌘E, Archive note is ⌃⌘A, Share private link is ⌥⇧⌘P, Inline code is ⌃⌘C, Code block is ⌃⇧⌘C, and Publish Link in the Send menu is ⌃⌘L. Search notes moved to ⌥⌘F. If you changed any of these in Settings → Shortcuts, your choice stays.

​

Get Started with Shortcuts

• Start with the simplest: Try just N for a new voice note, then ⇧N to append to it. That’s the core workflow.
• Learn one at a time: Pick a new shortcut each day. Within a week, you’ll be flying.
• Build your flow: N to capture, ⌘C to copy the note, then paste into email or messages without your hands leaving the keyboard.
• The rest is just standard Mac: If you know ⌘B for bold or ⌘Z for undo, you already know half of Cleft’s shortcuts.

​

Siri & App Intents

Use your voice to control Cleft hands-free.

​

Voice Commands

On iOS 26 and macOS 26, asking Siri for your last note, its summary, or a search also shows a card with the title, date, and summary.

​

Apple Shortcuts App

Cleft’s actions are also available in the Shortcuts app, so you can build them into your own automations. Alongside starting, stopping, and continuing a recording, v1.15.0 added actions to search your notes, pull a summary, export a note, and add or remove tags on a note you name explicitly.

​

Found an Edge Case?

If a shortcut isn’t working as expected, let us know.