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Your workspace in your pocket, with what only a phone can do.

The iOS and Android app is not the web made smaller. It is built around the three things that only happen on a phone: capturing in the moment, recording wherever you are, and listening while you do something else. Everything that comes in here shows up instantly on the web and on desktop.

The app, tab by tab

The five tabs

The same space, on your phone: the note, tasks and agenda you already know.

Navigation is a floating glass bar with five destinations. What does not fit in five, fits inside the fifth.

Daily

Your daily note, with the same editor and the same detection as on the computer. The screen you will use most.

Tasks

What is due today and what is coming. Close with a tap, operate by swiping, empty it one card at a time. It has its own section below.

Calendar

The whole calendar: your events, the ones from your connected calendars, what is due and what you recorded. It has its own section below.

Memory

Everything written and recorded, with search and filters: documents, recaps, canvases, files, clips and artifacts.

The workspace you are in, the Atlas — with your own page —, the Digest and your account settings.

The Daily, Tasks and Memory screens on the phone — Daily, Tasks and Memory on the phone: the same workspace, designed for thumbs and a single column.

The More screen on the phone — More. Press and hold its button in the bar to switch workspace without going in.

Below the daily note sheet there are three number cards that rotate: today — tasks, focus and events —, the week and what was left undone — overdue, undated and to clean up. Each number takes you to where it gets fixed: "3 overdue tasks" opens Tasks on Overdue, focus opens the Pomodoro, "to clean up" opens the cleanup.

On iPad, the same app does not show these five tabs: it opens the whole workspace, the same as on the computer.

Tasks: closing them with your thumb

The same tasks as on the computer, with the same rules. What changes is how you operate them: on a phone there is no context menu and there are no columns, there is a finger.

The group, in one row

Main, Today, This week, Overdue and All. You pick one: a task is due today or due next week, not both.

The refinements, behind the title

In progress, Urgent and Reminders narrow whichever group you are looking at, and they live in a sheet that opens by tapping "Tasks". A blue dot tells you when one is on. In the same sheet you pick a board — yours or shared — and with one on you can see it as a timeline.

Swiping a row

To the right you mark it done. To the left you get "More", "WIP" and "+1 day", and swiping all the way postpones it a day. Press and hold — or "More" — opens the same options as on the computer: urgent, cancel, edit, go to where it came from.

Provisional ones too

Tasks that are still a line in a note swipe the same way: to the right they take you to the note they came from, to the left they are discarded, and the menu also offers marking them done.

With their tags

The person, project and organization a task touches show in the same row, with the same Atlas chips you use on the computer.

Cleanup: one task at a time, one single question

When eighty tasks are open, the ones already done that nobody ticked sit mixed in with the ones that matter and dirty everything else: the counters, the "Today" filter, the planner. Going through them in the list does not work, because every row asks a different question —do I open it? edit it? push it a day?— and by row ten nobody is still going.

The broom button, top right, opens cleanup: one card at a time and one question, is this already done? Right takes it off the list, left leaves it as it is and brings the next one. Up top you see how many you have gone through and a bar for how much is left.

The order is not the list order. The ones that most smell like "already done and nobody ticked it" come first, and the card tells you why it is looking at you: it was due five weeks ago, it has been in progress for ten days, its reminder already rang, it has been open for months with no date. Those are signals of abandonment, not of importance: a task due tomorrow is urgent and has no business here.

Task cleanup on the phone, with one card and the two ways out — Cleanup: the card says why it is there, and the two buttons repeat which way to push. The swipe is the shortcut, not the secret.

Swiping right does not close it on its own: a sheet asks how it closes, Done or Cancelled. They are two different things —it got done, or it is not going to happen— and the list counts them differently. It is also the confirmation, and it is always asked: closing a task in one swipe, with nothing to tap, is the kind of mistake you later have to go dig out of the bin.

And if your thumb went too far anyway, Undo stays at the bottom for a few seconds, with the title of the one you just closed. Provisional tasks stay out of the cleanup: they are not a task yet, they get confirmed when you close the day.

The calendar, built for a thumb

The same information you see on the computer —your events, the ones from your connected calendars, the tasks that come due, the recaps you recorded and the days you closed— with the same permission rules. What changes is how you operate it.

The phone calendar in month and week views — Month and week. In month, the grid on top and the list of the selected day underneath; in week, the columns and the hours with the all-day strip.

Four views

Day, 3 days, week and month. The week runs Monday to Friday unless you ask for weekends.

Month, the way phones do it

The grid carries no text —it would not fit in a month cell— and below it goes the list of the day you tapped. A second tap on the same day opens it in full.

You swipe between them

Months and weeks move with your finger, not with little arrows. And in day and 3-day views, where the columns are wide, you press and hold an event to move it to another hour or another day.

Marking a slot

Press on an empty spot in the grid and drag to pick the slot; let go and the event is created right there.

Creating, editing and deleting live in a full-screen form with the native date and time pickers. It has everything the web modal has: destination calendar, all-day, repetition, notes, Atlas tags and the tasks done during the event — which you can close from there.

Behind the month title sits the screen menu: go to a date or to today, the view, whether weekends show, which layers you see — events, tasks, recaps and pomodoros —, how events alert you and your connected calendars, with the sync button. A new one is also connected from there: Google and Outlook are authorized in the phone's browser, iCloud with an app-specific password, and any other through its iCal URL.

What is still desktop-only

The weekly planner —the one that spreads your tasks over the curve of your day— is a big-screen tool and is not on the phone. How the calendar works and why the planner proposes what it proposes is in Calendar and planning.

Memory: two ways through the same thing

The Memory list answers "what did I touch last?": documents, recaps, canvases, files, clips and artifacts mixed together and sorted by date. That is one question. The other one shows up as the workspace grows — where does this live? — and a flat list cannot answer it.

Next to the search box there is a switch between the two. Turned on, Memory is browsed by folders: in Secondbrain a folder is a document, so you enter a document and see what hangs from it.

You go in, it does not unfold

An indented tree on a phone screen becomes unreadable by the third level. You tap a folder and go in; the path stays on top and every step takes you back.

Folders and loose items, apart

Inside each level folders come first —what you keep opening— and then what lives there directly, each group with its own label and count.

A folder is also readable

A folder is a document: besides entering it, you can open and read it. Its cover sits above the list, with the first lines of what it says.

Searching is always flat

Type in the search box and it searches the whole workspace, with every result saying which folder it lives in. Nobody wants to be told "it is not in this folder".

The chosen view sticks between sessions: it is a way of working, not a filter of the moment.

Moving, and bringing things in from outside

Press and hold any row and Move to… appears, with the same picker as on the computer: you browse the tree or search the folder by name, and confirm from the path. A document can also be sent to another workspace, with everything inside it.

And the + on top, besides a new document, offers upload a file as it is —the PDF someone sent you, an audio, a spreadsheet—, which shows how much of your plan's storage you have used; and bring in a mail, which gives you your workspace's own address to forward messages to: whatever you send there comes in as a clip.

References inside the text show up, and are tappable

A document can name another one mid-paragraph — "the details are in Card tokenization". On the phone that mention shows as a chip with the icon of what it names, the same as on the computer, and tapping it opens it.

Capture, record and listen

Capturing in the moment

Mobile capture competes with forgetting, not with the keyboard. So there are three paths and all of them are one tap:

You type into the daily note, with the full editor and the keyboard you already use.
You dictate by holding the microphone — bottom right, with the keyboard up. What you say appears in the line as you speak, and releasing closes it; slide your finger away before releasing and it is discarded. It is the WhatsApp voice-note gesture put to writing: no audio is kept, text is — and it is processed exactly like what you typed.
You share from any app — the iOS or Android Share button sends a text or a link to secondbrain. You choose whether it goes to today's note, to a new document or to a recap, which treats it as a conversation and summarizes it.

Dictation does not ask what language you speak

There is no language setting to remember to change, and the app's language is not used either: having the interface in English says nothing about what you speak. It works it out on its own, and it copes with you mixing two languages inside one sentence, which is what happens most.

While you talk you see the equalizer. It is not decoration: the text arrives about a second late, and that blank second feels like the button did not work. The moving bars are what says the microphone is listening.

It is heard by the same thing that transcribes recaps, so it needs a connection: the audio is transcribed off the device and is not stored anywhere. With no signal, it tells you so and leaves nothing half-written.

Shared content is not lost even with the app closed

A share can arrive with the app closed and no session started. It is held until you open the app and choose where it goes, so it is not lost in exactly the most common case.

Say it and it is done

Dictation writes. This is something else: what you say gets executed. "Remind me tomorrow at nine to call the accountant" schedules the reminder; "task: ask Juan for the invoice" creates the task; "what do I have today?" answers you; and anything that is not a request is written into today's note.

It is the same assistant that handles WhatsApp and Telegram, entering from inside the app: whatever it can do there, it does here, out loud.

From the system shortcut

On iPhone, the Secondbrain control on the lock screen, in Control Center or on the Action button. On Android, the Talk tile in Quick Settings. One tap and the app opens listening.

From inside

"Talk" is the first option in the round button of the daily note, for when you have not set up the control.

You see what it understands

Equalizer, a clock of how long you have been going, and the text appearing as you speak. You stop with "Done".

And you can undo it

When it finishes it shows you what it did. If it got the time wrong, "Undo" removes the reminder and the task it created.

It does not ask first: it acts, and lets you undo

It could ask "shall I create the reminder?" and wait for a tap. It deliberately does not: ten seconds of talking would end in four taps, which is exactly what this shortcut exists to avoid. It does what you asked, shows you what it did, and keeps the way out one tap away.

How to set up the shortcut

On iPhone (iOS 18 and up): press and hold the lock screen → Customize → tap the bottom button — the one that is the flashlight by default — → pick Secondbrain. The same control also goes in Control Center and on the Action button of iPhone 15 Pro and up. On Android: open Quick Settings, edit them and drag in Talk.

The shortcut opens the app and listening starts by itself, without you tapping anything else: on iPhone it cannot be any other way, because iOS does not let an app start recording in the background. From the lock screen, the system asks you to unlock first.

Even though on iPhone the control is labelled Grabar, it does not record a meeting: that is what the recorder is for, which lasts as long as it lasts and ends in a recap.

Recording, and controlling from a distance

Your phone is the best recorder you carry, and it is also the best remote control for a recording running somewhere else.

Record from the phone

An in-person meeting, a call, an idea while walking. Transcript and summary come out the same as on the computer.

Follow on the computer

You record on the phone and the transcript appears live on the big screen.

Remote control

If you left a recording running on your computer, your phone tells you and lets you follow the live transcript, add notes, mute it or stop it — without getting up.

A chat, turned into a recap

In New recap → From the clipboard, a copied conversation — from WhatsApp, Teams or Meet — becomes a recap with its summary.

On iPhone, while recording you can switch from Mic only to Mic + system: the second adds whatever plays on the phone, which is what it takes to record a call with headphones on. Android does not allow it: see Recaps.

Listening instead of reading · Hobby

Any document or recap can be read aloud. It is the feature that turns a commute or a walk into review time.

Adjustable speed, from 0.75× to 2×.
Tap any word and reading carries on from there.
On iPhone it keeps playing with the screen off and the app in the background, with controls on the lock screen and in Control Center, like any player.

Built into the phone

What only exists because it is native

iOS widget

The latest digest and your tasks for the day, rotating, on the home screen. It catches up every time you open the app.

Face ID or fingerprint

Biometric lock on launch and on return from background — Face ID or Touch ID on iPhone, fingerprint on Android —; you turn it on in More → Settings. If you are recording or have an unsaved draft, the content stays intact underneath the lock.

Deep links

A link to a document, a task or a recap opens straight in the app, whether it came from an email, a chat or the widget.

Notifications

Reminders ring on your phone even with everything closed. They have their own section below.

The Pomodoro, in the notification tray

The round button on Daily, bottom right, is the twin of the Mac menu bar: there the Pomodoro hangs off the Secondbrain icon, here off the logomark, which is where your thumb reaches. And as on the desktop it is not only for the Pomodoro — it is the short door to recording, adding a task or taking a photo without leaving the note.

With the clock running the button stops being the logo: it becomes the ring with the minutes left, blue during focus and orange during the break, and tapping it goes straight to the controls instead of opening the menu. With the clock running, what you came for is to pause it.

The controls are in that same sheet: Start, Pause and Resume, Skip to move to the next phase without waiting, and Stop to end the cycle. And right there, Change the durations.

1
It tells you with the phone in your pocketThe alert for the end of focus, and the one for the end of the break, arrive with the app closed and the screen locked. You do not have to leave it open or remember to check.
2
And you can see it without opening anythingOn Android a persistent notification keeps the countdown, like a ride in progress. On iPhone it shows up in the Dynamic Island and on the lock screen.
3
You come back and it is where it should beYou can close the app, take a call or leave the phone for an hour: when you come back, the clock shows the time that is actually left, not the time left when you walked away.

Durations are set once and apply everywhere: they live in your account, so what you set on the Mac shows up on the phone. Changing them while the clock is running does not touch the current phase — that would be moving the goal mid-way — but it does change the next one.

Why the Pomodoro is part of the method →

Notifications: being told with the app closed

The first time you come in, the app asks permission to notify you. That is what makes a reminder ring at the time you asked for even with nothing open — and it is also the path that costs nothing, so the alert arrives on the free plan too.

It alerts you to reminders, recaps that are ready, tasks assigned to you, things shared with you, calendar events and what needs your attention. In More → Settings → Alerts you pick which ones; the way each one reaches you, Secondbrain sorts out on its own. The detail of each is in Settings.

If you said no to the permission

The system permission is asked once. If you denied it, no switch inside the app brings it back: you turn it on again from your phone's Settings, in the secondbrain entry.

The switches in More → Settings → Alerts are a different thing: they pick what you want to receive, not whether the permission is granted.

Linking WhatsApp or Telegram from the phone

In More → Settings → Chats you link the bot without going through the computer, which is where it makes sense to do it: the chat is on this device. WhatsApp is on the Pro plan; Telegram is on every plan.

1
Pick the channelWhatsApp or Telegram. That channel's screen opens.
2
Open the bot with one tapThe button jumps to the chat app with the conversation open. Send the message and it replies with a link and a code.
3
Tap the linkAnd it is linked — if you wrote from another device, you paste the code. If you have more than one workspace, you pick which one it writes to right there.

From then on, whatever you send the bot lands in your daily note, and the reminders you ask it for ring on this phone. See WhatsApp and Telegram.

On Android, from the browser too

On Android the workspace installs straight from the browser: it opens full screen, with no address bar, and sits there as one more icon. That same sign-in screen is where you download the app installer, which is not on Google Play.

On iPhone it does not: the browser sends you to the App Store. The native app records with the screen off, has a widget, Face ID and notifications, and none of those four can be done from the browser.

Integrations

Apple Calendar

iCal subscription: we read your events to show them inside your workspace, and you can subscribe to your Secondbrain tasks from Apple Calendar.

Subscribing to the iCal feed of your tasks from your phone's calendar puts what you planned into the calendar app you already look at, with nothing to install. See Calendar.

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