Say it, and it becomes a reminder.
The thought that arrives while you are walking to a meeting has about forty seconds of life in it. Most tools ask for more setup than that.
The forty second window
Capture tools fail for one reason: the gap between having the thought and the thought being recorded is longer than your patience. Open the app, pick a list, type the thing, set a date in a picker, save. By step three you have decided you will remember it, and you will not.
The version that works has to be one action. Press a key, say the sentence, carry on walking.
What happens
Call Dana about the follow-up appointment tomorrow at ten.
Reminder set, Tue 10:00- Press New note in the notch.
- Talk. Say the whole thing, including when it needs to happen.
- Stop. The note is saved inside Zumbo, on your Mac, searchable.
- If you said a time, there is now a reminder for it.
Say remind me to call Dana tomorrow at ten and you get a note containing that sentence and a reminder for tomorrow at ten. There is no date picker, because you already said the date.
A note is not a dictation
The distinction matters. Ordinary dictation types into whatever application has the cursor: an email, a commit message, a document. A note goes nowhere. It is captured in Zumbo and stays there, which means you can use it when there is no window open that the thought belongs in, and there usually is not, because you are walking.
They live in the same searchable history as everything else, with a Notes filter to narrow to just them, and a bell on the ones that have a reminder attached.
When it fires
A notice appears in the notch with the note text and two actions: Snooze 10 min, or Done. It does not take the screen, interrupt what you are typing or require you to find a window. If ten minutes later is still wrong, snooze it again.
What it is not trying to be
This is not a task manager and it would be a bad one. There are no projects, no tags, no recurring rules and no collaboration. It is the layer before a task manager: the place a thought lands so that it exists at all, after which you can move it somewhere with more structure if it deserves one. Most of them do not.
On your Mac, like everything else
Notes and reminders are stored locally. No account, no sync service, nothing uploaded, and no server holding a list of things you have to do. The same promise that covers dictation covers this, for the same reason: there is nothing in the path that would need to be trusted.
Related: dictation for writers, voice notes into Obsidian, and how Zumbo keeps your voice on your Mac.
Where does a note go?
It stays inside Zumbo on your Mac, searchable, and is not pasted into another application. That is the difference between a note and a dictation.
How do I set a reminder?
Say the time as part of the note. Remind me to call Dana tomorrow at ten sets one for tomorrow at ten. There is no separate field to fill in.
What happens when it fires?
A notice appears in the notch with the note and two actions: Snooze 10 min, or Done. Nothing takes over the screen.
Does it need an account or a sync service?
No. Notes and reminders live on the Mac, with no account and nothing uploaded.
Can I find an old note?
Yes, they are in the same searchable history as everything else Zumbo has written, and there is a Notes filter to narrow to just them.
Does it replace a task manager?
No, and it does not try to. It catches the thing you would otherwise have forgotten between one room and the next.
Free for 3 days, everything unlocked. Then $15 once. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon.