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Edmund vs Drafts

Both put capture first. Drafts is a brilliant, scriptable home for text; Edmund reads what you captured and files it for you. Here’s an honest look at where each one fits.

Drafts is the best pure text-capture app on Apple’s platforms, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Open it and you’re already typing, with no note to name first, and its action system will send that text just about anywhere you can imagine, if you’re willing to wire it up. If you love building your own workflow, you’ll love Drafts. Edmund takes a different bet: that most of the time you don’t want to build the workflow, you just want the thought filed and gone.

Side by side

The same job, two ways.

Edmund
Drafts
Capture-first, no note to name
Yes, type or dictate, straight in
Yes, it’s the whole reason it exists
Works out where it belongs
On-device AI picks the type and project for you
You choose, or script it yourself with actions
Sends to issue trackers
One tap to Linear, GitHub, Jira and more, as a proper issue
Possible with custom actions and their APIs, if you build them
Knows when it’s finished
Close the issue and the note marks itself done
No, sending is one-way
Automation & scripting
None needed, and none offered
Deep JavaScript actions and automation
Long-form writing
Short notes, not documents
Excellent for long text and drafting
AI & privacy
On-device triage, no account
Local text, iCloud sync, no AI triage
Price
Free tier; Pro £29.99/year
Free tier; Pro subscription
An honest steer

Neither one’s wrong. It depends on you.

Reach for Drafts when
  • You want to build and script your own capture-to-anywhere workflow.
  • You draft longer text (posts, emails, documents), not just quick notes.
  • You already have a set of actions you love and don’t want to change them.
Reach for Edmund when
  • You want the sorting done for you, not another workflow to maintain.
  • Your notes end up as issues in Linear, GitHub or Jira, and you want that in one tap.
  • You want it to know when a routed note is finished, without you checking.

Try the one that files itself.

Free to start, on the iPhone, iPad and Mac you already own. No account, nothing leaves your device.

Coming to the App Store

Drafts is a genuinely great app, made by people who’ve been at this far longer than me. This compares the jobs the two apps do, not their quality. Its features and pricing are theirs and change over time, so check the Drafts site for the current details.