An ADHD app for Mac that remembers what you were in the middle of

Most ADHD apps help you plan. Mindthreads helps with the part that goes wrong after you start: the half-finished tasks, the tangents and the things you meant to come back to. It's a free Mac app that keeps every one of them on screen until you finish it.

The ADHD problem most apps skip

A to-do list is a list of things you haven't started. That helps with planning, but a lot of ADHD trouble happens later, once you're working. You start one thing, notice another, open a tab for it, answer a message, and an hour later you can't say what you were in the middle of. The work you already started is the work you lose.

That is a working memory problem, and more planning doesn't solve it. What helps is writing the work down the moment you start it, somewhere you will see it again without having to go and look.

I switched to my browser this morning and found a tab I had opened two hours earlier. I had no memory of opening it.

That's from the post announcing Mindthreads. It was built by a developer with ADD for their own use, and it's designed around the ways that kind of day goes wrong.

How Mindthreads fits an ADHD brain

Capture takes two seconds, from any app

Press ⌃⌥N wherever you are, type a few words and press ↩. If writing something down takes ten seconds you'll skip it, so capture has to be faster than the urge to just keep going.

Tangents get a place to go

One task usually turns into three. Select the task and press c to add a child thread for the side quest. It hangs off its parent, so later you can see where it came from and get back to the main thing.

Forgotten work stands out without you looking for it

Each thread's color warms from teal toward magenta as it goes untouched, reaching the hottest color after eight hours by default. After 45 minutes without a touch it also starts to pulse. Out of sight doesn't have to mean out of mind. Press t when you pick a thread back up and it cools down again, and press g to jump to the most neglected one.

Finishing feels good on purpose

Press x to complete a thread and it bursts off the board. An ADHD brain responds to small rewards, so the reward is built in. The goal is an empty board.

No setup, no account, no phone

There are no projects, tags, due dates or priorities to configure. Threads are short notes in your own words, on the Mac where the work is happening.

What it isn't

• Not a planner. Keep using your to-do app or calendar for next week. Mindthreads covers what you're doing right now.
• Not a notes app. Threads are meant to be finished and cleared, not kept.
• Not a focus timer. It doesn't block sites or count down. It pairs well with a timer if you use one.
• Not on your phone. It's a Mac app. Two Macs can share threads through your own Postgres database.

See how it compares with to-do apps, notes apps and mind maps if you're deciding where it fits.

A routine that works

1. Starting something you'd recognize by name? Capture it with ⌃⌥N before you start.
2. Getting pulled away? Press Enter on the thread and add a few words about where you stopped. Research on interruptions finds that a short note like this makes it easier to set the task aside and to resume it (more in our guide to interruptions).
3. Coming back to your desk? Look for the warmest cards. Those are what you left behind.
4. Done? Press x and enjoy it.
5. End of the day? Complete what's finished. Anything still on the board is where you start tomorrow.

Questions

Is Mindthreads free?

Yes. There is no paid tier, no account and no trial.

Which Macs does it run on?

Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later) running macOS 13.5 or later. There is no Intel, Windows or iPhone version.

Does it replace my to-do app?

No. Keep your to-do app for things you plan to do. Mindthreads is for the things you are already doing.

Where is my data stored?

In a SQLite file on your Mac. You can point Mindthreads at your own Postgres database instead, which lets two Macs share one set of threads. Nothing goes to our servers. The privacy policy has the details.