Typed & pasted

At the top of the left sidebar there is one field. Type a plain sentence about someone you talked to and press Enter, and Groupthink works out who it is about and updates your relationship with that person.

Summary

• No form, no contact picker. Groupthink files first and lets you correct afterwards, with Wrong person? Move it under the box.
• The same field takes questions. Ask one and you get an answer in the sidebar, grounded on the record it belongs to.
• For longer text, such as meeting notes or a transcript, open the + New menu and choose Paste or attach a file… See Pasting notes or a transcript.
• On iPhone you can type, paste a recap, upload a file, ingest a link, send the notetaker or share in from other apps. See On iPhone.
• How a note counts as being in touch, where the notes go and tips are in Reference.

Where the box is

It sits at the top of the left sidebar on every page, under the placeholder Say something…

• Press ⌘K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) from anywhere to jump into it. If the sidebar is collapsed, ⌘K expands it first and then puts your cursor in the field.
• If you have collapsed the sidebar to its icon rail, the box becomes a single capture button. Clicking it reopens the sidebar with the cursor already in the field.

Filing an interaction

Type one sentence the way you would text a friend about what happened, and press Enter:

grabbed dinner with Theo, he's worried about his Q3 number

Groupthink reads the sentence, works out who it is about, and files what matters onto your relationship with that person. A line appears underneath saying what happened:

Filed · Theo Marchetti

The name is a link, so you can go straight to the person's page and check where the note landed. If Groupthink was not confident about who you meant, the line adds check this is right after the name, which is your cue to look.

When that happens and your sentence named more than one person Groupthink recognised, a button for each of the others appears under the line: File to {name} instead, with the person's name in it. Click one and the note moves to that person. The line then names them, and check this is right goes away.

If your sentence named someone who is not one of your contacts yet, Groupthink asks before adding them: Maya Okafor isn't one of your contacts yet. Add them? with an Add Maya Okafor button. If the name could be more than one of your contacts, it asks Which Maya? Nothing was added. and shows each contact it could be, plus Someone new. Once you add someone, the line under the box says Added Maya Okafor as a new contact. The name links to their new page. If that person is really someone you already have, click Should this be someone else? next to it. It opens the new contact's page with Merge duplicates already open, so you can fold the two together.

An interaction does not have to be a meeting or a call. Anything worth remembering about a person counts:

• "Maya seemed underwater in standup today"
• "Ines got promoted to director"
• "ran into Dave at the airport, his kid made the travel soccer team"

Asking a question

Type a question instead and Groupthink answers it in the sidebar, using the record it routed to:

what did I promise Ines about the hiring plan?

The read-back line reads Asked · Ines Vargas. When Groupthink is sure you asked a question, the answer appears below it. When it is less sure, it files the line and shows an Answer it here link instead. Either way, Open in Advisor → lets you keep the conversation going. A question is filed as well as answered, so nothing you type is ever lost because we decided it was rhetorical.

If Groupthink reads you wrong

The confirmation carries a one-tap correction:

• On something we filed: a link that starts That was a question and ends ask instead
• On something we answered: a link that starts That was an update and ends file it

Tapping it re-runs the same line the other way. You do not have to retype anything.

If a note landed on the wrong person, click Wrong person? Move it under the box. It opens the note with a person picker so you can choose who it belongs to. What Groupthink learned from the note moves with it. If the note was not filed to anyone, the same link reads File it to someone. The same Move to someone else is on the note's row under Conversations, and on the note's card under Past interactions on the person's page (see Relationship Intelligence).

Groupthink matches the sentence to your contacts by name. If someone is in your people list only as an email address, Groupthink offers them as a choice when the address fits the name you typed, such as felix@ for Felix. You see Which Felix? Nothing was added. with that person, plus Someone new. Pick them if it is the same person.

Note: the box files first and lets you correct afterwards. An earlier version of Quick log held a note back and asked you to pick between two people with the same name before writing anything. That step is gone: the note is committed when you press Enter, and Wrong person? Move it is how a misrouted note gets moved.

Pasting notes or a transcript

For longer text, such as meeting notes or a transcript, open the + New menu and choose Paste or attach a file… Paste or type into the Drop anything box and click Capture. You don't have to say who it's about first. Groupthink saves it and reads it, and then asks who it belongs to:

• If the text mentions people you already have, you see Who is this about? with a button for each likely match. Click one to file it to that person.
• If not, you see Attach to a contact, with a search box where you can find anyone or create a new contact.
• Skip for now leaves it saved but not filed to anyone.

New people found in a transcript

If what you pasted is a transcript with speaker names at the start of lines, like this:

Priya: Thanks for making the time.
Sam: Of course. How did the launch go?
Priya: Better than we hoped.
Sam: Great to hear.

Groupthink picks out the speaker names that don't match anyone you already have and offers each one as a button, such as Create new contact: Priya and Create new contact: Sam. One click creates the contact and files the capture to them.

A few details:

• A name is only offered if it starts at least two lines, so a label that shows up once doesn't count. Common labels that aren't people, like "Note:", are ignored.
• Your own name is never offered, and neither is anyone who already matches one of your contacts, so you don't end up with duplicates.
• Timestamps before a name, like "[00:12:34] Priya:", are fine.
• You get up to five of these buttons.
• If nothing matches and no names are found, Groupthink says it couldn't tell who this is about, and you can search or create the contact yourself.

Starting a meeting instead

At the right end of the field is a solid + New button. Its menu holds the things that are not captures:

• New Google Meet: start a fresh call right away
• Join by link…: paste a Meet, Zoom, or Teams link and send Groupthink to it
• Record on this Mac: private desktop recording (on the web this reads Get the desktop app to record, because the browser cannot record)
• Paste or attach a file…: opens the Capture page for longer material, such as pasted notes and files
• Copy my open times: see Availability

New users see a one-line tip under the box: "Start or join meetings with New. Type anything else here." Dismiss it with the × once you have the hang of it.

On iPhone

Recording is one way in. When there's nothing to record (you're reading something, or you already know what you want to remember), you can type it, paste it, paste a recap from another notetaker, upload a file, drop in a link, or share into Groupthink from another app.

Write or paste a note

On the Interactions tab, tap Write or paste (or tap the Advisor button, the sparkle in the middle of the tab bar, and choose Log). Type or paste anything (a thought, meeting notes, an email, a transcript, whatever you want to keep) and save.

As with a recording, you choose who a note is about. Who is this about? sits at the top of the note, above where you type: tap it to pick the people it concerns. See People and "Who is this about?".

Paste a recap

When you're signed in, the Interactions tab has a Paste a recap tile. Use it for a recap or notes from another tool (Granola, Otter, Zoom AI, Gemini) or any text at all. There's nothing to fill in: paste it (or tap the paste button beside the description) and tap Capture. It needs at least 10 characters.

Groupthink saves it to your account and reads it. If the text names people you know, they appear under Who is this about?. Tap one to file the recap on them. If a speaker in a transcript isn't one of your contacts yet, tap Create new contact with their name. Someone else… searches all your contacts, and Skip for now leaves the recap unfiled.

If you paste exactly the same text twice, Groupthink says it already has it and doesn't add a copy. Unlike Write or paste, a pasted recap isn't saved on the phone, so it needs a connection and a signed-in account.

Upload a file

When you're signed in, the Interactions tab has an Upload a file tile. Tap it, then Choose a file to pick a photo, a PDF, or a voice memo from the Files app, or Choose a photo to pick a picture straight from your Photos library. Groupthink reads it and pulls out what matters, the same as a file you upload on the web.

Before you tap Upload, you can tap Choose people under Who is this about? to file it with the people it concerns. It's optional: skip it and the file stays in your captures, where you can attach it to someone later.

A bar shows how far the upload has got. Cancel upload stops it while the file is still going, and nothing is saved.

What you can upload:

• Photos: JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, or HEIC, up to 25 MB
• PDFs: up to 50 MB
• Voice memos and other recordings: M4A, MP3, WAV, or OGG, up to 250 MB. Recordings are only offered when Groupthink can transcribe them on your account.

Anything else, or anything bigger, is turned down before it's sent, with a note saying why. Pictures chosen from Photos are sent without the place they were taken. Video isn't supported. Uploads go to your account, so they need a connection and a signed-in account.

Ingest a link

Tap Ingest a link, paste a URL, and tap Fetch. Groupthink pulls the page's text in on-device and turns it into a capture you can file to a person.

It works well for:

• Articles, blog posts, and newsletters
• Public transcripts and meeting notes
• Documentation and reference pages

It doesn't work for:

• Videos: share the transcript page instead
• PDFs and other file downloads (use Upload a file for a PDF you have)
• Pages behind a login

If a page can't be fetched, Groupthink saves the link itself so you don't lose it, with a note that it couldn't read the page.

Send the notetaker to a call

When you're signed in, you can send Groupthink's notetaker to a call from your phone. On the Interactions tab, tap Send notetaker and paste the meeting link. A Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams link works, and so does a whole invitation with the link somewhere in it.

Before anything is sent, Groupthink tells you which meeting it is:

• If the link is on one of your calendar meetings, you see that meeting's title, day, and time. Its notes go on that meeting.
• If it isn't, you see "A Zoom call that isn't on your calendar" (or a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call). Its notes are saved as a new meeting.

Then tap Send notetaker. Everyone in the call will see the notetaker join. If the call has a waiting room, let the notetaker in. Its notes show up in Interactions when the call ends.

Sending the notetaker comes with a subscription. If your trial has ended, the screen says so instead of sending. Other links, like Webex or Whereby, aren't supported.

Share into Groupthink from other apps

Groupthink adds a Share sheet action, so you can send things in without opening the app first. In Safari, Mail, Notes, a podcast app, or anywhere with a Share button, tap Share and pick Groupthink. You can share:

• Text: a selection or a note
• A link: the same as Ingest a link, straight from the browser
• An audio file: a voice memo, for example

Shared items wait in an inbox on the Interactions tab. You'll see a "N waiting from Share" card at the top. Tap an item to bring it in: Groupthink reads or transcribes it, turns it into a capture, and then you can file it to a person like anything else.

Next: People and "Who is this about?".

Reference

How a note counts as being in touch

Only the person the note is filed to counts it as being in touch. The other people the sentence names get the note on their timeline, because it is about them, but it does not change when you last met them or where they stand against their cadence. If you did see them too, use Log interaction and add them under Also with.

A note in the capture box counts as meeting that person, so it moves their Last meeting. When the sentence plainly says you texted them, emailed them, messaged them on Slack or sent them a gift, as in "texted Theo about Friday", it moves their Last contact instead and leaves Last meeting where it was. A sentence that also mentions anything live, such as a call, a coffee or a meeting, still counts as meeting them, and so does one that does not say how you were in touch. If Groupthink reads it the wrong way, change how it happened with the pencil next to the interaction on the person's timeline. See Change the dates or how it happened.

The box replaced Quick log

There is no separate Quick log window and no Quick log row in the sidebar. The box replaced both.

Where the notes go

Groupthink reads what you filed and adds what it learns to the person's page, attributed to you. From there it feeds the same relationship intelligence as your meeting notes: the Daily Brief will use it to prep you before your next meeting with that person.

Tips

• Name the person directly in the sentence ("Caught up with Ines about hiring"). That is what Groupthink uses to route the note.
• File it while it is fresh. The whole point is that the capture costs one sentence, so do it in the hallway, not at the end of the week.
• Watch the read-back line. It is one line and it tells you both what we did and where it went.

Related

• Relationships
• Daily Brief
• Recover Your Notes When the Notetaker Misses a Meeting