2025.10 – Desktop Quick Add, /Move to child, Smart Nodes, Neo Theme, Backspace into Slash Command, main.py no longer parsed as URL

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Hey there Workflowy folks. We have a bunch of exciting updates for you this week. From a quick add command on desktop, to a new dark theme, and a lot more to make your Workflowy experience a little bit nicer! Check out the full change log below and let us know what you think and what you’d like to see next.

  • Quick Add on Desktop Press Win+Alt+N (Windows) or Opt+Cmd+N (Mac) to open a lightweight panel for capturing thoughts from anywhere. Supports Markdown, auto-inserts clipboard text, strips HTML to Markdown, and grabs page titles from links. Notes land in your Inbox.

  • Use the new "/Move To Child" Slash command to quickly move a bullet under another.

  • Pro subscribers with Labs and AI enabled can now use Smart Nodes – a new node type that generates content to help you plan, summarise, draft, and create inside Workflowy. Try it with /ai or from the Turn into… menu.

  • New theme: Neo - When Dark isn’t dark enough.

  • You can now backspace into a slash command if you make a typo while searching for one. For example, typing “/mtv” isn’t recognized as a command and exits slash mode. Press Backspace — you’re back in the game with /mt , and slash mode is reactivated.

  • Fragments like “main.py” (and some other common file extensions) are no longer parsed as URLs unless they include a protocol (e.g. https://main.py). You can now manually unlink any existing “.py” in your outline (automatically doing this on our side would be too risky). Let us know if you come across any other cases where file names get linked unintentionally.

Other

  • In Markdown Export, To-do items are now rendered as - [ ] and - [x]

  • http://www and https://www are added as exceptions and no longer parsed as a valid URL

  • Links inside code snippets are now ignored — for example, example.com will be rendered as plain text instead of a clickable link in all new snippets.

  • Dates added by autocomplete no longer have weird spaces.

  • In addition to pressing Tab, you can now also click the popup that appears when you type “today” to autocomplete the date

  • Children of starred bullets are now draggable in and from the sidebar.

  • The “gear” icon in the date auto-complete pop-up now correctly leads to the Dates section of the settings.

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@rodolfo

only support desktop App rather than desktop web?

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you folks are on a roll. These updates really make a difference in day-to-day use. Thanks a lot

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Yes, only desktop app. To make a dialog like this, which you could bring up from anywhere in your system, we need to hook into some OS APIs, which is only possible if you have our desktop app running. We could make a similar dialog in the web app, but it would work only when you’re focused on the WorkFlowy tab.

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The quick add works great. However, it appears you have to press CTRL+ALT+ENTER to save the note. It would be much nice if it was just CTRL+ENTER.

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“Quick Add on Desktop”: Opt+Cmd+N (Mac) to open a lightweight panel for capturing thoughts from anywhere

This is a fine option, but how, how, HOW does one turn it off? It’s been driving me nuts since last week, and I’ve received no reply to a support query on this.

I do not want this function, and that keyboard shortcut is already in use on my Mac, but now Workflowy is stealing it. Please, where can this be disabled?

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Loving the Neo theme!

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Hi @paul, I just added an option to disable the Quick Add shortcut:

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The problem is, I missed the release window — so here are your options:

  1. Brave it out for one more week, until next ~Tuesday
  2. Or, use the beta build for now

RE: “support query”. Could you please tell me which channel did you use in particular?

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Might I like desktop quick add, but think about it : option for disabled it from settings (for Paul), second ctrl + enter for approve adding new node, now I must click on Save.

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Hi @Maciek .

The option to disable the shortcut makes sense — I’ve added it and it will be available next week for everyone (or already available if you’re on the beta build).

As for a shortcut for approving adding a new node, the window does have it and it’s Cmd+Enter on Mac and Alt+Enter on Windows / Linux — please let me know if it doesn’t work for you.

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Oh thank goodness. Thank you, I’m now using the beta.

I don’t know if you plan for further global shortcuts of this nature, but every app should be a good citizen, and that means offering controls for this from the very beginning. In my case, this change came last Thursday, which meant six days where hitting the keyboard shortcut that normal opens a browser window for me now triggered “Quick Add” instead. So I would curse, hit Escape, and then switch to my mouse to get the desired browser window. It was not a pleasant experience!

As for the support query, my initial submission was last Thursday night, when this first bit me. I believe that was made via the web site. In my inbox, I have an automated reply from help@workflowy.com noting my request as #77264, and suggesting a 24 hour response time.

That automated email made me realize I had not contacted the Pro Support for paid accounts. So I followed up with an email to prohelp@workflowy.com. I got an automated reply there too, noting my request as #77265.

Unfortunately, neither of those queries ever received a reply.

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Gotcha, thanks for the info, Paul — and sorry for making you suffer for six days!

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I think so too!

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The shortcut for saving the note is Alt+Enter (Cmd+Enter on Mac).

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Just updated Chrome-based Yandex browser and noticed that Clipto WorkFlowy extension by Rawbytz has been disabled. And searching for it in Chrome Web store gives zero results.

So, would it be possible to have new option for quick capture: save selected text (with hyperlink if applicable). Just like it Clipto have been doing.

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Just came here to learn more about the Quick Add function. I love it!
But I have an issue: It currently opens in brilliant white background - hurting my eyes.
Could there be an option to make it match the current theme?
I’m in desktop linux, btw.
Thanks for the amazing work!

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Using bookmarklets to scratch some itches I have.

This bookmarklet copies the current page as OPML (including title, URL, date/time, and selected text if available) to your clipboard, then opens your Workflowy page (change the workflowy.com URL in the code at the to a specific bullet by adding the URL like A simpler way to organize your work - Workflowy).

If no text is selected, it will automatically use the page’s meta description instead. Handy for quickly dumping links or notes.

javascript:(function(){"use strict";const e="https://workflowy.com",t=1e3,n=s=>String(s||"").replace(/&/g,"&amp;").replace(/</g,"&lt;").replace(/>/g,"&gt;").replace(/"/g,"&quot;"),o=s=>String(s||"").trim(),r=()=>{try{return o(window.getSelection().toString())}catch{return""}},c=e=>{try{return document.querySelector(`meta[name="${e}"]`)?.content||""}catch{return""}},l=e=>{try{return document.querySelector(`meta[property="${e}"]`)?.content||""}catch{return""}},a=()=>o(l("og:title")||document.title||"(no title)"),i=()=>o(document.querySelector('link[rel="canonical"]')?.href||l("og:url")||location.href),u=()=>{const e=r();if(e)return e.length>t?e.slice(0,t-1)+"…":e;const n=o(c("description")||l("og:description")||"");return n.length>t?n.slice(0,t-1)+"…":n},d=e=>{const t=e.getFullYear(),n=e.getMonth()+1,o=e.getDate(),r=e.getHours(),c=e.getMinutes(),l=e.toLocaleDateString("en-US",{weekday:"short",month:"short",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"}),a=e.toLocaleTimeString("en-US",{hour:"numeric",minute:"2-digit",hour12:!0}).toLowerCase();return`<time startYear="${t}" startMonth="${n}" startDay="${o}" startHour="${r}" startMinute="${c}">${l} at ${a}</time>`},s=a(),p=i(),m=u(),h=d(new Date()),y=`${n(h)} &lt;a href=&quot;${n(p)}&quot;&gt;${n(p)}&lt;/a&gt;&#10;&#10;${n(m)}`,g=`<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<opml version="2.0">\n  <head>\n  </head>\n  <body>\n    <outline text="&lt;a href=&quot;${n(p)}&quot;&gt;${n(s)}&lt;/a&gt;" _note="${y}" />\n  </body>\n</opml>`;const f=async e=>{try{if(navigator.clipboard?.writeText)return await navigator.clipboard.writeText(e),!0}catch{}try{const t=document.createElement("textarea");return t.value=e,t.style.position="fixed",t.style.left="-9999px",t.setAttribute("readonly",""),document.body.appendChild(t),t.select(),!!document.execCommand("copy")&&(document.body.removeChild(t),!0)}catch{}return null!==prompt("Copy manually (Ctrl+C), then press OK:",e)};f(g).then(()=>{location.hostname.includes("workflowy.com")?location.href=e:window.open(e,"workflowyTab")})})();
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I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time! Very cool, thanks!

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AWESOME!

For the quick add; I have a node in my top level called Inbox, but when I use the quick add feature, it creates a new bullet above my existing Inbox bullet that’s also called Inbox. Guessing that’s by design, just checking if I’m missing something obvious to get new stuff to go in my existing inbox. Thanks!!

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You can move whatever is inside your inbox into the new inbox, delete your own inbox, and you’re good to go :blush:

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