The extremely hacky way to have a pop-up notepad with a keyboard shortcut in Windows

If you use Raycast for Mac, there’s a neat “Floating Notes” feature (now called Raycast Notes) that summons a little pop-up notepad, and you can have a single keyboard shortcut that both opens and closes it again—helpful for temporarily jotting things down.

I’ve looked around and found nothing similar for Windows, but I did come across a workaround involving a free app called Webcatalog.

Webcatalog bills itself as an “app store for web apps.” Once installed, it allows you to install other websites as freestanding apps on your desktop.

For most things, this isn’t really necessary, because most web browsers can install websites as desktop apps on their own. But when you install a site as a desktop app using Webcatalog, there’s a feature that lets you toggle the app open and closed with a keyboard shortcut. Aha!

So the process looks like this:

Sign up for a free Webcatalog account.

Install the Windows app.

Search for a suitable notepad app from the Webcatalog store. (I suggest Numbr, which is both a notepad and a calculator in one.)

In the notepad app you’ve selected, head to Menu > File > Settings.

In the Appearance tab, select “Define a keyboard shortcut to switch to the app window quickly.”

Enter the keyboard shortcut you want to use and hit “Save.”

It’s not a perfect solution. The keyboard shortcut only works after you’ve launched the app manually, and it stops working if you quit the app with the X button.

So, the field is wide open for someone to create a proper floating notepad app for Windows. Otherwise we’ll have to wait until Raycast makes its way over.