Open beta
Dotted Mind turns your iPad and Apple Pencil into a calm notebook for your loose thoughts, ideas and sketches.
Sign up for updates and get free beta access.
There is always the next blank page, ready for your idea, your story, or the weight of your thoughts.
Come back and read. One calm, safe space for everything you’ve written. Ready when you need it.
A dotted grid, realistic ink, and the quiet of a blank page. The tool disappears so the thinking stays.
Group your pages into chapters. The spine lets you jump to whatever is important next. And your next page just lands wherever you need it most.
While you are freely organizing your pages into chapters, Timeline gives you a stable history of what you captured in chronological order. Each page has a stable page number, just like in a real book.
How it started
Hi, I’m Manuel.
For as long as I can remember, pen and paper have been my favorite way to capture ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
About ten years ago, the Bullet Journal method helped me replace loose paper notes with hardcover notebooks.
The simplicity and intimacy of the next empty page and having all my notes in one living notebook had a huge impact on my life.
A few years and many notebooks later, the limitations of hardcover notebooks became increasingly apparent. Pages ran out fast, finding older notes became cumbersome, and I couldn’t carry my notebook everywhere.
Reluctantly, I gave digital journaling a chance. The apps were powerful, and the advantages were obvious. But none of them captured the simplicity, calm, and feeling of writing in a real hardcover notebook.
So I decided to build my own.
After countless iterations and discarded designs, I’m excited to finally share my digital interpretation of a hardcover notebook with the world.
Please try the app and tell me how it feels.
I read and reply to every message, and your feedback will help shape Dotted Mind.
Sign up for updates and get free beta access.
Requires iPadOS 17 or later. Works with all Apple Pencil models.
© 2026 Manuel Welsch. All rights reserved.
