Notch on iPhone, iPad & Mac

Notch has native apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac. They open the same workspace, documents and markups as the browser, and edits show up everywhere as you make them. Get them from the App Store (one download covers all three) and sign in with the same account — Apple, Google, Microsoft or email.

How the apps are laid out#

• iPad and Mac look like the web editor: the tool rail on the left, the sheet navigator, the right sidebar's panels, and the status strip along the bottom.
• iPhone floats its controls over the drawing. The tool strip along the bottom holds Draw, Shapes, Text and Measure, plus the library of stamps and preset tools. A pill on the right edge opens Sheets, Search, the Worksheet and Notch AI. Panels holds Properties, Layers, Measure, Overlays and Comments in one drawer. Snap, grid, rulers and display live under Editor settings in the n menu.

When something is selected on a phone, a small bar appears above the tools: Edit jumps to its properties. While you draw a line, polygon or other multi-point shape, tap Done to finish it.

Touch, Apple Pencil and pointer#

• Fingers navigate first. One finger scrolls (with Select armed), a tap selects, and a drag moves something that's already selected. Two fingers always pan and zoom. Long-press for the same menu a right-click opens on the web.
• Apple Pencil (iPad) is precise: it drags any object and draws a selection box on empty page. A palm resting on the screen is ignored while the Pencil is down. If Only Draw with Apple Pencil is on in iPadOS settings, fingers scroll instead of drawing once the Pencil has touched the page.
• Double-tap the Pencil to do what you chose in iPadOS settings: switch back to the last tool (the eraser setting does this too — Notch has no eraser), open the tool's style, or nothing. On an iPad Pro, hovering the Pencil previews where it will land.
• Mouse and trackpad (Mac, or an iPad with a trackpad) work like the web: hover cursors, right-click menus, and the rotate ring just outside a selection's corners.

Files on your device (Local Drive)#

Local Drive in the sidebar lists PDFs you've opened from the Files app or Finder — use Open (⌘+O on a Mac), or Open in Notch from another app. They're edited in place: nothing is uploaded, and your markups are saved into the PDF itself as annotations, so Preview, Acrobat and Bluebeam see them too. Removing a file from Local Drive never deletes it.

Comments need a Cloud document. To share a Local Drive file with your team, use Upload to Cloud in the n menu's File menu. Going the other way, Save a copy to this device puts a Cloud document on your Local Drive.

Adding documents#

Upload in the workspace opens one window for every source. On iPhone it offers Files, Photos, Scan document (turn paper into a PDF with the camera) and your cloud drives; on iPad and Mac, files from the device, Email in, New blank and your drives. You can also drop files straight onto the workspace. Uploads run in a small tray in the corner, so you can keep working. See Adding documents.

Offline#

Choose Keep on this device from the n menu's File menu to keep a drawing available with no connection. Edits you make offline are saved on the device and sent when you're back online. See Working offline.

What the apps hand to the web#

A few things stay on notch.build: inviting teammates and changing roles (the apps show the team read-only, with Manage on web), AI usage and invoices, and AI credit top-ups. Subscriptions bought in the app are billed by Apple — see Plans & billing.

Report a problem#

Choose Report a problem from the n menu or the account menu (on a Mac, also Help → Report a Problem…). Notch takes a screenshot first — draw on it to show us where — and you can include the open document. On iPhone and iPad you can also shake the device; turn that off under Settings → Account → Preferences.