Scriby quick start

How to use Scriby on Mac

Scriby is one keyboard-first loop: open Draft, shape text, save what you will reuse, and Copy only when you are ready.

1. Open Draft

Open Scriby from its menu bar icon or your recorded global shortcut. After Quick Setup, every regular open starts in Editor with Draft selected.

Menu-bar left click toggles the Panel below the icon when space allows. The global shortcut toggles the same Panel on the screen containing the pointer.

Opening, hiding, closing, or switching views never copies Draft text or pastes into another app.

2. Write and shape text

Draft is the ordinary writing surface. Long lines wrap, Markdown stays plain text with lightweight visual styling, and common list items continue when you press Return.

You can add literal placeholders such as {{name}}, {{date}}, or {{client:Acme}}. They stay exactly as written until an explicit Copy or Agent CLI output boundary.

3. Save reusable text as a Snippet

Use Shift-Command-S or Save as Snippet when the current Draft body should become reusable. The new Snippet stores the same plain body text; saving does not clear Draft or copy anything.

Add optional Snippet tags when useful. Tags are metadata; Copy never includes tags, and body hashtags remain body text.

Learn more about saving, searching, and reusing text Snippets.

4. Find and reuse a saved Snippet

Open Snippets with Command-2. Search by ordinary body text, generated summary text, or saved #tag terms.

  • Return expands the highlighted compact Snippet for a full-body preview.
  • Command-D duplicates the highlighted Snippet body into Draft without rendering variables or changing the source Snippet.
  • Shift-Command-D appends it to Draft and stays in Snippets with an Open Draft toast action.
  • Command-O opens the highlighted saved Snippet for editing while preserving Draft.

5. Copy deliberately

Use Command-Enter, Shift-Command-C, or a visible Copy button when the text is ready. Copy is always explicit and body-only.

If the body contains variables, Scriby opens a local Variables overlay. Payload Preview shows the exact text to be copied. Blank fields keep their original placeholders, and cancel leaves the clipboard and source text unchanged.

See how local text templates and Copy-time variables work.

Quick Setup remains available

Right-click the menu bar icon and choose Quick Setup whenever you want to revisit the core workflow. Its optional Use Starter Draft action writes only a short placeholder template into an empty Draft. It never runs automatically and creates no Snippets, tags, template settings, or clipboard output.

Where to go next