textarea

Productivity

note editor

SHOW HN2025

Legend

textarea

Minimalist editor that lives in browser, stores everything in the URL

github.com

#url notes#shareable notes#plain text editor#no backend#compressed url

468points
168comments
#83of 3,837 in 2025
Top 3%of 2025 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

18 positive, 35 neutral or asking, 5 mixed, 25 critical, out of 83 comments about the project. Thread score -0.04.

Idea: 8 for, 4 againstPerformance: 3 for, 8 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 6 againstExecution: 1 for, 5 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clever, minimal, and fun to use

    From 3 comments
  • Good privacy angle with no storage

    From 1 comment
    • I really like this from a privacy point of view. So much so that I'm thinking about adding a purely URL-storage solution as an option in my https://kraa.io editor.
      levmiseri on HN

Objections

  • Very long URLs crash mobile browsers

    From 5 comments
    • LOL Tapping the address bar crashed my Chrome on mobile.
      hallole on HN
    • Think you've inadvertently found a way to provide extra tests for mobile devices. The Crime and Punishment one consistently crashes Brave mobile for me. I assume it's the length…
      nickweb on HN
    • Cool project, but loading "Crime and Punishment" crashed my mobile browser. I don't think urls were built for that kind of punishment.
      meander_water on HN
    • Crashes my mobile chromium browsers when I try to open crime and punishment. Firefox seems to work.
      nchmy on HN
    • Amazing. The crime and punishment example crashed my iPhone’s Google Chrome when I tap the URL haha
      wwarren on HN
  • Claimed no tracking conflicts with a Cloudflare analytics beacon

    From 1 comment
    • You claim no tracking, and yet there's a Cloudflare Web Analytics beacon placed at the bottom of the page (thankfully filtered out by uBlock Origin)
      rfl890 on HN
  • Respects dark mode claim questioned for extension compatibility

    From 1 comment
    • > Respects light/dark mode Not really… using js to change the CSS on the go is not a good practice. Why does it matter? Because of the “dark mode” browser extensions. They often…
      frizlab on HN
  • Page is blank in Firefox

    From 1 comment
    • In Firefox, https://textarea.my shows up as as a completely static non-actionable white page. Just white, with default cursor. No errors on the console.
      huhtenberg on HN

Requests

  • Add file export and import

    From 1 comment
    • I like these kinds of projects, but adding a file export/import is inevitable. It's less about the limits of a URL and more about practicality. I also have no way to confirm that…
      sublinear on HN
  • Add ctrl+s download to .txt

    From 1 comment
  • Add markdown support

    From 1 comment
    • The only thing missing is markdown and few themes. I think this is awesome idea for sharing. Love what you did with it.
      desireco42 on HN

Questions

  • Can URLs be logged server side

    From 1 comment
    • I like these kinds of projects, but adding a file export/import is inevitable. It's less about the limits of a URL and more about practicality. I also have no way to confirm that…
      sublinear on HN
  • Can the editor save anything

    From 1 comment

Alternatives named

  • pastila

    From 1 comment
    • I've implemented the same idea a few years ago: https://pastila.nl/
      zX41ZdbW on HN
  • itty.bitty.site

    From 2 comments
  • Buffertab

    From 1 comment
    • shameless plug: i built something very similar but nobody cared: https://github.com/AlexW00/Buffertab
      surrTurr on HN
  • browser-pad

    From 1 comment
    • I have a similar one using localStorage https://github.com/mkaz/browser-pad
      marcuskaz on HN
  • jsgist

    From 1 comment
    • I have something tangentially similar here: https://jsgist.org If you click save you get the option to use a URL. The problem with a URL every edit is a new URL. So you send the…
      greggman65 on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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