Keyboard shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌘N | New page |
| ⇧⌘N | New notebook |
| ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z | Undo / redo |
| ⌘[ / ⌘] | Previous / next page |
| ⌘F | Search (focus the sidebar search) |
| Return | Edit the selected text element |
| Delete | Delete the selection |
| Escape | Finish editing text |
| ⌘P | Print the page |
Trackpad: two-finger scroll pans, pinch zooms. The zoom controls (bottom-right of the page) also zoom and fit to width.
Locking a notebook
Lock a private notebook so its pages are encrypted on disk and stay hidden until you open it. You set a password when you lock it; on a Mac with Touch ID you can then reopen it with a fingerprint, and the Mac login password is the fallback. A locked notebook shows only a lock screen, and its page list stays hidden, until you unlock it. Locking is per notebook; there is no per-page lock.
Moving and selecting on a board
In the zoom controls, the Move / Select toggle sets what a drag on empty space does: Move grabs and pans the board, Select draws a marquee around items. Shift-drag always marquees, and two-finger scroll pans in either mode.
Printing & PDF export
The share button in the page toolbar offers:
- Print…: prints the page at true A4 (with the theme).
- Export PDF…: saves the page as a PDF.
Your files
Notes are plain .brainstorm files under ~/Library/Application Support/Brainstorm/<notebook>/. They round-trip with
excalidraw.com and other tools, so you can edit them elsewhere and keep them in your own backups.