Quick Capture

Quick Capture opens a small composer on top of whatever you’re doing. Pick a chat, or start a new chat with an agent, type, and send. You don’t have to switch to Pincer’s window. It’s macOS only.

Send waits for pasted or dropped images to finish preparing. While a message is sending, new image preparation is refused so it cannot become part of the older message or be cleared by its acknowledgement.

macOS

An unsent demo draft in the floating composer. Open image for full size.

Quick Capture is available on macOS.

Open it

Press ⌃ ⇧ Space anywhere, or choose Go → Quick Capture…. You can also click the Pincer menu bar item and choose Quick Capture… (if you’ve turned it on).

The panel opens near the top of the screen your pointer is on. It works over full-screen apps and when Pincer’s main window is closed. The app you were using stays in front, and focus goes back to it when the panel closes.

Pincer has to be running for the shortcut to work. It doesn’t need Accessibility permission. To have it ready after you log in, turn on Open at Login.

Pick where to send

The To: chip at the top shows where the message goes. By default that’s the chat you last sent to from Quick Capture, or else the chat open in Pincer.

To change it, click the chip or press ⌘ J or Tab. A searchable list opens with:

• the current chat and recent chats first, then your other chats (pinned first);
• New Chat with agent for every agent on each connected gateway.

Helper runs, automations and archived chats aren’t listed. With more than one gateway, each row shows which gateway it’s on, and chats on a gateway that’s offline can’t be picked.

Type and send

The composer works like the main composer:

• Paste or drag in images and files to attach them.
• Slash commands work too.

Sending to a chat you picked adds your message to it. Sending to New Chat with agent creates the chat first. Either way, Pincer’s main window stays on the chat it was showing. If you pick another destination while the send is in progress, that newer choice stays selected when the send finishes.

Both Send and Send and open the chat in Pincer need a live Gateway connection. If the connection drops, Quick Capture keeps your draft and shows an error; it does not queue the message in the Offline outbox.

If the send fails, the panel stays open with your text and shows the error, so you can try again. After a failed send to a new chat, the next try goes to the chat that was already created, so you don’t get a duplicate.

Closing the panel without sending keeps your draft until the next time you open it. Drafts aren’t kept after you quit Pincer.

Keys

Action	Keys
Open or close Quick Capture	⌃ ⇧ Space
Send	Return
Send and open the chat in Pincer	⌘ Return
New line	⇧ Return or ⌥ Return
Open the chat in Pincer without sending	⌘ O
Choose a chat	⌘ J or Tab
Send to a pinned chat	⌘ 1–9
Close the chat list, then the panel	Esc

In the chat list, use ↑ ↓ to move and Return to pick. Clicking outside the panel closes it too.

Change or turn off the shortcut

Open Settings → General → Quick Capture:

• Quick Capture shortcut turns the shortcut on or off.
• To pick a new one, click Shortcut and press the new combination. Esc cancels, and ⌫ turns the shortcut off.
• Reset to Default goes back to ⌃ ⇧ Space.

A shortcut needs at least one of ⌘, ⌃ or ⌥, except the function keys, which can be used on their own. Shortcuts macOS uses, such as ⌘ Space, can’t be picked.

Start Pincer at login

Turn on Open at Login in Settings → General → Launch to start Pincer when you log in, so the shortcut works right away. It’s off by default and is macOS only.

If macOS needs your approval, Settings says so. Click Open Login Items Settings… and allow Pincer under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.

To stop Pincer starting at login, turn Open at Login off, or remove Pincer in System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions.

When you change or disconnect a gateway in the Share extension, an older target refresh cannot replace the current gateway’s agents or chats.