Capture from other apps and services

Clip an article from your browser, share a photo from your phone, forward a message to your Telegram bot: each one lands in the same Captures queue, labeled with where it came from.

Every capture records its source. The source label lets you filter the queue, see where an item came from, and decide whether a workflow should be allowed to act on it automatically.

Which channels you can use depends on your platform and the integrations you’ve set up.

Channel	Desktop	Browser	Mobile app
Quick Capture dialog	Yes, plus a global shortcut	Yes	Yes
Paste to Captures	Yes	—	—
Drag and drop files	Yes	Yes	—
Share sheet	—	Installed web app, where the browser supports it	Yes
Deep links (`lar://capture`)	Yes	—	—
Browser extension	Yes	—	—
Telegram bot	Yes	—	—

Quick Capture

The Capture dialog handles text, links, files, and voice memos. Open it with Ctrl+Shift+N, from the command palette, or, in the desktop app, with the global shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Space from any app.

Quick Capture is a direct action you take yourself. It can add to Captures or create a typed Object immediately. See Capture something quickly.

Clipboard

In the desktop app, run Paste to Captures or press Ctrl+Shift+V to save what’s on the clipboard, once.

Lar has no clipboard watcher and never inspects the clipboard in the background. If the clipboard might hold a password, token, recovery phrase, or one-time code, check it before you paste.

Drag and drop

Open Captures and drop one or more files anywhere on the page. Lar stores each file as an attachment and adds a capture to the queue.

Capturing a file only stores it. Opening, importing, extracting text from, or sending the file anywhere is always a separate, later step.

On iOS or Android, use the system Share action and choose Lar. Lar receives only what you shared: the URL, title, text, and files.

If Lar is closed or locked, the share is encrypted and held on the device until you next open your workspace, then added to Captures. Sharing never unlocks your workspace and never fetches the shared URL.

In a browser that supports it, the installed Lar web app can also appear in the share menu. There, a share opens Quick Capture already filled in, and nothing is saved until you confirm.

A shared caption, filename, or URL can be misleading, so review shared items before you enrich or convert them.

Deep links

In the desktop app, automation tools and OS shortcuts can create a capture by opening a lar://capture link. The link can launch Lar and wait until you unlock your workspace before adding the capture.

Deep links can only create captures. They are size-limited and rate-limited, accept a fixed set of fields, allow only http and https URLs, and never fetch a URL. Rejected links are reported in the notification bell.

Any local app, and sometimes a web page, can try to open a custom link like this, so deep-link captures are marked Unverified. A workflow runs automatically on them only if its trigger explicitly names this channel; otherwise it only suggests. Don’t pass secrets through deep links.

Browser extension

The Save to Lar browser extension clips the current page into Captures. It talks only to the desktop app, over Lar’s local API on your own computer (127.0.0.1), never to a server.

To connect it:

Open Settings → Integrations and choose Web Extension.
Follow the steps to install the extension.
Choose Copy capture connect code. This turns on the local API if it’s off.
Paste the code into the extension’s popup.

The connect code contains a token that can only create captures. Treat it like a password.

Integrations

Some services deliver their content for you. Set up each one in Settings → Integrations.

Telegram (desktop): create a bot with @BotFather, connect it, and Lar fetches the messages you send it, including supported voice and photo attachments. Delivers to Captures by default.
Readwise: syncs your reading highlights, one Weblink per source. Creates Objects directly by default.
Kindle: imports highlights from the My Clippings.txt file on your device, one Weblink per book. Always creates Objects directly, and never uses the network.

For Telegram and Readwise, Deliver to chooses between Captures (triage first) and Create objects directly. Choose Sync to fetch on demand. Turn on automatic background sync only if you want Lar to contact the service on its own.

Integration credentials are stored in your device’s secure key storage, and each integration can reach only its own service. See Integrations.

Hosted capture: email, Telegram, and WhatsApp

If you’re signed in to a Lar server that offers hosted capture, you can send captures by email, Telegram, or WhatsApp without your computer being on. In Settings → Integrations, turn on Receive hosted captures in this workspace, then add allowed email senders or connect a messaging account with a one-use token.

The email or messaging service delivers each message to the server. The server encrypts it for your devices straight away and holds only the encrypted copy until your device collects it. Lar checks about every 30 seconds. The server sees routing details, timing, and the size of each package, but not what’s inside.

Webhook: Zapier, Make, IFTTT, n8n and your own scripts

If your server offers hosted capture, you can let another service send items to Lar. In Settings → Integrations → Webhook, create a connection. Lar shows its address and a secret once; copy both into the other service. Each connection has its own secret, so you can replace or remove one without touching the others (up to five per workspace).

The service sends a POST request to the address with the header Authorization: Bearer <secret>, the content type application/json, and a body such as {"title": "…", "text": "…", "url": "https://…", "tags": ["inbox"]}. Only the title, text, an https link and up to eight tags are used, as plain text, and a body can be up to 16 KB. An Idempotency-Key header stops a retried request from creating the item twice. The item arrives in Captures like any other, from the source “Webhook”.

Treat the secret like a password: anyone who has it can add items to your Captures. If it leaks, choose Replace secret (the old one stops working at once) or Remove. Like other hosted capture, the server encrypts each item for your devices as soon as it arrives.

Reminders and app events

Reminders, workflow reports, sharing and sync events, and update notices go to the notification bell, not to Captures. They never trigger Capture workflows, so a status update can’t turn into a note or start an automation by accident.