Paper Trail — Local work records

Select text, right-click, or paste chats: keep timestamped records with people and promises, export a clean timeline. 100% local.

# Paper Trail — Keep a paper trail. Quietly. > A fully local, offline Chrome extension that turns “things that were said and then vanished” into a searchable, exportable timeline you can stand behind. --- ## 1. What it solves Performance self-reviews, handovers, scope arguments, verbal promises, getting blamed — what you need in those moments is not a feeling, it's **the original words, in order, with dates**. Most note tools are either too heavy (you have to organise everything yourself) or too exposed (cloud sync, accounts, uploads). Paper Trail does one thing well: **pin a sentence to a timeline in two seconds**, and keep everything on your machine. ## 2. Four ways to capture | Method | How | Best for | | --- | --- | --- | | Selection bubble | Select text on any page, then click “＋ Save” in the corner | A line in a chat, an email, a doc | | Right-click | Select, right-click, “Save selected text” | When the bubble is covered, or you prefer menus | | Popup note | Open the popup, paste, auto-detect, attach screenshots | Meeting quotes, recollection after a call | | Import chat | Paste a whole group chat; split by “Name:” into separate records, tick what you want | Chat logs, meeting notes | ## 3. On-device parsing (no network) - **Seven types**: verbal promise, scope change, blame, risk/delay, decision, praise, other. - **People**: leading “Alex:”, `@mentions`, “X said …”, Chinese “张三：/李四说”. - **Dates & amounts**: `Oct 28`, `by Wednesday`, `end of month`, `3.5k`, `¥1200`. - 300 ms debounce fills title / type / people while you paste — all editable. ## 4. From notes to a report 1. **Timeline**: grouped by day; header stats “12 records · +3 this week · ★2”. 2. **Filters**: type chips, **filter by person** (`@Alex 4` → only Alex's words), starred, search with highlight. 3. **Report**: pick a scope (all / this week / 30 days / starred); it writes a one-line summary: > 12 records: verbal promise 5, risk/delay 3. People: Alex, Sam. Span: 21 days. 4. **Export** (Pro): Markdown, print-ready A4 HTML (print → Save as PDF), JSON backup/restore.