Cat Scratches

Cat Scratches is a Safari extension for sending clean website text to Drafts. Automatically extract the main article body, or select text to clip a passage. Captures open in Drafts with the page title and source URL attached, or use the Share Sheet to send them to Notes, Mail, Messages, and other apps.

Author: David Degner
Website: daviddegner.com
App Store: Cat Scratches
Issues and feature requests: github.com/ddegner/cat-scratches

Current Release

Version 2.4.0 adds a direct Ulysses destination while keeping the existing Drafts and Share Sheet capture flow. Cat Scratches sends clean Safari text to Drafts, Ulysses, Notes, Mail, Messages, and other apps.

Highlights:

• Direct Ulysses handoff for creating Markdown sheets
• Share Sheet errors are surfaced when a destination cannot open
• Refreshed App Store screenshots for macOS and iOS
• Same automatic article extraction and selected-text clipping flow

Features

• Capture selected text or the main page content from Safari
• Send directly to Drafts with title, source URL, tags, and Markdown formatting
• Use a keyboard shortcut, toolbar button, or extension menu
• Customize article selectors, filters, cleanup rules, templates, and Drafts URL scheme behavior
• Sync extension settings with iCloud where available

Setup

1. Install Cat Scratches from the App Store, or build the Xcode project locally.
2. Enable the Safari extension in Safari Settings -> Extensions.
3. Allow Cat Scratches on the sites you want to capture.
4. Install Drafts on the same device.
5. On first capture, allow Safari to open Drafts. Choose "Remember my choice" if Safari offers it.
6. Optional: set a custom shortcut and adjust capture settings from the extension toolbar menu.

Usage

1. Open a page in Safari.
2. Optionally select the text you want to capture.
3. Run Cat Scratches with the keyboard shortcut or toolbar button.
4. Review or edit the new Draft.

When no text is selected, Cat Scratches tries to find the story body and remove page chrome before converting the result to Markdown.

Customization

Advanced settings let you control:

• Content selectors for finding the main article root
• DOM filters for removing unwanted page elements before conversion
• Text cleanup rules for recurring boilerplate that remains after filtering
• Output templates, tags, and source URL formatting
• Drafts URL mode, including direct create and action-based handoff

Distribution Notes

The App Store distributes both iOS and macOS builds. GitHub releases are for source history and macOS release artifacts only; iOS binaries are distributed through TestFlight or the App Store.

Troubleshooting

Drafts does not open
Confirm Drafts is installed and that Safari is allowed to open Drafts URLs.

Safari asks whether to open Drafts
Allow the prompt. If Safari offers "Remember my choice," enable it to avoid the prompt on future captures.

A site captures the wrong content
Use Advanced settings to adjust selectors, filters, or cleanup rules.

The extension is unavailable on a page
Check Safari Settings -> Extensions -> Cat Scratches and confirm site permission is enabled.

Development

The core extraction path lives in the Safari extension resources:

• SafariToDrafts/Shared (Extension)/Resources/content-extractor.js
• SafariToDrafts/Shared (Extension)/Resources/defaults.js
• SafariToDrafts/Shared (Extension)/Resources/background.js

The corpus harness and regression scripts live under tests/.

Run ./validate.sh before release work. It checks extension metadata, runs the regression and extraction-quality gates, builds both platform targets without signing, and verifies the packaged extension resources and versions.