Hey, so I finally sat down to try EclipseQuote last night—that macOS app for collecting quotes and snippets. You know how I'm always losing interesting passages from articles or marking up PDFs and never finding them again? This promised a clean way to grab text from anywhere and keep it organized. Figured I'd give it a shot on that big research project I've been avoiding.
First impression: it's beautifully native. Three-pane layout like Mail, global hotkey setup, Dark Mode support. I was excited.
What I tried first (and why it failed):
Set up the global hotkey (Cmd+Shift+Q), found a great passage in a Safari article, selected text, hit the keys... nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Checked the app—it was running. Checked settings—hotkey was configured. Spent 20 minutes assuming the capture feature was broken or conflicting with something.
What I eventually figured out:
The problem was macOS permissions. EclipseQuote needs Accessibility access to monitor your keyboard shortcuts system-wide. I'd missed the prompt during initial setup. Went to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, added EclipseQuote, toggled it on. Instant success. The Apple support guide on granting accessibility permissions walks through exactly what needs to be enabled.
What actually helped (the stuff I wish I'd known first):
Used the manual capture option. While troubleshooting, I discovered you can also capture via the menu bar icon—select text, click the icon, choose "Capture Selection." Worked immediately, which confirmed the app itself was fine and the issue was hotkey-related.
Checked the source attribution. Once capturing worked, I grabbed a quote from a PDF in Preview. EclipseQuote automatically pulled the filename and page number. From a webpage, it grabbed the URL and title. This alone saves me so much manual entry.
Realized the tagging is actually powerful. I'd assumed simple tags, but you can create nested projects AND tags. I set up "Research > Climate > 2024 Papers" as a project, and added tags like #methane and #policy. Now I can find things multiple ways.
A couple of other things I stumbled on:
The Quick Look integration is brilliant—select a quote in your library, press space, and you get a clean preview with full formatting preserved.
Export to Markdown works perfectly. I exported a whole project and dropped it into Obsidian—all the metadata came through as frontmatter.
It preserves italics and bold from the original source, which most simple collectors strip out.
While researching other tools, I came across this collection of macOS software that had some useful alternatives and notes—worth bookmarking if you're building out your toolkit.
Checklist for next time (so I don't repeat mistakes):
Check Accessibility permissions first if global hotkeys don't work.
Use the menu bar capture as a fallback while troubleshooting.
Set up projects BEFORE importing—it's easier to sort into existing folders.
Tag liberally, but keep a consistent scheme (I'm still refining mine).
Test the export format early if you plan to move quotes to another app.
Anyway, I now have a proper system for all those random passages I've been losing. If you're doing any kind of research or just want to keep track of what you read, this thing is worth it—just check those permissions first. Let me know if you try it.Lorem Ipsum