Capture inbox

The fast-capture surface in Work mode. Dump a thought, it gets routed.

Capture inbox

The Capture inbox is the fast-capture surface in Tree's Work mode. It exists for one job: getting thoughts out of the user's head quickly, without forcing the user to triage them in the same breath.

How the inbox works

The inbox is in only. Items enter the inbox; they don't stay. Once an item is triaged, it leaves the inbox and either becomes a placed task (flows into Your day or Your week) or becomes a pending item (goes to the Pending zone for further decision).

The inbox supports two modes:

Simple mode (default): a fast text input with a few smart indicators visible. Confirmation of which client the item is tied to. Confirmation of whether the item will be instant-added or sent as a request (depending on permissions). The point is low friction: dump the thought, see where it's going, move on.

Full mode (expanded): every value editable. Tags, assignees, due dates, target tree, custom fields. Multiple tasks in one capture session. The full Node-inspector-level editing experience.

The user expands from simple to full when they need to. Simple is the default because most captures don't need it.

What happens after capture

Captured items don't sit in the inbox forever. They go through triage:

  • Placed: the item has enough context to belong to a specific tree and time. It flows out of the inbox into the appropriate tree, where it appears on Your day or Your week as relevant.
  • Pending: the item needs a human decision. It moves to the Pending zone and waits there until placed.

Items with concrete anchors (specific due dates, named meetings, time-anchored events) can self-place. Items without concrete anchors become pending.

Why capture matters

The inbox is the entry point for the trust loop Tree is built around. The user has to be able to trust that captured items won't get lost. If captures vanish into a backlog nobody reads, the user stops trusting the system and stops capturing. The whole loop breaks.

Tree's inbox is designed to make capture feel safe: the item is in, it has confirmations, it's visible until triaged, and it never disappears silently. The trust comes from the design, not from promises.

Tier availability

Capture inbox is part of the core Tree experience, available on Free, Paid, and Team.

LAST UPDATED · 2026-06-02