Reference

Settings

Every setting, by tab.

Press ⌘, to open Settings. There are four tabs: Writing, Appearance, Destinations and Library. Some of what is here is also in the action bar — the look, the body typeface, title weight, text size on screen, width, typewriter and focus — so those can be changed without leaving the page you are writing on.

Writing

Typeface — Body, Headings, and Title weight (Regular or Bold). The body face carries the writing everywhere: the list, the editor, the action bar and the printed page. Headings can differ. See Themes and typography for the faces on offer.

Layout:

• Text size on screen — 11 to 32 pt.
• Text size on paper — 8 to 18 pt. Separate on purpose; what is comfortable to write in is not what belongs on a printed page.
• Width — Narrow, Default or Wide.
• Line height — a multiple of the text size, 1.00× to 2.00×, so it reads the same at any size.
• Paragraph spacing — 0 to 30 pt.
• Between list items — 0 to 30 pt, the gap around bullets and numbered items. If a list still looks loose at zero, it has blank lines between the items, and those take a line of their own.

While writing — Typewriter scrolling and Focus mode, both off by default. See Typewriter mode and Focus mode.

Printing — Page numbers, centred in the bottom margin. Off by default, because a single-page handout reads better without one.

The front page — Featured (1 to 5) and Below them (0 to 5) set how many recent pieces the front page holds. Both are capped at five. See The front page.

Appearance

Look — Light, Sepia or Dark.

Accent — the colour of the caret and links. It follows the macOS accent colour until you choose one; Use system color puts it back.

Destinations

The places a finished piece can go. Each row carries the destination’s name, its type and its address, with Edit beside it and an × to remove it. + Add destination adds one, and they are stored beside your writing in prowriter.json. Dispatch ships with none. See Destinations.

Library

Where the writing is kept. The folder’s path is shown, with Reveal in Finder and Move… under it; once you have moved it elsewhere, Move back to iCloud appears as well.

Moving copies everything — pieces, images and the trash — verifies it arrived, and only then clears the old folder. See Where your files live.

Keyboard shortcuts

Every key Dispatch listens for.

Most of these are in the action bar as well, which is where to look when a key isn’t to hand. Bold, italic, the zoom keys and the navigation keys are not — those are keyboard only.

Anywhere

Key	Action
⌘K	Quick Actions — the action bar
⌘N	New Note
⌘,	Settings
⌘P	Print
⌘[	Back
⌃⌘A	Archive
⇧⌘A	Show Archive
⌘D	Star
⇧⌘D	Show Starred

Archive is ⌃⌘A, not ⌘E: macOS reserves ⌘E for Use Selection for Find, and the editor uses the find bar.

While writing

Key	Action
⌘B	Bold
⌘I	Italic
⌘;	Proofread
⌥⇧⌘I	Insert Image
⇧⌘⏎	Insert Page Break
⇧⌘I	Toggle Inspector
/	The action bar, typed at the start of a line
⇥	Nest a list item
⇧⇥	Lift it back out
⏎	On an empty list item, ends the list
esc	Back to the list

The / is inserted as you type it. Choosing an action removes it; dismissing the action bar leaves it, so a line can still start with a slash. See Slash commands.

esc closes the find bar first, if it is open.

Zoom

Key	Action
⌘+ or ⌘=	Zoom In
⌘-	Zoom Out
⌘0	Actual Size

Zoom works in the paged layouts only. It scales the rendered page and never re-lays it out, so a page break stays where the printer will put it. In Immersive the keys do nothing — text size and width do that job there. See Page view.

In the list

Key	Action
↑ ↓	Move the cursor
⏎	Open the piece under the cursor
esc	Back

In the Trash, ⏎ restores the piece rather than opening it.

In the action bar

Key	Action
↑ ↓	Move
⏎	Run, or open a group
⇥	Add the highlighted destination to a batch
esc	Step out of a group, then close

⇥ gathers only where several destinations can be sent at once. See Multi-publish.

Where your files live

The library folder, the config file, and attachments.

Your writing is a folder of plain markdown files. Dispatch reads and writes that folder. There is no database, and the app keeps no copy of its own.

The folder

By default it is a folder called Dispatch in iCloud Drive. If a folder from an earlier version of the app is sitting there under its old name, Dispatch adopts it where it stands rather than launching into an empty library — adopting points at a folder, so nothing is moved.

Open Notes Folder in the action bar opens it in Finder. To keep the writing somewhere else, use Move… in Settings, under Library.

What is in it

• One .md file per piece. After each save the file is renamed to match the piece’s title, trimmed to 60 characters. A piece with no title keeps its timestamp name, Note 2026-08-21 1430.md. A second piece with the same title becomes … (2) instead of overwriting the first.
• A short block at the top of each file carrying status, tags, starred and goal. Keys Dispatch doesn’t own survive a save untouched.
• attachments/ — every picture you insert or paste, copied in beside the writing. See Images.
• prowriter.json — your destinations. The filename predates the app’s own name and nothing user-visible depends on it.
• Archive/ — an ordinary folder, so archived pieces stay findable in Finder. See Archive.
• .trash/ — hidden. A deleted piece waits here for 30 days, then goes to the macOS Trash. Emptying the trash moves everything in it to the macOS Trash as well.

Keeping a second copy

Files in a folder are portable, which is not the same as backed up. Syncing keeps one copy in step across your Macs; it does not keep a second one.

Save a Copy of Everything… in the action bar copies the whole library into a dated folder — Dispatch Backup 2026-08-21 1430 — somewhere you choose. It refuses a folder inside the library, verifies every file arrived, and changes nothing in the library itself. Pointing Time Machine at the folder does the same job on a schedule.

Themes and typography

Light, sepia, dark, and the typefaces.

The three looks

• Light — paper-white.
• Sepia — a warm reading tone.
• Dark — a true night mode.

Everything follows the one switch: the list, the editor, the action bar and the sheets. Set it in Settings under Appearance, or with Theme… in the action bar.

Page view is the exception. A page is drawn as paper in every look, because what it is showing you is the printer. See Page view.

Accent colours the caret, links and the selection tint. It follows the macOS accent colour until you pick one of your own.

Body faces

Iowan Old Style (the default), Charter, Athelas, Georgia, Palatino, Hoefler Text, Baskerville, Times New Roman, Avenir Next, Helvetica Neue.

The body face carries the writing everywhere — the list, the editor, the action bar, and the printed page, so a printed piece looks like the page view that previewed it.

Heading faces

Headings start at Same as body, and can be set apart from it: Iowan Old Style, Charter, Didot, Big Caslon, Bodoni 72, Superclarendon, Optima, Futura, Gill Sans, Avenir Next.

Every face offered has a real bold and a real italic installed on macOS. Nothing is faked by slanting, which is why the list is a curated one rather than every font on the Mac.

Title weight is Regular or Bold, and both are real weights — serif families like Times ship only the two.

Size and measure

Text size on screen and text size on paper are separate numbers, 18 pt and 12 pt to begin with: one is a reading-comfort choice and the other is a paper decision. Line height is a multiple of the size, so it holds when the size changes. Width sets the column — Narrow, Default or Wide.

System settings

Reduce Motion and Increase Contrast are read live, so turning either on changes the app while it is running. With Reduce Motion on, nothing animates. With Increase Contrast on, secondary text and separators move toward the text colour — darker in the light themes, lighter in dark.

Updates

How Dispatch checks for and installs a new version.

Check for Updates… sits in the Dispatch menu, directly under About Dispatch. It reads the release feed and reports whether anything is newer than the copy you are running.

Checking on its own

On its second launch Dispatch asks whether to check for updates by itself from then on. Answer no and the menu item is the only way an update reaches you; answer yes and it checks quietly in the background. Either way an update is offered before anything is installed.

When there is one, a panel says what changed and offers to install it. The download is verified before it is unpacked, and the app restarts into the new version.

What is checked, and what is sent

Every release is signed. An installed copy accepts an update signed by the matching key and nothing else, and it will not read a release feed that isn’t signed either.

The check sends nothing about your Mac — not the model, the processor, the amount of memory, the macOS version, or your language. See Privacy.

Around the update

An update replaces the app and touches nothing else. Your writing is a folder of files that Dispatch only reads and writes; it is not inside the app. See Where your files live.

The version you are running is in About Dispatch. What changed in each release is listed in the changelog.