Sidepad

I built a Chrome extension for capturing AI conversations into Markdown

I kept running into the same problem, I'd get a great response from ChatGPT or Claude, and then it would just disappear into an endless chat thread. I'd sometimes copy-paste into Google Docs or Apple Notes, but nothing stuck. The good stuff was always buried. So I built Sidepad. It's a Chrome extension that opens as a side panel in your browser. You highlight text on any page, hit a keyboard shortcut, and it drops into a structured Markdown document. Every snippet keeps a link back to its source.

A few decisions I made early on:

- Local-first: files save as .md directly to your machine. No backend, no database, no auth. I didn't want to build or maintain a cloud layer for something that should just be a file.

- No account required: install it and it works. Zero onboarding friction.

- Free: no paywall. I built it because I needed it.

The whole thing is a Chrome side panel + local file system access. No servers, no ongoing costs beyond the Chrome Web Store listing.

I'm launching on Product Hunt this Tuesday (Apr 22). It's my first PH launch so I'm honestly not sure what to expect, if anyone has tips or lessons from their own launches I'd love to hear them.

In the meantime, it's live on the Chrome Web Store if anyone wants to try it: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sidepad/kcappaghfekbcgjapbdiccbemngegoal

Would love any feedback on the product, the extension, or the launch strategy.