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Writing Home is your writing desk. Open Writing and the file you were working on is right there, next to today’s progress toward your streak. You’ll also get a look back at your week, month, and year in words.
Where to find it: Left sidebar → Writing → Home tab Open in 4TW ↗

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Getting around Writing

Three tabs sit at the top of Writing: Home, Files, and Projects. Files and Projects each have four views: All, Favorites, Shared, and Archive.
Clicking Writing in the sidebar brings you back to the Writing screen you used last, so you land right where you left off.

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Search and create

Use the search bar to find files, projects, sections, and files shared with you, all in one place. Type # and a tag name to search by tag, like #fantasy. Click See all results in Files for the full list. Ready for something fresh? Click New file or New project right next to it.

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Your dashboard

  • Continue where you left off. The file you worked on last, with its words, time, and any unread comments. Click Keep writing to jump back in, or Set a goal to give it a target.
  • Jump back in. Quick lists of your Recent files, Files, Projects, Favorites, and everything Shared with you.
  • Recent activity. The latest moments in your writing. Click View all to open Activity.
  • Your streak. This week at a glance, your Current and Longest streaks, and how many days until your next milestone. See Writing Streaks.
  • Today’s goal. How close you are to keeping your streak alive today.
  • Your week, Your month, and Your year in words. Charts of your writing over time, with your daily average, best day, and best week. The year view is a heatmap, with a tab for each year.
  • Share & collaborate. How many files and projects you’re sharing, with shortcuts to find them. See Sharing & Collaboration.
  • Your readers. Reads, comments, followers, and ratings for your published work. It fills in once you publish a project.
  • Your goals. Your active writing goals and how far along you are.

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The file tree

A slim rail runs down the left side of every Writing screen, including the editor. Use it to open the file tree, a sidebar with all your writing in one place.
  • Home and Go back. Go back returns you to the project or list you came from.
  • Favorites. Shows only your starred files and projects in the tree.
  • Notepad. A scratch pad for quick notes. See Notepad.
  • New file and New project. Start something without leaving the page you’re on.
  • Search, Sort, and Expand all. These appear while the tree is open.
  • Hide sidebar. Folds the tree away. Show sidebar brings it back.
The tree has three tabs:

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Organizing in the tree

  • Drag and drop. Drag files into projects and sections, or drag them into a new order. Hold Ctrl/Cmd or Shift while you click to move several at once.
  • Right-click menus. Right-click any file, section, or project to rename, tag, share, archive, and more.
  • Pin to top. Right-click a file or project and choose Pin to top. It stays above everything else, under Pinned.
Dragging into a new order only works when the tree’s sort is Custom (manual). Pick it from Sort if dragging doesn’t move anything.
In the editor, the tree floats over your text. Click Lock sidebar in place to push your text aside instead.

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Notepad

Click Notepad on the rail for a scratch pad that’s always one click away, whichever file you’re in. Jot down a character name, a plot twist, or tomorrow’s to-do. It saves as you type.
The Notepad is for quick notes. Write your story in a file so every word counts toward your battles and streak.

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Activity

Where to find it: Writing Home → Recent activity → View all Open in 4TW ↗
Activity is a timeline of your writing, day by day: words written, files and projects created, updated, or deleted, and what your collaborators did in shared work.
  • Search. Look for anything in your timeline, or exclude a user, project, document, or event type.
  • Filters. Narrow it down by Event type, Date range, or Group: Progress, Created, Updated, Deleted, and Collab.
Open a project’s activity to see only what happened in that project.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Open Files and pick Favorites or Archive. Projects has its own Favorites and Archive views too.
Yes. The Writing button remembers the last Writing screen you used. Open Files once and that’s where it takes you next time.
A favorite gets a star, so you can filter your lists to show only favorites. Pinning keeps a file or project at the top of the file tree. Use both if you like.
No. The Notepad is a scratch space, so its words don’t count toward battles, streaks, or goals.
Find your way around

Files

Create, find, filter, archive, and export your files.

Projects

Group files into a book with sections and one shared goal.

The Writing Editor

The header, panels, formatting, and shortcuts.