How to Set Up and Use Phone to Note

​There are many different ways to feed your Roam and Logseq graphs with information. But what if you mostly work from your phone? In that case you definitely need to look into Phone to Note (formerly known as Phone to Roam).

In this workshop we set up the plugin in our graphs, as well as several ways to feed information through our phones into Roam. No matter if you use sms, telegram, iOS shortcuts, or plain old email; there will be a way to easily funnel your thoughts into Roam or Logseq.

Watch the recording

In the video below I refer to Phone to Roam, but in December 2021 the service was renamed to Phone to Note. Everything else in the session still applies.

Notes

What is Phone to Roam?

• Third-party integration service.
• Works with a roam/js extension.
• Supports SMS, email, Telegram, Facebook, Alfred, Zapier.

Why use (or not use) Phone to Roam?

• Use

  • If entering information quickly is important.
  • You don't like Roam's quick capture for mobile.
  • You want to easily forward texts and emails to your graph.

• Don't use

  • If you have personal stuff in your graph and data privacy is a concern.
  • You only occasionally add information using mobile.

How to set up Phone to Roam

• Download and install extension

  1. Copy the code from your dashboard: https://www.phonetoroam.com/dashboard
  2. Go to your roam/js page.
  3. Add a new parent block with {{roam/js}}
  4. Add a child block that contains a code block (triple backticks or type /javascript and hit Enter).
  5. Paste the code from your dashboard into the JavaScript code block.
  6. Refresh Roam.

• Extension settings

  • In-graph settings: roam/js/ptr
  • Account settings: https://accounts.phonetoroam.com/user
  • Security settings: https://accounts.phonetoroam.com/user/security
    • Password
    • Two factor authentication

How to use Phone to Roam

• Email

  1. Add your email address in the dashboard.
  2. Send/forward emails to hello@inbound.phonetoroam.com

• Alfred

  1. Get the Phone to Roam workflow for Alfred: https://phonetoroam.gumroad.com/l/alfredtoroam
  2. Add the workflow to Alfred.
  3. Enter your roam_key.
  4. Send messages by bringing up the Alfred bar, type roam followed by a space (everything after the word roam is sent to your graph).

• Telegram

  1. Start a chat with the Phone to Roam bot (username: phonetoroam_bot).
  2. Send it your roam_key.
  3. Send/forward messages to the bot.

• SMS (and iOS)

  1. Add your phone number in the dashboard.
  2. Import the iOS Shortcut: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/b0d917b34f2d4491ae7db17fa8e81ff3
  3. Send messages by using the share menu or by adding the shortcut to your homescreen.

• Natural language for dates

  • Phone to Roam parses any date in natural language that's between semicolons (;).
  • Whatever you type in natural language is converted to a link to that date's Daily Notes Page.
  • Examples
    • ;next tuesday;
    • ;1 year from now;
    • ;2 weeks;
    • ;jan 10;
    • ;10/30/2020;
    • ;15-06-2020;
    • ;2013-08-01T19:30:00.345-07:00;

• Pro: Zapier

  • Connect any app with an API to Roam.
  • Use pre-made zaps or connect one of thousands of apps already connected to Zapier.

• Coming soon: iOS keyboard

  • Dedicated buttons to create page links.
    • 
  • Autocomplete based on your Roam page names.
  • One click to wrap what's on your clipboard in brackets.

Resources

• Alfred to Roam workflow
• iOS Shortcut