Build a Custom Mode: a sidebar with only the tools you use

Barside puts a lot in one sidebar: notes, Reading, tasks, a calendar, meetings, recordings, clips, drawings, the note map, Spaces, Library, agents and the assistant. The four ready-made modes, Writer, Reader, Team and Creator, each keep a sensible set. Custom Mode is the fifth, and it keeps exactly the tools you tick. Three tools or eleven, in any mix, and nothing else in sight. What you leave out is not gone: it waits on the More tab, and the search bar still finds every tool and command.

This guide shows how to build one, what changes when it is on, and a few Custom Modes for common kinds of work. The modes guide compares all six modes and lists what each ready-made one keeps.

The 15 tools you can pick from

Twelve of them open a page in the main area. Spaces, Library & briefing and the Assistant open as panels beside it. That matters for one detail: where Custom Mode opens, which comes further down.

How to build a Custom Mode

1. Click the mode name at the top of the sidebar. It says Default Mode until you change it.
2. Choose Choose Custom Mode tools… at the bottom of the menu. A list appears with a checkbox for every tool and a line that says what each one does.
3. Tick the tools you want. You need at least one; Use Custom Mode waits until you do.
4. Click Use Custom Mode. The sidebar shrinks to your picks at once.

Two other doors lead to the same list: the Custom Mode button on the More tab, and the Choose Custom Mode tools command in the search bar. Later, to change the set, open the list again from any of them; your current picks are already ticked.

To switch modes without opening a menu, type the mode's name in the search bar: custom, writer, reader, team, creator or default, then choose Switch to Custom Mode or the mode you typed.

What changes when Custom Mode is on

• The sidebar lists only the tools you ticked, in their usual order.
• The More tab appears in the sidebar, after your tools, with the number of hidden tools next to it. It holds a card for each hidden tool with its description. Click one to open it. When Notes is hidden, the More tab also lists your workspaces, so you can still open one. The tab has a Custom Mode button to change your picks and a Show everything button that switches to Default Mode.
• The Create button offers only what your tools use: New note when Notes is there, New task when Tasks is there, New drawing when Drawings or Notes is there, New recording when Recordings, Clips or Notes is there (drawings and recordings are saved in notes), and New meeting when Meetings is there. Ctrl+N still makes a note.
• The page Barside opens on is the first of your tools with its own page, in sidebar order. Notes opens All notes. If you picked only panels, Barside opens on the More tab and the panels open from the sidebar.
• Nothing else changes. Reminders ring, the search bar and hotkeys work in every app, agents run on their schedules, and Spaces notifications arrive. Your notes, tasks and settings are exactly as they were.

Barside opens in the mode you used last, so a Custom Mode you set on Monday is still there on Friday. Your picks are kept even while you use another mode, and they come back the moment you choose Custom Mode again.

Custom Modes worth trying

• Study. Notes, Reading, Tasks, Calendar and Library & briefing. Read, write, keep the due dates, and ask your notes before the exam. Reader Mode is the ready-made version without Tasks and Calendar; see Reader Mode and read aloud.
• A meetings desk. Calendar, Meetings, Notes, Tasks and Agents & approvals. Start and schedule calls, take the notes, let the meeting agent propose the follow-ups, and approve them in the Inbox.
• A writing room. Notes, Note map and the Assistant. Three tools, no counts, no inbox.
• Community owner. Spaces, Notes, Bookmarks and the Assistant. Barside opens on All notes, and Spaces is one click away in the sidebar.
• Capture only. Notes, On my desktop, Recordings, Clips and Drawings, for a second monitor that is all recording, sketching and pinned notes; the desktop app guide shows how pinned notes and edge tabs work.
• Task desk. Tasks, Calendar and Agents & approvals. The task board opens first, because Tasks is the first of the three in sidebar order.

If you keep opening the More tab for the same tool, it belongs in your picks. Open the list, tick it, done.

Custom Mode or a ready-made mode?

Start with a ready-made mode when one is close, because it takes one click and no decisions. Build a Custom Mode when you keep reaching for the More tab, or when a ready-made mode shows tools you never open.

A common pattern is two modes for two parts of the day: Custom Mode with three or four tools for deep work, and Default Mode, one alias away in the search bar, when you need to look around. Type default to see everything and custom to go back. The desktop bar's mode button switches between the six modes too.

If a tool seems to be missing after an update or on a new computer, open the More tab first: a mode is the usual reason. Show everything on that tab returns to Default Mode in one click.

Details and limits

• Custom Mode is one mode, not several. To switch between two different sets, change the picks, or use a ready-made mode for one of them.
• Before you pick anything, Custom Mode shows every tool, so the sidebar is never empty.
• The mode and its tools are settings of this computer. They travel in a ZIP backup with your other preferences, but cloud sync leaves settings alone, so each computer keeps its own mode.
• Modes work the same in Barside for Mac.

Privacy

A mode is a setting on your computer. The tools you choose are sent nowhere: Barside's usage counts name only the mode, Custom Mode, unless you turn them off. The search bar's mode commands run on your computer. Read how Barside stores your data.

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