Pressmark reminds you when something is worth a few minutes of your time: a post that went up, comments to answer, today's suggestions, last week's insights. It never reminds you just to bring you back, and it never counts a missed day against you. You can change every reminder in Settings, Reminders.
The inbox#
Every reminder lands in the inbox under the bell at the top of each page. The bell shows a dot when something is unread. The inbox is complete: a notification on your Mac or in your browser is only a copy, so nothing is lost when a notification is held back.
For each reminder you can:
- Open it: the title takes you to the right place and marks it read.
- Snooze it: for an hour, until tomorrow, or for a week. It comes back unread then.
- Dismiss it: it goes away and does not come back for the same thing.
- Mark all read clears the dot without removing anything.
A reminder also clears itself once the thing is done: comments you answered, suggestions you looked over, a post you placed on the calendar.
If you dismiss the same kind of reminder three times in a row, Pressmark asks whether you want that kind turned off. It only asks; nothing changes until you choose Turn off.
The reminders and their defaults#
| Reminder | When | Arrives in | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your post is live | A post goes up on Substack | Inbox and notification | As it happens |
| Substack sign-in | Substack asks you to sign in again | Inbox and notification | As it happens |
| New comments | Readers comment on your posts | Inbox and notification | 11:00 |
| New subscribers | Someone new subscribes | Inbox | 09:00 |
| Reading queue | Your morning reading queue is ready | Inbox | When it is ready |
| Engage suggestions | Today's suggestions are ready | Inbox | When they are ready |
| Open calendar slot | A posting slot in the next two days has no post | Inbox and notification | 09:00 |
| While you were away | After five days away, one note on what is waiting | Notification | 10:00 |
| Post ready to plan | A finished post is not on the calendar yet | Inbox | 09:00 |
| Report card | Your first report card, a refreshed one, or one that is due | Inbox | 09:00 |
| Last week's insights | Mondays | Inbox | 09:00 |
| Goals | Once a week, when a goal could use a hand | Inbox | 09:00 |
| Resting drafts | Once a month, a draft unchanged for two weeks | Inbox | 09:00 |
| Monday digest | Mondays, the quieter reminders in one place | Inbox and notification | 09:00 |
Every reminder can be turned on or off, sent to the inbox, as a notification, or both, and given its own time. "As it happens" reminders have no time. A reminder found after its time arrives at that time the next day.
Notification on its own means you get the notification and the inbox keeps a read copy. Inbox and notification leaves it unread in the inbox as well.
The Monday digest#
The quieter reminders (ready posts, the report card, last week's insights, goals and resting drafts) never send a notification of their own while the Monday digest is on. They wait in the inbox, and on Monday morning one digest lists what is still unread. Turn the digest off and each of them follows its own setting instead.
Quiet hours, weekends and limits#
- Quiet hours are 20:00 to 08:00 by default, in the time zone from Settings, General. No notification is sent in quiet hours. Something that happened overnight can still notify after quiet hours end, if you have not seen it yet.
- At weekends the default is "Only what is happening now": a post going live or a sign-in request can notify, everything else waits for Monday's digest. "Like weekdays" treats weekends as any other day; "No notifications" sends none at weekends.
- Limits: at most 2 notifications a day and 5 a week. Something happening now may pass the daily limit, never the weekly one and never quiet hours. A reminder held back by a limit waits in the inbox.
- A notification that could not go out within about 18 hours stays quietly in the inbox.
- While Pressmark is paused (Safety, Pause everything) no notifications are sent. The inbox still fills.
Mac notifications, now and in the Mac app#
Mac notifications are off until you turn them on in Settings, Reminders.
Until the Pressmark Mac app exists, Pressmark asks macOS to show them through a small built-in script. macOS then shows them as coming from Script Editor, with its icon, and a click opens Script Editor rather than Pressmark. If none appear, open System Settings, Notifications, and allow notifications for Script Editor. A Focus mode can also hold them back.
Browser notifications: while a Pressmark page is open in your browser, reminders can also appear as browser notifications. Press Allow browser notifications once and accept the browser's question. They stop when you close the page, and the browser shows them under its own name.
In the Mac app, notifications come from Pressmark itself, with its name and icon, and a click opens the right place in the app. Nothing else changes: the same reminders, limits and quiet hours.
Open Pressmark at login#
Open Pressmark at login starts Pressmark in the background when you sign in to your Mac, so reminders and the morning queue are ready when you are. It shows no window. It is on by default in the Mac app and takes one click to turn off in Settings, Reminders. Once you turn it off, Pressmark never turns it back on by itself.
The first time, macOS shows a notice titled "Background Items Added". That is expected. You can change it later in System Settings, General, Login Items. If macOS asks for your approval, Settings says "Waiting for you in System Settings" until you allow it there.
In a development build nothing is set up by itself. Turning the switch on adds one launch file to your LaunchAgents folder, with its log in your Logs folder under Pressmark; turning it off removes it again.