Beautiful desktop sticky notes and a tiny Notepad for Windows, with a private AI that runs on your own PC. Jot it down, make it pretty, pin it on top, and let Qwen3.5 tidy it up, 100% offline. No cloud, no account, no telemetry.
Windows Sticky Notes is plain. Notepad is dumb. Cloud AI editors read everything you type. QwenPad gives you gorgeous sticky notes and a fast editor with an AI that never leaves your machine.
- 🗒️ Sticky notes you'll actually enjoy. 29 looks, from six classic colors to 23 hand-illustrated themes across six categories. Rich text, font colors, bullets, images, GIFs and freehand drawing.
- 📌 Always where you need them. Pin notes above every window, make them see-through, and keep them on screen even after you close QwenPad. They can even reopen when Windows starts.
- ✦ AI in every note. Press Ctrl+K in a note to have Qwen rewrite it, add to it or turn it into a checklist. Untitled notes get a title automatically, and an email becomes a stack of task notes.
- 🖼 Make and edit images, offline. The Image Studio turns a prompt into a picture, or edits one you drop in, using Qwen-Image-2.1 through stable-diffusion.cpp — all on your own PC.
- 🛟 Notes don't get lost. Crash-safe saves, a 30-day trash, automatic backups and one-click import from other copies.
- 🔒 Private by design. The AI runs locally through llama.cpp. Nothing is uploaded, ever. It works on a plane.
- ⚡ Tiny, instant and portable. A native ~230 KB app with no Electron and no installer. Unzip it anywhere, even a USB stick.
- 23 hand-illustrated designs, grouped by category in the ⋯ > 🎨 Themes menu, each with its own artwork, ink colors and ruled lines:
- 🍂 Fall: Spooky Night · Pumpkin Patch · Moonlit Ghost · Harvest Moon · Hedgehog Hollow · Doodle Pumpkins · Autumn Cat · Haunted Hill
- ❄ Winter: Snowflake Frost · Cozy Critters · Snowman Night
- 🏖 Summer: Beach Day · Palm Beach · Leaf Me a Note · Sunflower
- 🐾 Critters: Capybara · Sleepy Sloth
- 🌀 Patterns: Spiral · Doodle Swirls · Geometric · Holographic · Dollar Note
- 🏈 Sports: Game Day
- Six classic colors (yellow, green, pink, purple, blue, gray) that switch to matching dark versions in dark mode.
- Background Art (⋯ menu): fade a theme's artwork from full down to a faint watermark over plain paper, so the design never gets in the way of your words.
- A handwritten font, a title, and a date on every note (hover for the created and edited times).
- Every design is drawn in code, so it's sharp at any size and never covers your words with clutter.
- Rich text: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough and bullets, right from the format bar or the keyboard.
- Font colors: the A button offers Automatic, nine colors and a full color picker. Your colors stay put when you change the theme or the design.
- Images and animated GIFs: paste, drag in, or add them with 🖼. Drag an image's corner to resize it, or right-click > Size.
- ✏ Freehand drawing: a pen, a see-through highlighter brush and an eraser, in five colors and three sizes, with undo.
- Notes grow to fit your text, and you can resize them from any edge.
- 📌 Pin a note on top of every window, or all of them at once (Notes > Pin All Notes on Top).
- Opacity from 100% down to 30%, so a pinned note never hides what's behind it.
- Layers: Bring to Front, Send to Back, or Ctrl+scroll over a note to move it up and down the stack.
- Every note is a real window with its own taskbar button (Alt+Tab, minimize, restore).
- Notes stay open when you close QwenPad. The editor closes, your notes stay on screen, and QwenPad waits in the tray with the AI model unloaded. Launch QwenPad again and the editor comes right back.
- Open Notes When Windows Starts puts your notes back on the desktop every time you sign in (Notes menu or tray icon).
- Ctrl+K in a note: ask Qwen to rewrite the selection or write at the cursor ("make this a checklist", "translate to Spanish", "add three ideas").
- Auto-titles: start typing in an untitled note and Qwen names it for you.
- ✦ Summarize to Note: condense your document into a titled checklist note.
- ✦ Tasks From Email: paste an email into QwenPad and get one task note per action item.
- Note from Selection and Send to Sticky Note (right-click) turn any text into a note, and Insert into Document sends a note back.
- The ☰ Notes List (Ctrl+Shift+L) shows every note as a card in its own design, with live search, keyboard navigation, pin and delete.
- Show All Notes, Hide All Notes, and a quick list of notes right in the Notes menu.
- Hiding a note (✕ or Ctrl+W) never deletes it. Bring it back from the Notes List.
- Crash-safe saving: every change is saved within a second, written to a temp file and swapped in, and the previous version is kept as a
.bak. - Trash: deleted notes are kept for 30 days. Use Notes > Restore Deleted Notes.
- Automatic backups of your notes every day and on every update, with the newest 15 kept in
backups\. - Import Notes from another QwenPad folder (like an older portable copy) or from any backup.
- Notes are plain files in
notes\(a header plus RTF), so they're easy to back up, sync or read with anything.
| Keys | In a sticky note |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+N | New note (keeps this note's design, opacity and pin, and opens beside it) |
| Ctrl+K | Ask Qwen to rewrite the selection or write at the cursor |
| Ctrl+B / I / U / T | Bold / italic / underline / strikethrough |
| Ctrl+Shift+L | Bullets |
| Ctrl+V | Paste text or an image |
| Ctrl+P | Pin on top of all windows (or unpin) |
| Ctrl+W | Hide the note (it stays saved) |
| Ctrl+H | Hide / show all notes (toggle) |
| Ctrl+D | Delete (to the trash) |
| Ctrl+scroll | Move the note forward or back in the stack |
| Menu key / Shift+F10 | Open the note's ⋯ menu |
| Esc | Stop Qwen while it writes |
| P / B / E | In draw mode: pen / brush / eraser |
| Ctrl+Z, Esc | In draw mode: undo a stroke, finish drawing |
- Grab
QwenPad-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.zipfrom the latest release (~650 MB, includes the llama.cpp runtime). - Unzip anywhere and run
QwenPad.exe. - On first launch, pick a model to download (one time, from Hugging Face). Every file is verified with SHA-256:
| Model | Size | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.5 9B (recommended) | 5.3 GB | Best quality. ~8 GB free RAM. |
| Qwen3.5 4B | 2.6 GB | Faster; PCs with 8 GB RAM or no GPU. |
| Qwen3.5 9B Abliterated | 5.2 GB | Community variant with refusal behavior removed. |
Already have a .gguf model? Drop it into the models\ folder and pick it from Qwen > Model. The sticky notes work without any model at all.
Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit). An NVIDIA GPU (CUDA 12) speeds things up but isn't required: llama.cpp falls back to the CPU. On a GTX 1650 (4 GB), the 9B model generates about 5–6 tokens/s and the 4B about 10 tokens/s.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+K | Ask Qwen anything. Transform the selection, or write at the cursor using the document as context. |
| Ctrl+Enter | Continue writing from the cursor. |
| Ctrl+Shift+I | Improve writing. |
| Ctrl+Shift+G | Fix spelling & grammar. |
| Qwen > Rewrite | Shorter · Longer · Professional · Casual · Friendly · Translate To… |
| Qwen > Summarize / Key Points | Inserted below the text. |
| Esc | Stop generating (keeps what's written so far). |
With nothing selected, rewrite actions apply to the whole document. Results stream in live, and every AI edit is a single undo step.
Qwen > Image Studio (Ctrl+Shift+J) makes pictures from a prompt and edits ones you give it, with the Qwen-Image-2.1 model running locally through stable-diffusion.cpp — nothing is uploaded.
- Text to image: type a prompt, pick a size, and Generate. Live step previews show it forming; a progress bar and elapsed time keep you posted. Every result is saved to
images\<date>\with its prompt alongside. - Image editing: drag in, paste, or pick up to 10 reference images (or right-click an image in a note → ✦ Edit with Qwen), then describe the change. With references present, the prompt is an edit instruction.
- ✦ Improve Prompt: expands a short idea into a detailed prompt using the text model.
- From anywhere: a note's ⋯ > 🖼 Generate Image (drops the result into that note), the editor's right-click 🖼 Generate Image from Selection, or the Qwen menu.
- Do more with a result: Save As, Copy, Send to a sticky note, Use as Reference (to refine it), or Open Folder. A history strip shows the day's images.
- Shares the GPU automatically. Because the text model and the image model don't both fit on a small GPU, starting an image pauses the text model and loads the image one; after a few idle minutes it unloads and the text model returns. The status bar shows which is loaded.
One-time download (~11 GB), and licensing. The image model is fetched from Hugging Face on first use (Qwen > Image Model > Download Image Model). The default build pairs the Turbo model with an uncensored text encoder (refusal behavior removed), so it follows prompts literally; a standard encoder is also offered. The Qwen-Image-2.1 weights are under the Qwen Research License: personal, research and evaluation use only — commercial use needs a separate license from Alibaba. The only prompts QwenPad refuses are ones that sexualize minors.
Speed. Image generation is heavy. On a 4 GB GPU (GTX 1650), a 512×512 image takes about 2–3 minutes and 768×768 noticeably longer; 1024×1024 needs more VRAM. Pick a smaller size if generation runs out of memory. A stronger GPU is much faster.
New/Open/Save/Save As/Print · Find/Replace (match case, wrap, up/down) · Go To line · Word wrap · Font · Zoom (Ctrl+Plus/Minus/0, Ctrl+wheel) · Status bar (Ln/Col, zoom, line endings, encoding) · Time/Date (F5) · Drag-and-drop · Ctrl+Backspace word delete. It detects and preserves UTF-8, UTF-8 BOM, UTF-16 and ANSI encodings and CRLF/LF/CR line endings.
View > Theme: Use System Setting (default, switches live), Light, or Dark. It covers the title bar, menus, scrollbars, dialogs and note colors.
File
| Command | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| New | Ctrl+N |
| New Window | Ctrl+Shift+N |
| Open… | Ctrl+O |
| Save | Ctrl+S |
| Save As… | Ctrl+Shift+S |
| Print… | Ctrl+P |
| Exit | Alt+F4 (with notes on screen, they stay open and QwenPad goes to the tray) |
Edit
| Command | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Undo · Cut · Copy · Paste · Delete | Ctrl+Z · Ctrl+X · Ctrl+C · Ctrl+V · Del |
| Find… | Ctrl+F |
| Find Next / Find Previous | F3 / Shift+F3 |
| Replace… | Ctrl+R |
| Go To… | Ctrl+G |
| Select All | Ctrl+A |
| Time/Date | F5 |
| Right-click > Send to Sticky Note | Turns the selection into a note |
Format and View
| Command | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Format > Word Wrap | |
| Format > Font… | |
| View > Zoom In / Zoom Out / Restore Default Zoom | Ctrl+Plus / Ctrl+Minus / Ctrl+0 (or Ctrl+wheel) |
| View > Status Bar | |
| View > Theme > Use System Setting / Light / Dark |
Notes
| Command | Shortcut / notes |
|---|---|
| New Sticky Note | Ctrl+Shift+M |
| Note from Selection | Makes a note from the selected text |
| ✦ Summarize to Note | Qwen condenses the selection or document into a titled checklist note |
| Show All Notes / Hide All Notes | |
| Hide / Show All Notes (toggle) | Ctrl+H |
| 📌 Pin All Notes on Top / Unpin All Notes | |
| ☰ Notes List… | Ctrl+Shift+L |
| Clickable Images | Off by default; when on, clicking a note's image opens it |
| Keep Notes Open When QwenPad Closes | On by default |
| Open Notes When Windows Starts | Reopens your notes (without the editor or model) at sign-in |
| Restore Deleted Notes… | Brings back notes deleted in the last 30 days |
| Import Notes… | From another QwenPad folder or a backup |
| Open Notes Backups Folder | |
| (your notes) | Click one to show it or bring it to the front |
Qwen
| Command | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Ask Qwen… | Ctrl+K |
| Continue Writing | Ctrl+Enter |
| Rewrite > Improve Writing | Ctrl+Shift+I |
| Rewrite > Fix Spelling & Grammar | Ctrl+Shift+G |
| Rewrite > Make Shorter · Make Longer · Professional · Casual · Friendly Tone · Translate To… | |
| Summarize · Key Points | |
| ✦ Tasks From Email | Paste an email, get one task note per action item |
| 🖼 Image Studio… | Ctrl+Shift+J |
| 🖼 Generate Image from Selection… | Editor right-click, or the Qwen menu |
| Image Model > Download Image Model… · Stop Image Engine · Show Image Log | |
| Stop Generating | Esc |
| Start / Stop Local Model | |
| Model > (your models) · Download a Model… · Browse for a .gguf… | |
| Show Server Log · Settings… |
A sticky note's ⋯ menu and buttons
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| + button | New note (Ctrl+N) |
| 📌 button | Pin on top (Ctrl+P) |
| ✕ button | Hide (Ctrl+W) |
| Yellow · Green · Pink · Purple · Blue · Gray | Classic colors |
| 🎨 Themes ▸ | The 23 designs, grouped: Fall · Winter · Summer · Critters · Patterns · Sports |
| ✦ Ask Qwen… | Ctrl+K |
| Add Image or GIF… | Also paste or drag and drop |
| ✏ Draw | Pen, brush, eraser, five colors, three sizes, undo, clear |
| Pin on Top of All Windows | Ctrl+P |
| Opacity | 100% to 30% (the whole note) |
| Background Art | Full art down to a faint watermark (a design's artwork only) |
| Layer > Bring to Front · Move Forward · Move Back · Send to Back | Ctrl+scroll moves forward or back |
| ☰ Notes List… | |
| Insert into Document | Pastes the note into the editor |
| Delete Note | Ctrl+D (to the trash) |
| Format bar | B I U S A (font color) • (bullets) 🖼 (image) ✏ (draw) |
| Right-click an image | Open · Copy · Size (Small / Medium / Large / Full Width) · Remove from Note |
Notes List and tray icon
| Where | Keys / items |
|---|---|
| Notes List | Type to search · arrows to move · Enter to open · Delete to delete · Ctrl+N new note · Ctrl+F search · Esc close · right-click a card to Open, Show/Hide, Pin or Delete |
| Tray icon (while notes stay open) | Click to open QwenPad · Right-click: Open QwenPad · New Sticky Note · Notes List · Show All Notes · Open Notes When Windows Starts · Quit QwenPad |
Command line
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
QwenPad.exe |
Opens the editor (or brings back a QwenPad that's waiting in the tray) |
QwenPad.exe file.txt |
Opens a file |
QwenPad.exe --notes |
Opens just your sticky notes, with QwenPad in the tray (what "Open Notes When Windows Starts" uses) |
QwenPad.exe ──HTTP (127.0.0.1 only)──▶ llama-server.exe ──▶ your .gguf model
(WinForms, .NET Framework 4) (llama.cpp, CUDA/CPU)
QwenPad starts llama-server hidden in the background on launch (port 8765, localhost only) and stops it when you close the editor. It uses a Windows job object, so the model is unloaded even if the app crashes. Multiple QwenPad windows share one server. Qwen's "thinking" mode is disabled for snappy, answer-only output.
Folder layout (portable):
QwenPad.exe the app
QwenPad.ini settings (relative paths, so the folder can move)
runtime\llama\ llama.cpp server + CUDA runtime + VC++ runtime
runtime\sd\ stable-diffusion.cpp server (image generation)
models\ .gguf text models (Qwen > Model lists them all)
models\image\ the Qwen-Image model (downloaded on first use of Image Studio)
notes\ sticky notes as .txt (notes\.trash = deleted, kept 30 days)
backups\ automatic copies of notes\ (daily and on each update)
images\ images you generate, by date
logs\ model server logs (server.log, sd-server.log)
Qwen > Settings (or QwenPad.ini) controls the server path, model, server arguments (default -c 16384 --reasoning-budget 0), URL, max tokens and temperature. QwenPad talks to any OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions endpoint, so you can point it at an existing llama.cpp, LM Studio or Ollama server and turn off auto-start.
No SDK needed. It compiles with the C# compiler that ships with Windows.
git clone https://github.com/248Tech/QwenPad.git
cd QwenPad
.\build.cmd # -> QwenPad.exe
.\tools\fetch-runtime.ps1 # downloads llama.cpp into runtime\llama and stable-diffusion.cpp into runtime\sd
.\package.ps1 -Release # -> dist\QwenPad-v<ver>-win-x64.zip + SHA256SUMS.txtSource layout: src\MainForm.cs (editor, AI actions, image engine, tray), src\StickyNotes.cs (notes and their storage), src\NoteDesigns.cs (the designs), src\NotesList.cs, src\Sketch.cs (drawing), src\ImageStudio.cs (image generation UI), src\ImageClient.cs (sd-server client), src\LlmClient.cs (streaming client), src\ServerManager.cs, src\ModelDownloader.cs, src\Theme.cs, src\Dialogs.cs.
Can I use the sticky notes without the AI? Yes. Notes work fully without a model. The AI is there when you want it.
Can QwenPad make images? Yes — Qwen > Image Studio generates and edits images locally with Qwen-Image-2.1. It's a separate ~11 GB download, fetched on first use. The weights are under the Qwen Research License (research and evaluation use; commercial use needs a license from Alibaba). On a small GPU it's slow (minutes per image); a stronger GPU is much faster.
Why does the text model stop when I generate an image? The text and image models are large and don't both fit on a typical GPU, so QwenPad loads one at a time and swaps automatically. After a few idle minutes the image model unloads and the text model returns.
Will my notes stay on screen after I close QwenPad? Yes, by default. QwenPad waits in the tray with the model unloaded, and exits when you hide the last note or choose Quit QwenPad from the tray. Turn it off with Notes > Keep Notes Open When QwenPad Closes.
How do I get my notes back after a restart? Turn on Notes > Open Notes When Windows Starts, or just open QwenPad: notes always reopen where you left them.
I deleted a note by mistake. Use Notes > Restore Deleted Notes. Deleted notes are kept for 30 days, and backups\ has daily copies too.
Is it really offline? Yes. After the one-time model download, QwenPad makes no network requests other than to 127.0.0.1. You can block it in your firewall and everything still works.
Does it work without an NVIDIA GPU? Yes, on the CPU. Pick the 4B model for the best speed.
Can I use a different model? Any chat-capable GGUF that llama.cpp supports. Put it in models\ and select it under Qwen > Model.
Where is my data? Your documents are wherever you save them. Notes, backups and settings live in the QwenPad folder. Nothing is stored elsewhere, except an optional startup entry if you turn on Open Notes When Windows Starts.
QwenPad is released under the MIT License. Bundled and downloaded components keep their own licenses. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md. Qwen models are © Alibaba Cloud and licensed Apache-2.0. QwenPad is an independent project and is not affiliated with Alibaba, Qwen or Microsoft.
If QwenPad's sticky notes make your desktop nicer, please ⭐ star the repo. It helps others find it.