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Show HN: Minimalist editor that lives in browser, stores everything in the URL
I wanted to see how far I could go building a notes app using only what modern browsers already provide – no frameworks, no storage APIs, no build step.

What it does:

Single HTML file, no deps, 111 loc

Notes live in the URL hash (shareable links!)

Auto-compressed with CompressionStream

Plain-text editor (contenteditable)

History support

Page title from first # heading

Respects light/dark mode

No storage, cookies, or tracking

The entire app is the page source.

https://textarea.my/

Funny how I made almost exactly the same but for maps.

I needed a way to share a link to a map, with drawings and the ability for the receiver to see their own location on the map.

Annotated screenshots solves the first but not the second.

Vibe engineered this, with many of the same ideas as OP.

Took an evening. Just in time apps for one specific use case is a thing.

And because it's so cheap to make and can be hosted cheaply with no backend, it can be given away for free.

https://nyman.re/mapdraw/#l=60.172108%2C24.941458&z=16&d=LU8...

> Vibe engineered

While I'm all for vibe coding as appropriate, there's a lot of humor to be found it calling it engineering. :D

this is not something I came up with, Simon wrote it and I liked the differentiation between "vibe coding" where there is less effort

for this case project I think I would actually go back and say it's vibe coded, but I didn't want to just call it vibe coding because I did spend time going back and forth and directing the agent

https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/7/vibe-engineering/

Interesting distinction. I've previously heard vibe coding described as "vibe prompting, but you actually do some work." That aside though, I just call what you're describing as coding with AI.
coding with AI is coding just as much as coding with VSCode is coding. you decide which parts you get help from a given tool and which you don’t. end of the day, it is all coding and “coding with AI” sounds as silly as “coding with keyboard / microphone”
The first part is exactly my point, but the latter is nonsense in my book. You cannot ask VSCode (pre-AI) to write a program for you. It's akin to doing math with AI vs. an Nspire CAS. There's no reason to think you need to respond to those who shame vibe coding with claims that we shouldn't differentiate our tools, but we also shouldn't just say it's all the same. We wouldn't claim that about farming with a laser-powered weed killer compared to farming with a horse-drawn plow.
I suspected it needed to be directed with a specification to call it vibe engineered
Fair. Though it seems that half of engineering is just giving a respectable name to whatever actually works.
For software, but that's a well trodden path at this point. I've seen a few projects that are actually "vibe engineering" outside of software on the 3d modeling side so the terms are confusing.
I've been a fan of Design-Assisted Developer or DAD
I just hope actual engineers don't start vibe engineering bridges and buildings.
What is funny about it?
Great tool! There is a little issue with the +/- zoom buttons not working something cause it is over layed by other div blocks. On mac firefox.

Is the code open source online somewhere?

thanks for the info, I'll see if I can get a agent to fix it

it's a static webpage, the source is available with right-click view source, I added a BSD2 licence header to it to make clear it's fine to take and do mostly whatever with

Yeah just would be good on a codeberg or gitlab or maybe even github repo. So we can do PR.

Here is the fix:

.leaflet-top, .leaflet-left{ z-index: 100000; /* some high number */ }

hmm, I tried it on firefox and it works for me, and for me .leaflet-top already has a high z-index: 1000;

although I run 140.6.0esr so maybe newer ones need a even higher one?

the code is on GH now https://github.com/gnyman/mapdraw , codeberg is on my todo

Could try the hacky 2147483647 max z-index. No issue on android firefox
Looks useful but doesn't work quite as expected for me.

In Vivaldi location tracking doesn't work. Version 7.7.3851.66 (Official Build) (64-bit) Chromium Version 142.0.7444.245 Extended Stable channel (may also include additional security patches) Channel Official Build Platform / OS Linux - linuxmint 21.3

And in Firefox 146.0.1 on the same machine the URL doesn't get updated.

I put a copy of the source on GH in case in case someone wants to improve things https://github.com/gnyman/mapdraw
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But not well tested. Try to create a map and copy the url to another map. Now change the first map with more anotations or move the map center and copy the generated url and paste it into the other map on the other browser. That does not work (at least for me on different browsers).
I think I know what you mean, thanks for the report, if you modify the # part on a webpage it's not the same as reloading it, and I doubt I watch for that part changing
That is absolutely great! Using it now to plan a trip.

Could we also add text annotations? Also the delete button could delete just the last shape or a selected shape so as not to start over?

Love this. Can't tell you how many times I've screenshotted maps then drawn on directions for family/friends. Great idea.
This is so cool!! The responsiveness of the page is so much better than any maps app I have used.
yeah, isn't it impressive how fast modern computers can be if you make a bit of effort, in this case I think I told it to just use plain javascript and make sure it's fast :-)
This is pretty cool!

And if you are open to bug reports.. if I move around the drawings move smoothly with the map, but if I zoom in/out the drawings move only after the map zooming animation ends, rather than smoothly

Really cool—this is the fastest-loading map I’ve ever used.
Is this open source?
it's a static webpage, the source is available with right-click view source, I added a BSD2 licence header to it to make clear it's fine to take and do mostly whatever with
This is very cool!
Per the spec [0], a URL can hold at least 8,000 characters.

> It is RECOMMENDED that all senders and recipients support, at a minimum, URIs with lengths of 8000 octets in protocol elements. Note that this implies some structures and on-wire representations (for example, the request line in HTTP/1.1) will necessarily be larger in some cases.

Mainstream browsers support at least 64,000 characters [1], and Chrome supports up to 2MB [2].

[0]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110#section-4.1-5

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/417184/

[2]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/docs/s...

  • medv
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Chrome limit is 2MB, Firefox is 1MB, WebKit is no limit.

Here is the Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky:

- https://medv.io/goto/crime-and-punishment-by-fyodor-dostoevs...

For what it's worth, there might be a 2GB limit on the iOS side.

https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-corelibs-foundation/blob/...

Incredible.

My absolute favorite thing about modernity is how enabled we are to riff on a riff of a riff.

In 1346, if a blacksmith came up with something cool, its quite possible that it died with them.

  • Kye
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One thing I've learned from checking up on assumptions I've had about history is that it's easy to underestimate people in past times. They were probably better at communicating this stuff than you think.
I can open the page with the book text on mobile Safari, but iOS seems to cut off content when trying to copy/share the page URL. I can't get it to survive a round-trip to Notes. Might be a good thing to note for mobile users that if they write too much attempting to save their link will corrupt it.
I find it interesting that when you read this comment, the whole book is already on your computer. And it gets rendered when your press the link.

Edit: actually not true since you use a url shortener

This unfortunately immediately crashed my android firefox nightly browser. Amusingly it loaded the page, but one click on the address bar sent me straight to the home screen
For me on IronFox it showed an empty URL bar but loaded after what felt like 5 seconds.
Interesting, in Firefox mobile (actually fennec) if I tap the address bar, I get an empty text box.

EDIT: actually I can edit the URL, but it takes a while to load.

hmmm makes me wonder if you could train llms on gzipped text. would save a lot of tokens that way.
First time I tried to open that link on my Pixel, it crashed Chrome, lol. Worked the second time though
LOL Tapping the address bar crashed my Chrome on mobile.
loaded OK for me on mobile safari.
Loaded fine for me too -- but like parent, tapping the address bar to share afterwards crashed it on Android here :)
My Firefox on mobile seemingly handled it fine.
Works fine on Win11 Edge
I guess the surveillance industry has enough incentives to make this ever larger, so they can fit more utm-trackers, campaign-ids, referal trackers and whatnot in URLs.

It's truly insane how large typical share-URLS for content on instagram, youtube or any other large platforms are. URLs that could've been example.com/t/some-large-enough-id?time=13337 are stuffed with hundreds of characters, just to gather more data on people using these links.

> Per the spec [0], a URL can hold at least 8,000 characters.

> It is RECOMMENDED that all senders and recipients support, at a minimum, URIs with lengths of 8000 octets in protocol elements.

It is always worth remembering that, unless you have already ensured that the content has been rendered into a URI-safe subset of ASCII, a character and an octet are not the same thing.

Very good point indeed. In the worst case scenario, you would only have 1/5th of that capacity
What could the reasoning behind allowing anything beyond 64.000 characters possibly been? Even 64k seems unnecessarily large.
Was just working on something similar this morning. As an fyi you can avoid the string replacing in the base64 string by using `.toBase64({ alphabet: "base64url" })` and `fromBase64({ alphabet: "base64url"})`.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

Like many others in the replies, I too built something similar. I built a PWA that lets you share files via a URL. https://urlfile.app

It also has a note/plain text sharing option.

I did something similar with a spreadsheet years ago. It's lkudgy, but it works. You have to tab away from the input box and refresh the page, iirc.

https://gabrielsroka.github.io/webpages/calc.htm#a1:=Rate=3....

  https://gabrielsroka.github.io/webpages/calc.htm#a1:=Rate=3.875;a2:=Years=30;a3:=NPer=Years*12;a4:=PV=644000;a5:=Pmt=Math.round(Math.pmt(Rate/12/100,NPer,PV)*100+1)/100;rows:5;cols:1
More examples https://gabrielsroka.github.io/webpages/

It's about 130 js loc

I am thinking from a piracy perspective. If I share a link that contains a book, what can be done from DCMA or legal regulators? They can't ask the server (textarea.my) to remove the link because it doesn't exist.

They can't track every website with the link and ask to be removed, either.

Could they ask textarea.my to not parse the link and thus, not display the content? Could textarea.my refuse?

I would hope not. The copyrighted content seems to be the link rather than anything in the app.

Your example sounds like stopping notepad from rendering copyrighted content

From a technical perspective, you're absolutely correct.

From a regulatory perspective, it seems unlikely that most courts would appreciate the difference. In their mind - you run a website, and that website contains copyrighted content. Take it down.

You'd probably have to just blacklist the link in question to avoid a legal headache.

In this case I'd say the link is the content. So it would be the place where you share the link, rather than the "rendering page", which should be more worried
  • fsmv
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A book won't fit in the URL anyway even with compression
Someone in another comment posted Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, so a book fits in the URL. It is just that the URL is ~500000 characters :-P (the book itself is ~1.2M characters)
  • growt
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I recently build a small framework to create JavaScript apps that use this kind of URL sharing and therefore don’t require a backend: https://github.com/grothkopp/lost.js
You claim no tracking, and yet there's a Cloudflare Web Analytics beacon placed at the bottom of the page (thankfully filtered out by uBlock Origin)
By the look on the issues there, it seems the rest of the post is not that true either

Edit. Call me a hater, but... I know the guy! That's the guy from Google whose code never works in the most hilarious ways! See issues on the rest of his pinned repos.

I really like this from a privacy point of view. So much so that I'm thinking about adding a purely URL-storage solution as an option in my https://kraa.io editor.
From a privacy point of view, you might not want to use textarea.my since it includes some tracking bits at the end:

    <script defer src="https://static.cloudflareinsights.com/beacon.min.js/vcd15cbe7772f49c399c6a5babf22c1241717689176015" integrity="sha512-ZpsOmlRQV6y907TI0dKBHq9Md29nnaEIPlkf84rnaERnq6zvWvPUqr2ft8M1aS28oN72PdrCzSjY4U6VaAw1EQ==" data-cf-beacon='{"version":"2024.11.0","token":"6a22b097a2b44fa4af0a95817ce96ab5","r":1,"server_timing":{"name":{"cfCacheStatus":true,"cfEdge":true,"cfExtPri":true,"cfL4":true,"cfOrigin":true,"cfSpeedBrain":true},"location_startswith":null}}' crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
The tracking isn’t in the html, and as it’s static, you can host it any other way you like

https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.githubusercontent...

Start writing / Leaf list Settings Press on "add tag to filter by" Type any character

Aand im dropped back to empty editor with just that one character visible

(Firefox 146.0.1 (Build #2016132551), 86bb7f6af6312ba3c0161085f854bcdff68f1a91 GV: 146.0.1-20251217121356 AS: 146.0.2 OS: Android 14)

  • WD-42
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From a privacy point of view how is it any better than just using a local, native text editor?
From purely privacy point of view it’s not. But if you also want markdown features, custom typography and easy sharing, this starts to make more sense.
shameless plug: i built something very similar but nobody cared: https://github.com/AlexW00/Buffertab
I've seen a few others on HN this year, I'm pretty sure.
Voice typing is a cool feature, have you considered whisper wasm instead of OpenAI api?
Think you've inadvertently found a way to provide extra tests for mobile devices.

The Crime and Punishment one consistently crashes Brave mobile for me. I assume it's the length of the URL - and seen another commentator say the same for chrome mobile (sure they both use the same codebase so likely an upstream issue).

  • ctenb
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I made something similar once, specifically targetted for guitar tablature https://tabviewer.app/ To make links shorter for sharing with others, I use a shortlink service. Pasting URLs of thousands of characters long can be problematic
  • planb
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Wow funny I‘m just seeing this after posting my tab editor in another comment. I have the same use case as you :)

https://github.com/planbnet/guitartabs

Here's one I took from somewhere and optimized that is just a bookmarklet, so there's nothing remote:

data:text/html,<title>Notepad</title><textarea autofocus spellcheck=0 style="position:fixed;inset:0;padding:1em;border:0;font:monospace">

Your text actually survives a reboot in Chrome.

Can anyone think of a way to store the textarea value in the URL? I tried using JS to set a # but it's nonsensical in this context.

Edit: here's the best I could do:

data:text/html,<title>Notepad</title><textarea id=t autofocus spellcheck=0 style=position:fixed;inset:0;padding:2em;border:0;font:monospace></textarea><a id=s style=position:fixed;top:10px;right:10px>Right-click Open to save...</a><script>[,P,S]=location.href.slice(15).match(/(.<textarea[^>]>)[^]?(<\/textarea>.)/),t.oninput=U=_=>s.href='data:text/html,'+P+encodeURIComponent(t.value.replace(/&/g,'&amp;').replace(/<\/textarea/g,'&lt;/textarea'))+S,U()</script>

  • ooxoo
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The performance issues may be due to using `text-wrap-style: pretty`. Try switching the value to `stable`. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/P...
Nice! I made a similar thing but the html for the text editor fits in a data uri, so it can be a bookmark or new tab page for taking quick notes

https://gist.github.com/smcllns/8b727361ce4cf55cbc017faaefbb...

Cool project, but loading "Crime and Punishment" crashed my mobile browser.

I don't think urls were built for that kind of punishment.

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I think it was the text-wrap-style value. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/P...
I built a very similar experiment about 10 days ago and shared it here (the post is in Chinese):https://x.com/nake13/status/2000401664923324439

My focus was on finding a good text→URL-slug compression strategy. I used ChatGPT-5.2-Pro mainly to explore and compare different compression approaches and trade-offs.

  • medv
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In case you missed it: it is possible to style textarea via CSS and share it.

- https://textarea.my/#TYuxDcIwEEWpmeKUCiSIJQoKU0KFRBUWOGwnWDi...

I have something tangentially similar here: https://jsgist.org

If you click save you get the option to use a URL.

The problem with a URL every edit is a new URL. So you send the URL to a friend, then fix a typo, they need a new URL.

The other problem is of course the space limit.

I love this. Great little html page to refresh on Javascript.

For fun I put it in chatgpt and asked if there are bugs.

It warned about fromBase64() and toBase64() not existing in main browsers. It is supported but is indeed a new "baseline 2025"feature. It suggested more compatible code using two small functions to convert characters manually.

"deflate-raw is not consistently supported." It suggested using 'deflate' instead.

caveat emptor re long hashtag techniques on (ipad) safari ...

you may think safari has no effective url limit (i.e. very high) but if you ever treat a url within the url bar as editable you are at risk to be silently truncated to 4096 bytes (eg select a character in the url bar and replace it)

also re-testing potential ~buffer limits in various ways on ipadOS 26.2 safari just now slowed my safari ui down to a crawl

eg after saving example.com with ~20k #hashtag to reading list -- each keystroke in this reply was taking several seconds, so I had to force quit safari and retype to post this warning

Amazing. The crime and punishment example crashed my iPhone’s Google Chrome when I tap the URL haha
Nice! I love this.

I built Ponder in the same vein. It, however, has 10 files. I did not use the URL, did not have double the fun, and now I’m sad.

https://github.com/codazoda/ponder

I exploit the similar idea for teaching: https://lnkd.in/gsySKda4

Students are lazy, in a good way, so they are more likely to run things on their own and play with interactive bits if the whole lecture is just one link.

I used the same principle to let people write their own emergency notes in a secure way: https://weexpire.org
I have a similar one using localStorage https://github.com/mkaz/browser-pad
I've implemented the same idea a few years ago: https://pastila.nl/
  • medv
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It uses DB at the backend.
  • planb
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A few weeks ago I vibe coded a guitar tab editor just because I wanted to share a quick tab in a chat group with my band. When the first prototype already worked great, I just couldn’t stop to add features so that it now even has mouseover chord diagrams and copy and paste.

The sharing works just like here, by encoding the tab itself in the url.

https://github.com/planbnet/guitartabs

Brings this to mind: https://hashify.me/IyBUaXRsZQ==
> Respects light/dark mode

Not really… using js to change the CSS on the go is not a good practice. Why does it matter? Because of the “dark mode” browser extensions. They often use the presence of @media query (or other standard CSS means of setting dark mode colors), and if it’s the JS that changes the colors we often get partial Dark Mode, which does not work at all.

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No js is used for colors.
Oh. I retract my comment, I just read the code. My Dark Mode extension just sucks.
I remember another one that was popular years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17459204
Neat. But why would you auto-set the title from markdown heading syntax when it doesn’t support markdown? (Or any rich text in fact)
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You can still write markdown. Nobody prevents you.
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Why store in the URL and make it bloated? Isn't storing in local storage enough?
The point is you can share it anywhere very easily.
I love this.

Now if you bootstrap the app code into the url too then you can have a minimal kernel to run any machine in url.

Then you can also make a Quine somehow.

Seems like we have all built something similar.

hopefully mine can stand out with all the extra features i have managed to cram in

This is very interesting, very refreshing, very simple and clever, very well done, very everything good. Bravo and thank you.
TypeScript playground does effectively the same thing for shared links, though it doesn't live-update as you type.
I wrote a similar app when mathbin was shutting down. It allows about 1500 characters of mathjax-displayed notes. [1]

[1]: https://davidlowryduda.com/mathshare/

I too built a one (text is stored in localstorage)

https://gourav.io/devtools/notepad

Thanks for sharing! I tried a similar content-in-url approach for a family grocery list app but I couldn't get the url that short. (It worked but it was a bit cumbersome sharing over Whatsapp.) Will see what I can learn from this!
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I created a similar app just 2 days ago targeting Whatsapp (https://linqshare.com) . Context: In my locality, EA, we normally have Whatsapp groups raising funds for whatever reason; for every content edit, the admin has to copy-edit-paste updated content(which contains name and amount) to the group. This small app intends to provide a table that's easy to convey this info. App stores content in the url but a preview image (needed for Whatsapp share) is stored at R2. Let me know if you want the source code running at Cloudflare.

--edit-- test link: https://linqshare.com/#eJxtkM9KxDAQxl-lzLmHrv8Ova3IHlz04BY8F...

In Firefox, https://textarea.my shows up as as a completely static non-actionable white page. Just white, with default cursor. No errors on the console.
I wonder if this can be paired with a local URL shortener? Chaining this with a local URL shortener can mean access to any doc with a single letter (or very letters).
I keep this in the bookmark bar for the times I need a place to paste a quick bit of text (but it doesn't persist):

data:text/html, <html contenteditable>

Use xem's version [1] if you need persistence:

    <body id=b contentEditable onload=b[i="innerHTML"]=[(l=localStorage).c] oninput=l.c=b[i]>
[1] https://xem.github.io/postit/
  • qbane
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Just started making my own recently with CodeMirror 6 during holidays. No saving function for now: https://qbane.github.io/cgm
  • sltkr
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Something similar by Eric Wastl (of Advent of Code fame): https://topaz.github.io/paste/
First I think it's still loading because it's only white

but when I hit the keyboard I can see my it's is already loaded

Good job!

My own plug, translate between SQL dialects, state stored in URL so you can share it:

https://sqlscope.netlify.app/

Love your other tools, btw!
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Thanks!
Are <head>, <body>, and </html> missing intentionally?

Safari 15.6.1: Unhandled Promise Rejection: ReferenceError: Can't find variable: CompressionStream

I probably shouldn’t presume to speak for the OP, but given that they’re optional, I would think so, yes.
I feel this is more of a fun toy project because if i used it every day my browser history cache and browser performance would get annihilated
let's not forget the og itty.bitty.site [0]

[0]: http://about.bitty.site/

Yes, this was the one I was thinking of!
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Crashes my mobile chromium browsers when I try to open crime and punishment.

Firefox seems to work.

I like this because most of the time I need random stuff—numbers, quick searches, or ideas—and this helps instantly.
I think a couple of days ago I stumbled upon your editor in corp Google intranets when I was looking for internal tool to pretty print some json, small world :)
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The http://go/fmt-err? =) Yes, it is mine.
Very nice exploration of URL-as-state. The approach is elegant, but the mobile crashes highlight how hostile real-world URL handling still is once links leave the browser.
546,229 character-length URL for the Crime and Punishment example.

Half a megabyte for a URL. That certainly is a thing.

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This hack has completely disrupted my afternoon! Perhaps even forever after.
Can you make it monospace by default, so that this can be used as a code snippet bin?
  • medv
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Sure! textarea.my support custom style attr: https://textarea.my/#Ky4tSlVUyCotLlEoLUhJLElVKC6pzElVSCwpKWJ...
How do you share after that? I can open devtools and change the attribute but the URL doesn't update after that.
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Update the text a bit to trigger save event.
Try https://a10z.co/note
This is a code editor with the same url idea:

https://flems.io/

love it, funny enough, I had similar idea pop into my head some weeks ago, just to be able to store quick notes and favorite them in my browser for later
The compression is nice, you can fit very long (low-entropy ;-) messages in there - this one is 9k characters:

https://textarea.my/#7cGBAAAAAMMgzfmTHORVAQAAAAAAAADAuwE=

this is indeed minimalistic :)
It would be neat if ctrl+s offered to download the textarea to a .txt file.
The only thing missing is markdown and few themes. I think this is awesome idea for sharing. Love what you did with it.
I like these kinds of projects, but adding a file export/import is inevitable. It's less about the limits of a URL and more about practicality.

I also have no way to confirm that URLs aren't logged server side, so I'd never trust the claim about "no tracking". That's why these projects also end up self-hosted.

hash part of url only available in the browser, as far as I know, server doesn’t have access to # value
very easy for the server to intentionally (or by compromise) add a one liner to send the hash text up.
Typos and URL mangles are common though, and I'd still have no way to confirm if it got logged in that case. It's out of scope for anything in the github source, and instead depends on the server hosting the page. I know this isn't meant to be super secure, but it's still worth a mention.
Typos aren't making the hash part turn into something else. Like your parent comment explained to you, the hash part is not sent to the server. If you go out of your way to mangle the URL then of course a mangled URL without hash will likely get logged to the server. But I'm not sure how one would manage to go so much out of the way that they mangle the URL in a way that removes the hash.
You don't have a choice pasting links into some apps. They may strip out query and hash components, percent encode, force URL shortener services, etc.

Percent encoding is particularly bad since it may also bloat the length causing truncation and the decompress to fail. There's endless footguns with URLs.

Love it!
Can you save anything?
https://textarea.my/#i0wtBgA=
  • sltkr
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  • 1 day ago
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No that should be: https://textarea.my/#c8yrLMnIzEsHAA==
More like: https://textarea.my/#c8yrLMnIzEu3BwA=
Not OP: sure, just bookmark it
kinda -- but then you have to re-bookmark it every time you update it...
  • medv
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  • 1 day ago
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It also saves to localStorage
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  • 1 day ago
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  • rane
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  • 1 day ago
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Now what if it didn't pollute browser history
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