Scratch Files for Visual Studio

Download this extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace or get the CI build.

Instantly create temporary scratch files for quick notes, code snippets, and throwaway experiments — without cluttering your project. Think of it as a notepad that lives inside Visual Studio with full language support.

Features

Instant file creation with Ctrl+N

Press Ctrl+N to instantly create a new scratch file — no template dialog, no prompts. Just a blank editor ready to go. Files are auto-numbered (scratch1, scratch2, ...) and stored outside your project.

Scratch Files overview

Automatic language detection

Start typing and save — Scratch Files detects the language from your content and offers to apply syntax highlighting automatically via the InfoBar.

Language detection InfoBar

Click Change Language in the InfoBar to choose from every file type registered in Visual Studio. The picker shows a curated list of popular languages at the top and includes all VS-registered content types. You can also type a custom file extension directly.

Language picker dialog

Global and solution-scoped files

Global scratch files are stored in %APPDATA%\ScratchFiles and available across all sessions.
Solution scratch files are stored in .vs\ScratchFiles within your solution directory and travel with the solution.

New files are created in the Global scope by default. Use Move to Solution or Move to Global in the InfoBar to change the scope of any file.

Tool window showing global and solution files

Scratch Files tool window

Open via View > Other Windows > Scratch Files. The tool window shows all your scratch files organized by scope (Global vs. Solution) with file-type icons, a toolbar for creating new files, and a right-click context menu.

Drag and drop files and folders to reorganize them — just like Windows Explorer. Create subfolders via the context menu to keep your scratch files organized.

Save As...

Promote any scratch file to a real file. Click Save As... in the InfoBar to save a copy to My Documents (or wherever you like). The original scratch file is automatically cleaned up.

Keyboard shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
New scratch file	`Ctrl+N`

Options

Go to Tools > Options > Scratch Files to configure:

Setting	Default	Description
Override Ctrl+N	`true`	Replace the default File > New File template dialog with instant scratch file creation. Requires restart.

Contributing

This is a passion project, and contributions are welcome!

🐛 Found a bug? Open an issue
💡 Have an idea? Start a discussion
🔧 Want to contribute? Pull requests are always welcome

If this extension saves you time, consider:

⭐ Rating it on the Marketplace
💖 Sponsoring on GitHub

License

Apache 2.0

Scratch Files

Mads Kristensen