YouTube links and sticky notes belong on the board
A reference board gets better when it can hold more of the thinking around the work, not just the final still image. Reference now supports YouTube links that can be pasted or dropped straight onto the canvas, along with color-coded sticky notes that make it easier to mark intent, cluster ideas, and find them again later.
Video, without the friction
There are plenty of moments when the thing worth saving is not a frame but the movement around it. A camera move, a pacing idea, a texture in motion, a performance detail. You can now copy and paste a YouTube link into Reference or drag it directly onto the canvas, and the app pulls in the important metadata automatically so the video is recognizable later instead of turning into a bare URL.
That matters because most people do not save a video reference at the exact moment they are ready to use it. They save it because they think it might matter later. A title, source, and thumbnail go a long way toward making that later moment easier. The app is not trying to become an offline video locker, and it does not need to. It just needs to preserve enough context that the reference stays legible.
That is the real upgrade here. Video can now live on the board in a way that feels useful instead of provisional.
Sticky notes that think like a board
There is a similar idea behind sticky notes. Notes are most helpful when they behave less like documents and more like lightweight signals: a reminder, a question, a label for a cluster, a thought you want to keep near an image before it disappears. Sticky notes now come in different colors, which gives the board a little more structure without making it feel managed.
Color becomes a quick visual cue, but it is also practical. You can filter and search sticky notes easily, which means they do not get lost once a board starts getting dense. A yellow note can stay a to-do, a pink one can hold tone, a blue one can mark research, and the system stays flexible enough that you can decide what the colors mean.
Taken together, YouTube support and sticky notes push Reference further toward being a workspace instead of just a collection. The board does not simply store assets. It keeps the surrounding thought attached to them.