Inkolio User Manual

Inkolio is a focused note-taking application for writers and thinkers. Notes are stored as plain Markdown files and enhanced with activity tracking, smart filters, and an intelligent editor.

Creating and Opening Notes

Click the accent-coloured New Note button in the top toolbar, or press Cmd+N, to create a new note instantly. Press and hold New Note to open the file-type menu for code and text files.
New notes are always written to disk as .md files. If you have a default vault configured, the file is created there. If you do not, Inkolio creates the file in its own App Notes folder automatically, so a new blank note still survives a restart.
The new note opens with its title field focused and selected, so you can type a title right away without clicking into it first.
Click any note row in the Side Panel to open it in a new tab in the editor. If the note is already open in a tab, clicking it switches to that tab.

Tabs

Notes open in a row of tabs above the editor. Tabs persist across sessions so you can pick up where you left off. When your last session included notes from linked vaults, Inkolio waits for those vaults to finish their startup scan before restoring the tabs, so folder-backed notes are not dropped just because their vault is still loading.

Opening and switching tabs

Clicking a note in the Side Panel opens it in a new tab. If it is already open, the existing tab becomes active.
Creating a new note, importing a file, or duplicating a note always opens the result in a new tab.
Click any tab to switch to it.

Closing tabs

Click the × on a tab to close it.
Press Cmd+W to close the active tab.
Closing a tab activates the tab to its left (or right if there is none).

Tab limit and overflow

Up to 20 recent tabs can be kept, plus any pinned tabs.
When the window is too narrow to show every tab cleanly, tabs that do not fit move into the ··· menu. The active tab stays visible whenever possible.

Tab Pinning

Hover over any tab to reveal the pin icon. Click it to pin the tab.
Pinned tabs are anchored to the left of the tab bar and are never evicted by the 20-tab limit.
A pinned tab's close button is replaced by the pin icon; click it again to unpin and restore the close button.
The ··· overflow menu groups hidden tabs under Pinned and Recent headings.

Details panel pinned — active tab position

When the Details panel is pinned open, the active tab moves to the far-left position in the tab bar so it always sits flush against the left edge of the joined note + Details shape. Tabs return to their natural order when the panel is unpinned or closed.

Layout Overview

The app window is divided into three columns:

Side Toolbar — The narrow strip on the far left. Contains buttons for Notes, Collections, tag grouping, note list views, and the File Tree.
Side Panel — The note list. Shows all your notes filtered, sorted, and grouped according to your current settings. Includes the search bar, Filters, Smart Views, Resume, and Actions panels.
Note Panel — The main editor area on the right where you read and write notes.

On macOS, the app toolbar lives in the native title bar area: the Space switcher, search, New Note, View mode/sidebar controls, Archive/Trash, and Settings sit to the right of the Side Panel while the system close/minimise/maximise buttons stay in their normal top-left position. Empty title bar space across the top edge can be dragged to move the window. The Side Toolbar and Side Panel begin lower than the window buttons so their first items line up with the top of the note tabs. When the Side Panel is hidden, the Space switcher and search field line up with the left edge of the note area instead of drifting into the hidden panel space. When the window gets narrow, the title bar search field compresses before the app enforces its minimum width, keeping a small gap before New Note.

Use the Dual Workspace button in the top toolbar to split the editor area into two independent workspaces. Click inside a workspace to make it active; in dual mode, the active workspace's existing tab and note outline turns to the theme accent colour and connects cleanly around the active tab so you can tell where toolbar actions and newly opened notes will go. Neobrutalism uses a heavier active outline to match its bolder theme style, including when note tabs are hidden. Drag the divider between the workspaces to resize them, or press the Dual Workspace button again to return to one workspace. A small swap button (same icon as the Split-view Swap button) sits near the bottom of the divider — click it to transpose which workspace shows on the left versus the right; each side keeps its own width.

The Side Toolbar is the narrow vertical bar on the far left of the window. Use it to switch what the Side Panel shows. The active selection is highlighted in the accent colour and is remembered between sessions.

The toolbar can be collapsed to icon-only mode using the chevron button at the bottom. In collapsed mode the panel labels are hidden, leaving just the icons.

Side Panel hidden mode — The hide/show button in the top toolbar (and Cmd+Shift+D when you are not typing in the editor) is the only way to show or hide the Side Panel. While the panel is hidden, clicking the Notes, Files, or Actions icons in the Side Toolbar still switches which mode is selected, but no longer re-opens the panel — use the hide/show button or Cmd+Shift+D to bring it back.

Primary Modes

The primary buttons set what the Side Panel shows:

Notes list — The standard notes Side Panel with search, filters, Smart Views, and all note views.
Articles — Shows only captured articles, identified by article frontmatter. It uses the same note rows, sorting, grouping, filters, and click-to-open behaviour as Notes, so captured articles still open as normal Markdown notes.
Tasks — A cross-note task list. Shows every open checkbox item from all non-archived notes, grouped by note. Click a checkbox to mark the task complete directly from this panel. Click the note title to open it. Use the search bar to filter tasks by text or note title.
Bookmarks — A cross-note link list. Shows every hyperlink found in all non-archived notes, grouped by note. Click a link to open it in your browser. Click ↗ or the note title to navigate to the source note. Use the search bar to filter by link text, URL, or note title.

Note List Views

These buttons are active when Notes list mode is selected. Clicking one also switches to Notes list mode automatically. The Notes icon remains highlighted whenever any notes sub-view is active, so you can always tell at a glance that you are in notes mode.

Collections — Browse collections in the active Space and the notes inside the selected collection.
File Tree — Browse notes by watched vault and file path. The Recent and Favorites sections list frequently accessed and starred notes; items in those sections are indented to align with the section label.
List — A compact list showing the title, date, and metadata.
Preview — Shows a short, plain-text excerpt of the note's content beneath the title. Markdown formatting is removed, and task markers are displayed as checkbox symbols: ☐ for incomplete tasks and ☑ for completed tasks. When no search is active, the excerpt shows the first line of the note. When a search is active, the excerpt jumps to the matching text, places the match near the front of the preview so it stays visible in the one-line note row, and highlights it in yellow. The icon shows four thin bars when you are in a different view and two tall bars when Preview is active. Clicking the Preview icon while already in Preview mode switches back to List view.
Timeline — Groups notes into temporal buckets: Today, Yesterday, This Week, and older.
A–Z — Lists all notes in strict alphabetical order by title, ignoring the current sort setting.
Bursts — An attention dashboard that surfaces open actions, mentions, links, review items, stale notes, and recent activity across all your notes.

When Tasks or Bookmarks mode is active, the note sub-view icons (Tags, Preview, Timeline, A–Z, Bursts) are dimmed to indicate they apply only to notes mode. Clicking any of them switches back to Notes mode automatically.

In the Notes list and Timeline views, click a note row to focus/select it, then press Delete to move that note to Trash. On some Mac keyboards and packaged builds, the same physical key may be delivered as Backspace; Inkolio treats it the same way when a note row is selected. Delete is ignored while you are typing in an inline text field such as rename.

Notes Sub-section: Recents, Favorites & Timeline

Hovering the Notes button reveals a small chevron. In the collapsed (icon-only) toolbar the chevron appears centred directly beneath the Notes icon and only while you are hovering the button; in the expanded toolbar it sits at the right edge of the row. Click it to expand a sub-section containing three shortcuts:

Recents — Shows notes you have recently touched — opened, edited, modified, or created — within the last couple of weeks. It always keeps a minimum number of notes on hand even if you've been away, so the list is never empty, and it expands automatically the more actively you work — up to a maximum of 30 notes, so a busy stretch can't flood the list. The newest real touch time decides both which notes appear and how they are ordered. Date labels use local calendar days, so a note touched late last night is labelled Yesterday, not Today just because it was less than 24 hours ago.
Favorites — Shows only notes you have starred.
Timeline — Switches the notes list into the Timeline view, which groups notes into collapsible time bands (Today, Yesterday, Earlier This Week, Last Week, Earlier This Month, Older) down a vertical rail, each note marked with a coloured activity dot (see Activity Tracking and Intelligence below). The rail and dots keep their alignment and the dots remain filled in every theme, including Thunder with borders hidden. Selecting it keeps you in Notes mode and highlights the Timeline shortcut. While in Timeline view the control row's Sort button becomes a Newest first / Oldest first chooser that reverses the band order.

Recents and Favorites display the same note list as the main Notes mode — with the same search, filters, and Collections sub-section — while relabelling the panel header accordingly. Recents keeps its last-touched ordering; Favorites follows the normal note-list sort control. Selecting a collection scopes Recents or Favorites to that collection, so you can quickly see recent or starred notes inside a specific collection. Each shortcut is its own highlighted selection in the toolbar, and the choice is remembered between sessions.

The Notes, Recents, Favorites, and Timeline panel titles share the same header controls. The filter icon shows the filter row; when the row is visible, it changes to a slashed-filter icon that hides the row again. The single chevron hides or shows the entire Collections block, including its Collections label row, while the Collections row's own chevron only expands or collapses the collection list inside that block. When the note list is grouped, the double chevron expands or collapses those grouped note sections; in Timeline, it expands or collapses the date headers.

Clicking the main Notes icon returns to the full notes panel — including the Collections sub-section — and exits the Timeline view back to the standard list. Choosing Recents or Favorites also exits the Timeline view.

The chevron simply expands or collapses the sub-section. It works the same way whether the toolbar is expanded or collapsed to icon-only mode, though in collapsed mode it is only visible while you hover the Notes icon. You can collapse the sub-section at any time, even while a shortcut is the active selection — the active view stays put.

When the sub-section is open, a dotted guide line visually groups Recents, Favorites, and Timeline under Notes. The line appears in both collapsed and expanded toolbar modes, remains visible even when theme borders are disabled, and breaks cleanly around each transparent shortcut icon.

Tag Grouping

The tag icon toggles grouping by tag in the notes Side Panel. Tag grouping applies only to List and Preview views; the icon appears faded in Timeline, A–Z, and Bursts views to indicate it is not active there.

The Side Panel

The Side Panel lists all your notes and provides tools for finding and organising them.

The panel opens at a minimum width of 296 px. Drag its right edge to resize it. The width is shared across all three side panel modes — Notes, Collections, and File Tree — and is remembered between sessions.

Search

Type in the search bar to filter notes by title or content in real time. Only notes whose title or body contain the search string are shown. Matching text is highlighted in yellow in the note title and in the currently open note. In the note list preview, the excerpt jumps to the matching body text, keeps the searched string visible near the start of the row, and shows surrounding context.

Search also highlights matches inside the currently open note's body. As you type, every occurrence of the search string is highlighted directly in the editor — in both Rich and Markdown/Source modes. This works from the search bar in any panel: Notes, Tasks, Bookmarks, and File Tree.

Click the × that appears inside the search field to clear the search query while keeping any other active filters. A second × beside the field clears all active filters at once.

Filters

The Filters section is collapsible. Click the filter button in the Notes header to show or hide the filter controls. The button stays accented while any filter is active, so you can keep the controls tucked away without losing track of a narrowed list.

Below the search bar, several filter strips let you narrow the list:

Time — Today, This Week, or Stale (not touched in 14 or more days).
Status — Active, Draft, or Archived, based on the note's operational state.
Activity — ↑ active shows notes with 5 or more edits; ↓ quiet shows notes with fewer than 2.
Favourites — star favorites shows only notes you have starred.
Tags — Click any tag chip to show only notes carrying that tag. You can select multiple tags at once — the list then shows notes carrying any of the selected tags, and each active tag appears as its own removable chip.

Click an active filter a second time to clear it. Use the × button beside the search field to clear all active filters at once.

Smart Views

Click Views to expand the Smart Views panel. Smart Views are pre-built filters that update automatically:

Recently Active — Notes edited today.
Needs Review — Notes flagged by the review queue.
Stale — Notes untouched for 14 or more days.
Active Drafts — Notes in Draft status edited within the last 30 days.
Never Revisited — Notes opened only once, created more than 3 days ago.
High Activity — Notes with 5 or more edits.
Archived — Notes in the Archived state.
Favorites — All notes you have starred.

Activating a Smart View overrides the manual filters. Click the active view again to clear it.

Note List Controls

A control row below the search bar lets you adjust how notes are grouped, sorted, and displayed. These settings apply to List and Preview views.

Group — Choose how notes are grouped:

None — No grouping; notes appear in a flat list.
Collection — Grouped by the collection they belong to.
Tag — Grouped by tag. Notes with multiple tags appear under each matching group.
Date — Grouped by last-edited date bucket (Today, Yesterday, This Week, etc.).
Status — Grouped by operational state (Active, Draft, Archived).
Space — Grouped by Space.
Vault — Grouped by source vault. In-app notes appear under App Notes; notes from linked folders use that vault's display name.
A–Z — Grouped by the first letter of the title into five alphabetical bands of roughly equal coverage: A–E, F–J, K–O, P–T, and U–Z. Titles starting with a number or symbol (and untitled notes) collect under a # group. Empty bands are hidden.
Type — Grouped by file type: .md for app-native notes, or the file's extension (.js, .py, and so on) for code and text files.

Sort — Order notes within each group by:

Last edited — Most recently changed first (the default).
Date created — Newest first.
A–Z — Alphabetical order by title.
Status — By operational state.
Priority — By activity-based priority score.
Vault — Alphabetically by source vault, with notes inside each vault still falling back to most recently changed first.
Type — Alphabetically by file type (.md, .js, .py, and so on).

Starred (favourite) notes always float to the top regardless of sort order.

Last edited reflects note body edits only. Changing metadata such as title, tags, status, Space, or Collection does not move a note to the top of the Last edited sort, and simply opening or viewing a note does not change its last-edited time. (Use the Actions panel's Recent view to order notes by when you last opened or otherwise touched them.)

Because every note is backed by a Markdown file on disk, a note's Last edited time is taken from the file itself. On startup Inkolio reconciles each note's stored time with the file's actual modification time, so timestamps stay accurate across restarts and even if a note's file was changed outside the app.

Filter chips — The note list starts with every document class selected, including Notes (.md) and Article, so both plain Markdown notes and captured articles are shown by default. Captured articles are their own document class even though they're stored as ordinary Markdown files — uncheck Article in the filter menu to hide them, or uncheck Notes (.md) to hide plain notes while keeping articles visible; the two toggles are independent, so either can be on or off regardless of the other. The default chip is informational until you narrow the list with a specific file-type filter; while every file-type is selected, chips have no x and Clear all is hidden because there is nothing removable. Once you deselect at least one document class, the remaining active chips show an x, and Clear all appears. Creating a file from the New Note hold menu automatically enables the file-type filter that matches the new file (Code for code files, Docs for text files), so a just-created file is never hidden by the current filter.

Filter menu — The funnel button in the control row opens the filter menu, grouped into sections separated by dividers: document class (Notes (.md), Article, Docs, Code, Drawing, Canvas), ★ Favorites, Status (Active, Draft, Archived), and Date Range (Today, This Week, Stale). Document class and Favorites are independent toggles — check as many as you like with a square tick-box, and the list shows notes matching any checked option. Status and Date Range are each single-choice within their own group, shown with a plain checkmark instead of a tick-box — choosing one clears any other selection in that same group, and choosing the active one again clears it. The menu stays open while you toggle options so you can combine several filters in one pass.

Display menu — Use the sliders button in the note-list control row to choose the row density and show or hide note-row metadata chips. The density choices are:

1 line — The tightest row. Shows the title and any enabled metadata chips, but hides the preview text.
2 lines — Shows the title, a one-line preview, time, and enabled chips.
3 lines — Shows the title, up to two preview lines, and the fullest chip layout.

Canvas and Drawing files show a Canvas / Drawing type label in place of a content preview, since their underlying file is structured data rather than readable text.

In the same menu you can toggle Status Chip, Path Chip, Collection Chip, Space Chip, Tag Chip, and Time Stamp independently. Path Chip means the vault/source chip shown in note rows, not the full file path string. Timeline view also follows the same display settings: 1-line density hides timeline excerpts, while 3-line density can show longer excerpts.

View presets — Use the eye button beside the display menu to save the current note-list setup as a preset. Presets capture grouping, sorting, filters, tag selections, file-type chips, timeline order, display density, and chip visibility. You can save up to six presets, apply one from the menu, update it with the current controls, rename it, or delete it. Hover a preset row to reveal ↑/↓ arrows for reordering it in the list. Presets are view agnostic: applying one adjusts the list controls of whichever view you are in — Notes, Recents, Favorites, or Timeline — without switching views, and the same active preset carries across all of them.

In Timeline view the control row adapts: the Group control is disabled (Timeline always groups by time band) and the Sort control switches to a Timeline order chooser — Newest first or Oldest first — which flips both the order of the time bands and the notes inside them. The choice is remembered between sessions.

Timeline rows use an activity rail with dots to show each note's place in time. The rail and dot alignment is tuned per theme, including the bolder Neobrutalism row treatment, so the visual guide stays aligned with the note markers.

The Group, Sort, Filter, and Tag Filter controls are fixed-width buttons that do not resize with the panel.

Group by Tag

Use the tag icon in the Side Toolbar to group notes by their tags. Tag grouping applies to List and Preview views only; in Timeline, A–Z, and Bursts views the icon appears faded to show that grouping is not active there. Each tag group can be collapsed individually by clicking the group header.

Inline Title Editing

Double-click a note's title in the Side Panel to edit it in place. Press Enter to save or Escape to cancel.

Spaces, Collections, and Files

Spaces and Collections help you organise notes without changing the note body.

Spaces

Use the Space switcher at the top of the Side Panel or Collections view to change the active Space.
Open the Space switcher menu to create a new Space.
When creating or editing a Space, choose an optional icon from the built-in icon grid. Use the search field to filter the available icons, or clear the icon to show the Space colour/default marker instead.
The active Space controls which collections and notes are shown.
Opening a note from another Space — When Spaces only show space-specific notes is on (Settings → Editor), opening a note that lives in a different Space — for example by clicking a chip in the Actions panel's Bursts or Recent views, a Task or Bookmark result, or a search hit — now automatically switches the active Space to that note's Space so the note actually opens. Previously the new tab was hidden by the filter and you were left on whichever note was first in the current Space.

Collections

Click the Collections icon in the Side Toolbar to open the Collections view.
The Inbox collection is the default destination for new or moved notes in a Space.
In the default Space, Inbox also shows notes that are not assigned to any collection, plus notes whose saved collection no longer exists. Notes already assigned to another real collection stay out of Inbox.
Click a collection to show its notes. The Collections header can be collapsed or expanded.
Use + New Collection in the notes Side Panel, the + button in Collections view, or the inline + New Collection entry at the bottom of the collections list to create a collection in the active Space. The inline entry shows a text field; press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel.
Hover a collection row to reveal two action buttons on the right. The pencil icon renames the collection inline — edit the name and press Enter to save or Escape to cancel. The trash icon deletes the collection; its notes are not deleted but moved back to the Space's Inbox. If Warn before deleting is enabled, a confirmation dialog appears first. The Inbox collection cannot be renamed or deleted.
Right-click a note and use Move to collection to move it without opening the Details panel.

File Tree

Click the File Tree icon in the Side Toolbar to browse vault-backed notes by folder and file path.
The top In-app Notes section shows notes managed by Inkolio itself. These notes are still plain Markdown files on disk, but Inkolio stores them in its app data folder unless you move them to a default or linked vault. It sits at the top of the same list as your linked vaults, but it isn't one — it's always present whenever you have unfiled notes, even after unlinking every vault, so don't mistake it for a leftover linked folder. Inkolio periodically checks that folder against disk: any file placed there directly (or left over from an earlier issue) that isn't yet a note is picked up and added automatically, and a note whose file was deleted outside the app moves to Trash (or is removed, if it was already in Archive or Trash).
Configure watched vaults in Settings → Vaults. Linking a vault also loads Markdown, code, and other supported text files from its nested folders and reproduces that hierarchy in the File Tree. On sandboxed macOS builds, such as TestFlight or the Mac App Store version, Inkolio stores the folder permission granted by the picker so the vault can reopen after relaunch. If a linked vault shows an empty or unreadable status, use Rescan to try again or Re-authorize to reopen the folder picker and refresh the app's access to that vault.
Linked vault roots show a small link icon after the vault name in the File Tree. Very long vault names are shortened with an ellipsis so the icon and any status/count indicators stay on the same row.
If a vault's root folder is renamed, moved, or temporarily unavailable outside Inkolio, the File Tree keeps the vault in place and marks it Unavailable instead of unlinking it or dropping its notes. Right-click the unavailable vault and choose Locate Vault… to point Inkolio at the folder's new location, Retry to check the existing path again, or Remove Vault if you no longer want it linked. Locating a vault preserves the same vault identity, so Spaces, Collections, tags, tabs, and note history stay attached.
While a vault is being scanned, a Linking notes… indicator appears above the note list until the scan finishes.
Changes made outside Inkolio are picked up automatically. New files and Finder/cloud-sync renames appear after the next refresh; if you rename a file on disk, Inkolio updates the note's title and path while keeping it as the same note.
A refresh never disturbs the note you are editing: your unsaved typing always wins over what the refresh reads from disk, and if an open note's file genuinely changes outside Inkolio (another editor, cloud sync), the content updates in place with your cursor kept where it was.
Each sub-folder is indented one step beneath its parent, and a folder's notes line up directly under that folder's name, so the nesting reads at a glance.
Vault-backed notes can still belong to Spaces and Collections, but that membership is stored in Inkolio's local metadata rather than inside the Markdown file.
Expand / Collapse all — Hover over the Files section header to reveal two buttons at the right edge: the double-chevron-up icon collapses all folders at once, and the double-chevron-down icon expands all folders at once. Both buttons affect every folder in the tree simultaneously.
The File Tree remembers which folders were expanded and your scroll position when you switch to another Side Panel view and return.
Search in the File Tree filters by file and folder name using case-insensitive partial matching. Matching names are highlighted in the results. Note content and tags are not included. Folders whose names match appear in the results even if none of their files match; only files and subfolders that themselves match are shown beneath them.

The Editor

Selecting a note opens it in the editor panel on the right.

Title and Status

The large text field at the top is the note title. Edit it to rename the note. For Markdown notes stored on disk, Inkolio also renames the .md file to match the title. If a file with that name already exists, Inkolio appends a number instead of overwriting it. The note keeps the same identity, tabs, Space, Collection, tags, and status after the file is renamed.
Canvas and Drawing documents rename the same way while keeping their own file type: Canvas files stay .canvas, and Drawing files stay .excalidraw.
Use the status dropdown to set the note's operational state: Active, Draft, or Archived. This affects filtering and smart views.

Editor Modes

Four icon buttons appear at the top-right of the note title row when a note is open — hover any of them for its name.

Rich (eye icon) — A WYSIWYG editor that renders formatting as you type. Supports standard Markdown shortcuts such as bold and headings.
Markdown (code icon) — Raw Markdown source with a line-number gutter. Useful for direct text manipulation or pasting existing Markdown content.
Split (columns icon) — Shows Markdown and Rich panes side by side. Drag the divider to resize them. Use Settings → Editor → Sync scrolling in Split view to choose whether the two panes scroll together or independently.
Swap (arrows icon) — Swaps which pane appears on the left. Only enabled while in Split mode.

Notes always open in Rich mode by default. If you want each note to reopen in the mode you last used on it, turn on Settings → Editor → Remember editor mode per note; with it off, a mode switch lasts only while that note stays active.

Press Tab while the note title field is focused to jump straight into the note body, so you can title a note and begin writing without tabbing through the surrounding controls.

Word Wrap

When Markdown or Split mode is active (and always for code and text files, including HTML), a word wrap button appears in the note title row, just before the AI and info buttons. Click it to toggle word wrap on or off in the Markdown source editor or code editor. When enabled (the default), long lines wrap within the visible area; when disabled, long lines scroll horizontally. The setting is saved between sessions.

Details Panel

Click the info button in the note title row to open the Details panel. Use it to move the note between Spaces and Collections, change its operational status, add or remove tags, review timestamps, or delete the note. Pin the panel to keep it open while switching notes.

The panel has Details, Connections, and Outline tabs.

Outline — Available for Markdown notes and captured articles. It lists the note's headings as a clickable table of contents: click any heading to scroll the editor straight to that section. As you scroll, the heading nearest the top of the visible editor is highlighted so you always know where you are. Headings with sub-headings show a small chevron — click it to collapse or expand that branch, which is useful for tucking away sections you don't need while scanning a long note. Headings placed inside a blockquote or a collapsible section are not picked up by the outline; only headings written at the top level of the note appear.

If a note has no Markdown headings yet, the tab shows No headings found with a reminder to add headings (#, ##, ###, and so on) to build an outline. For document types that don't contain headings at all — code files, drawings, and canvases — the tab instead shows No outline available. This document type doesn't contain headings.

When pinned, the Details panel joins the note area into one seamless rectangle and the active tab shifts to the far left to connect with it. The app always reserves enough horizontal space for the Details panel — the window cannot be resized narrow enough to collapse the note area, whether the panel is pinned or not.

Reading View

Open the View mode menu in the top toolbar — the frame icon with a small caret, to the left of the hide/show sidebar button — and choose Reading (glasses icon) to open the current note as a distraction-free reading view. The same menu holds Normal and Focus, so all three view modes live behind one button. The view automatically matches whichever editor mode was active when you switched:

Rich mode — The note is rendered exactly as it appears in the rich editor, including diagrams, callouts, tables, and code blocks. The view is read-only; scroll with the mouse wheel or trackpad.
Markdown mode — The raw Markdown source is displayed in a monospace font so you can read the note's structure without editing it.

Reading view uses the same surface as the editor — the note title and content card keep the same position, width, and typography — so the note doesn't shift when you switch between editing, focus, and reading. The only difference is that it is read-only: there is no text cursor and no formatting toolbar. The outer panel is squared off in reading view while the inner note card keeps its rounded corners.

While reading view is open the side panel is hidden and the left icon rail is collapsed to its minimum width, giving the note the full width of the window. The top app toolbar stays in place with the same height and search-bar position as the normal editor.

To close reading view, choose Normal from the View mode menu — the View mode button stays highlighted while reading view is open — or press Escape. There is no separate close button inside the note.

The toolbar beneath the title provides formatting shortcuts:

Bold, Italic, Strikethrough — In the editor these also respond to the standard Cmd+B / Cmd+I shortcuts.
Headings — H1 through H6, plus Paragraph to convert the current heading back to normal body text.
Lists — Unordered and ordered
Blockquote and Code block
Link — Paste or type a URL. In Rich mode, any selected text becomes the link label.
Create Note Link — Insert a note-to-note link using [[Note Title]]. Click the note-link button, search for an existing note, then choose it to insert the link at the cursor. If text is selected first, that text becomes the visible alias, for example selecting capture workflow and choosing Article Capture inserts [[Article Capture|capture workflow]]. Choose Create "Name" to make a new note and link to it without leaving the current note.
Insert Drawing — Embed an existing or new Excalidraw drawing. See Drawing Embeds below.
Image — Choose a local image file. If the note is saved inside a vault, the image is copied into that vault's Assets/Images/ folder and referenced by a relative path; if the note isn't saved to a vault yet, the image is embedded directly as a Base64 data URL instead so nothing is lost. File-backed images preview normally in the editor. Older embedded Base64 images appear as lightweight placeholders until you convert them to vault image files.
Attach File — Attach any file — a PDF, spreadsheet, ZIP, or anything else — to the note. See File Attachments below.
Table — Inserts a Markdown table. See Editing Tables below.
Mermaid diagram — Inserts a flowchart, sequence diagram, or other Mermaid chart. Click the rendered diagram to toggle back to the source editor.
Today's date — Inserts the current date using the format selected in Settings → Editor → Default inserted date format.
Horizontal rule — Inserts a visual divider. In Markdown mode you can also type --- on its own line. Rich mode renders it as a divider without treating the surrounding note as frontmatter.

As the window narrows, the toolbar folds tools — grouped from right to left — into a + overflow button rather than wrapping onto a second line. Click + to open a scrollable menu of the hidden tools, organised under the same Text, Insert, Structure, Document, and More section labels as the inline toolbar.

Editing Tables

In Rich mode, move the pointer over any table cell to reveal its three-dot menu, or right-click a cell to open the same menu. Use it to add or delete rows and columns, move the current row up or down, move the current column left or right, or delete the table. Opening the menu from an unselected cell targets that cell; opening it from within a selected cell range keeps the range active.

While editing inside a table, press Tab to move to the next cell and Shift+Tab to move to the previous cell. Outside tables, Tab stays inside the editor instead of moving focus around the app UI.

Move the pointer over a vertical cell edge until it highlights blue, then drag horizontally to set that column's width. Drag the table's outer-right blue edge to resize the overall table. Resized columns use fixed pixel widths, and a table wider than the note scrolls horizontally.

Table and column widths are retained when you switch editor modes, close the note, or reopen it. Standard pipe-table Markdown cannot store widths, so a resized table appears as HTML in Markdown mode; untouched tables remain normal pipe-table Markdown.

Slash Commands

Press / while editing a note to open the command menu at the cursor in Rich or Markdown mode. Continue typing to filter commands, use the arrow keys to move through the results, then press Enter or Tab to insert the selected item. Press Escape to close the menu.

The Today's Date slash command uses the same saved date format as the toolbar date button. The Paragraph command (under the Heading group) clears heading formatting from the current line and returns it to normal body text.

Note Links and Backlinks

Use wiki-style links to connect notes together while keeping the Markdown portable:

Type [[ in Rich, Markdown, or Split mode to open the note picker at the cursor. Continue typing to filter notes, use the arrow keys to move through results, then press Enter or Tab to insert the highlighted note. Press Escape or click outside to close the picker.
Use the formatting toolbar's Create Note Link button when you prefer to search explicitly. The picker includes a search field so you can find notes in large libraries. With no selection, the link is inserted at the caret. With selected text, the selection becomes the alias.
[[Note Title]] displays as the note title. [[Note Title|Readable label]] displays the alias while still linking to the target note.
In Markdown mode, Cmd-click a resolved note link to open it. In Rich mode, click or use the link context menu. Right-click a note link for Open, Open in New Tab, Open in Other Pane, Copy Note Link, Find Replacement, and Remove Link actions.
If a link points to a missing note, it is styled as unresolved. Activate it or open its context menu to Create Note, Find Replacement, or Remove Link. Removing a link keeps its visible text as plain text.
Renaming a note updates incoming [[Old Title]] links to the new title while preserving aliases. Deleting a linked note leaves the source Markdown unchanged and turns the reference into an unresolved link until a matching note exists again.
The Connections tab of the note's info panel lists Linked from (notes that link to the current note) alongside Links to and Unresolved, under a Note Links heading. Click an unresolved row there to open the same replacement picker beside that row. The same tab also shows drawing embed relationships under Note Links — see Drawing Embeds below — and, further down, a Canvas Connections section listing any canvases that reference this note.

YAML Frontmatter

YAML frontmatter is a block of metadata placed at the very top of a note, delimited by --- fences — for example a block containing title: My Note and tags: (with each tag on its own indented line) between two --- lines.

Frontmatter is edited as raw YAML in Markdown mode only — it never renders inline in Rich mode. Insert or jump to it via the toolbar FM button or the Frontmatter slash command: pressing it inserts a starter block (if none exists yet) and switches you straight to Markdown mode so it's visible; pressing it again when frontmatter already exists is a no-op. In Markdown mode's source view, the frontmatter block is set apart from the rest of the note with a tinted background and a border under the closing --- fence, so it reads clearly as metadata rather than part of the note body.

A horizontal rule may also use ---. Inkolio only treats a fenced block at the top of a note as frontmatter when the content between the fences contains YAML-style key/value fields such as title: or tags:. Otherwise, each --- line remains a normal horizontal divider.

Collapsible Sections

Insert a collapsible (expand/collapse) section via the toolbar's Insert collapsible section button or the Collapsible slash command. It inserts a summary line and a content area beneath it; click the chevron to the left of the summary to expand or collapse the content. This maps to standard Markdown <details>/<summary> HTML, so it round-trips cleanly to and from Markdown mode.

File Operations

Access these via the ⋮ menu in the top-right of the toolbar:

Open file (Cmd+O) — Open an existing Markdown, text, or code file from disk directly in Inkolio.
Drag and drop — Drag a supported file (Markdown, drawing, canvas, or code file) from Finder anywhere onto the Inkolio window to open it, the same as Open file. On macOS, Inkolio can also be set as the default app for these file types via Get Info > Open with in Finder, so double-clicking .md, .excalidraw, .canvas, and supported code/text files opens Inkolio directly. Sandboxed macOS builds may ask for permission to read the file or its containing folder the first time.
Open/Link vault — Link a folder into the Files section as a watched vault. New supported files saved into a linked vault from Finder, Files, another editor, or cloud sync are picked up automatically when Inkolio regains focus, becomes visible again, or performs its periodic refresh. Renaming a file on disk updates the note's displayed title and path on the next refresh. When you choose a first vault and move existing App Notes into it, Inkolio shows progress while the notes are being moved; if the move fails, the notes remain safe in App Notes and you can try again. The untouched default Welcome to Inkolio seed note is not counted or moved, so a fresh install does not show a migration prompt just for that sample note; if you edit it, it becomes a normal note and can be migrated. Use Rescan if you want to refresh immediately.
Save (Cmd+S) — Save the current note to disk. If the note already has a file path, it saves in place. If it is an in-app note with no file path, it prompts you to choose a location (same as Save As…).
Save As… (Cmd+Shift+S) — Save the current note to a new location on disk. The file is linked and the in-app copy is removed.
Import .md (Cmd+Shift+U) — Create a new in-app note from a Markdown file. The file name becomes the note title. Any active sidebar filters are cleared so the new note is immediately visible.
Export .md — Save the current note to a .md file at a location of your choice without linking the vault.
Export PDF — Export the current note as a PDF file in US Letter format (8.5″×11″, 1-inch margins). Text reflows to fill the page correctly, long lines wrap rather than being clipped, and large code blocks paginate across pages automatically. Images and drawing embeds export as real pictures, not placeholder text, as long as they sit alone on their own line — an image mixed inline with surrounding text on the same line still exports as a text placeholder.
Warn before deleting — Toggle the delete confirmation dialog on or off. When enabled (the default), a prompt appears before any note or collection is deleted. Disable it here for faster deletions without confirmation.
Help — Set apart at the bottom of the menu. Opens this user manual — the same as pressing Cmd+Shift+/.

Convert URL and Captured Articles

Use ⋮ → Convert URL (Cmd+Shift+O) to turn a web article into a normal Inkolio Markdown note.

Enter or paste an article URL, then click Continue. If you omit the scheme, Inkolio assumes https://. http:// links are allowed, but the dialog warns that the connection is not secure.
Inkolio fetches the page, extracts the readable article, removes unsafe webpage content, converts it to Markdown, and shows a summary before anything is saved. Pages that require sign-in, are JavaScript-only, or do not contain readable article text may fail with a clear message.
Leave Auto-tag as article enabled if you want the saved note to receive a normal Inkolio article tag for filtering and organization. Turning it off does not change the required article frontmatter.
Click Save Article to save it. If you have a vault linked, the article is saved into that vault's Articles/ folder, with downloaded images saved into Assets/Articles/; otherwise it's saved into Inkolio's internal App Notes → Articles folder, with images in App Notes → Article Assets. Either way, the note uses relative image links, so captured articles keep working offline. See How Inkolio Stores Your Knowledge above.
Captured articles are ordinary Markdown notes. They open in the workspace that started the capture and support Rich, Markdown, Split, Reading, Focus, search, tags, collections, links, backlinks, rename, move, archive, trash, and export like any other note.
Use the Articles button in the Side Toolbar to show only captured articles in the Side Panel. Captured article rows use the newspaper icon; starred articles still show the favorite star.
If an image cannot be downloaded or is an unsupported format, Inkolio omits that image from the saved article instead of leaving a remote hotlink. If a webpage reports broken placeholder alt text such as undefined or null, Inkolio treats it as missing alt text instead of writing that word into the saved Markdown.
If you capture the same source article again, Inkolio asks whether to Update Existing, Capture as Copy, or Cancel. Update Existing refreshes the existing note and reuses its asset folder; Capture as Copy intentionally creates a second article.
Moving a captured article to Trash from inside Inkolio warns you that its locally downloaded article assets will also be removed. Inkolio only removes an asset folder it can explicitly identify as owned by that article. External deletion and ordinary notes do not trigger article-asset cleanup.

Pasting from external sources

Inkolio converts rich content from the clipboard when you paste from Word, ChatGPT, Notion, Google Docs, or similar sources.

Markdown mode — HTML clipboard content is fully converted to Markdown syntax. Headings, bold, italic, lists, code blocks, tables, and links are all preserved.
Rich mode — Paragraph structure is preserved so pasted text arrives as separate blocks rather than a single run of continuous text.
Text wins over preview images — Some apps, especially spreadsheets, put both text and an image preview on the clipboard. When plain text is present, Inkolio pastes the characters or numbers instead of inserting the preview image.
Pasting or dragging an image — Copy an image (e.g. a screenshot) and paste it directly into a note in any mode, or drag a PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, or SVG image from Finder onto the note. It's inserted the same way as an image inserted via the formatting toolbar's Image button — copied into the vault's Assets/Images/ folder when the note is saved there, or embedded as a self-contained Base64 data URL otherwise — with an alt-text label derived from the image's filename when it has one. Images larger than 5MB are rejected with a warning instead of being inserted, either way. In sandboxed macOS builds, if Inkolio cannot read a dragged image from disk, it shows a warning instead of silently doing nothing.

Canvas Documents

Create a Canvas when you want a spatial map of notes, files, links, text blocks, and groups. Canvases save automatically as you work.

Click New Canvas in the top toolbar to create a blank canvas.
Right-click empty canvas space, or use the canvas toolbar's + button, to add Text, Group, Link, Note, or File nodes. Right-clicking empty canvas space also adds layout helpers below a divider: Tidy, Organize Canvas, Pack Canvas, Fit Canvas to View, and Rearrange Connections.
Drag an existing note or file node over a group to add it to that group. A node belongs to the group when more than half of the node sits inside the group's bounds.
Right-click a note, file, text, or link node and choose Add To Group or Move To Group to assign it from a picker instead of dragging. If there are no groups yet, Inkolio asks for a group name and creates one around the item instead.
Select two or more notes/items, then right-click one selected item and choose Group Selection to name a new group around them. The selected items become members of that new group.
When a node belongs to a group, dragging the group moves its linked member nodes with it. Notes added to a group during the current session behave the same as notes that were already saved in that group.
Click a note inside a selected group directly to select or open the note; you do not need to click empty canvas space first.
Right-click a group for Rename, Select Members, Tidy, Fit Group, Fit Group in View, and Ungroup. Fit Group resizes the group's frame around its current members without moving them; Fit Group in View only pans/zooms the viewport to show them. Ungroup removes the group frame but keeps the member nodes on the canvas.
Use the canvas toolbar's Search Canvas button, or press Cmd+F while the canvas is active, to find nodes on the canvas. Matching nodes can be focused and highlighted in place.
Use the canvas toolbar's More Actions menu for Tidy, Organize Canvas, Pack Canvas, Fit Selection to View, Fit Canvas to View, Reset Zoom, Minimap, Grid, Rearrange Connections, Default Connector Style, Group Selection, and Add Selection to Group. The bottom-left canvas controls provide 1:1 actual size, zoom in, zoom out, and fit-to-canvas.
Use the Pan Tool hand button when you want ordinary left-drag to pan the view. Turn it off to return left-drag to marquee selection. Holding Space while dragging also pans temporarily. While the Pan Tool is on, dragging over an expanded note or article body pans the canvas instead of placing the text cursor; turn the Pan Tool off when you want to edit that inline document. Labels and canvas controls still work normally while the Pan Tool is on.
Dragging note and file nodes follows the pointer immediately. The canvas records the new position when you release the drag, so long drags stay responsive while still saving automatically after drop.
Text nodes use an Obsidian-style interaction: drag the text box surface to move it, or double-click the box to edit its text. While you are not editing, the box still scrolls with the mouse wheel if its text is longer than the visible area.
Dragging a node or a group frame shows alignment guides whenever it lines up with another node's edge or center, and snaps into place within a small tolerance. Guides only appear while dragging and clear as soon as you release.
Selecting several nodes (Shift-click or a marquee) shows a bounding box around the whole selection in addition to each node's own outline, so a multi-selection reads clearly at a glance.
Connection handles on a node stay hidden until you hover it, select it, or start dragging a connection from it, so cards stay visually calm at rest. On resizable nodes, each side edge is split into three zones: drag the middle dot to connect, or drag the side-edge sections on either side of the dot to resize. Hovering a resizable node shows the same resize controls you see when it is selected.
Turn on Auto Layout (the crossed-arrows toolbar button) when you want the canvas to keep spacing tidy as you work. With Auto Layout on, moving a note or changing group membership refits affected group boundaries and pushes overlapping notes clear sideways (left or right, never up or down). Expanding or collapsing a note inside a group keeps the group's current visual rows: notes in the same row close up horizontally, and lower rows move down or back up when a taller row needs more or less room. When a group frame grows or shrinks, Auto Layout also keeps top-level items clear of each other by repacking the whole canvas — preserving which items currently share a row, so a sibling row is pushed down to make room rather than shuffled sideways or into an unrelated row. Dropping a node also re-picks which side each of its connectors exits from, so a connector doesn't keep pointing the wrong way after you move something — the manual Rearrange Connections action does the same thing as a one-shot pass across the whole canvas, any time.
A group frame can't be manually resized smaller than the space its members need — dragging a resize handle inward stops at the members' own bounds (plus a small margin) instead of letting the frame shrink to hide part of what's inside it.
Layout commands are named for exactly what they move — node-moving actions never share a name with viewport-only ones. Use Organize Canvas for a one-shot cleanup that separates overlapping notes and refits groups across the whole canvas while preserving the canvas's current visual rows. Use Tidy to line notes up along their top edge and close horizontal gaps: with two or more non-group nodes selected it applies to just the selection; with a single group selected (or via the group's own right-click menu) it applies to that group's members; otherwise it aligns the whole canvas by group and ungrouped runs. Tidy keeps existing rows and makes row-local spacing changes only; it does not turn a stacked layout into one long line. Use Fit Group (on a group's right-click menu, or the Info panel) to resize just that group's frame around its current members, without moving anything else. Use Pack Canvas for a one-shot pass that packs every group and ungrouped node into a neat, gap-separated layout across the whole canvas, preserving which items currently share a row — each group moves as a single unit, keeping its members' arrangement inside it unchanged. Fit Selection to View and Fit Canvas to View only pan and zoom to show content; they never move a node, create undo history, or trigger a save.
Zoom ranges from 10% to 400%. Zooming in magnifies the notes, content, connectors, and grid together rather than enlarging a snapshot of the view. Each canvas remembers where you left off — reopening it restores your last pan position and zoom level instead of re-fitting the whole canvas.

Canvas groups are visual containers with explicit membership. Moving a note visually into a group is enough to join it after the drag completes; moving it mostly outside the group removes that membership.

Canvas Connectors

Connectors are the arrows between nodes. Drag from a node's connection handle — hover a node to reveal its handles — to another node to create one. The side handles are larger when you hover their edge, and on resizable nodes the centered dot remains the connection target while the surrounding edge sections resize the node. Dragging a connector over note or text content will not select the text underneath. A connector carries an arrowhead showing its direction, follows its nodes as they move, and stays cleanly attached at every zoom level.

Change a connector's style. Right-click a connector for Edit Label, Connector Style, and Delete Connector. The Connector Style submenu offers four shapes: Curved, Straight, Step, and Smooth Step. Picking one updates the connector immediately, counts as a single undo step, and autosaves — its direction, label, colour, and endpoints are all preserved. Use the arrow keys and Enter/Escape to navigate the menu by keyboard.
Set a default for new connectors. Open More Actions → Default Connector Style and choose a shape. This controls only connectors you create afterwards on this canvas; existing connectors keep whatever style they already have. The default is remembered per canvas.
Imported canvases. Connectors from a canvas made in another JSON Canvas app keep their direction, labels, colours, and sides. Any that have no Inkolio style of their own are drawn with the current canvas default until you set one explicitly — opening such a file never rewrites it.

The Canvas Info Panel

Open the note info panel (the same panel every document type uses) while a canvas is active to see its Details and Connections tabs.

Details shows the canvas's own name, node/edge/group statistics, Collection, Space, Tags, and Created/Modified dates when nothing is selected on the canvas — or, when you select a node, edge, or group, that item's own details (its type, resolved path or text, membership, and the relevant actions like Open, Rename, or Remove).
Connections shows relationships instead. With nothing selected, it summarizes the whole canvas as Notes referenced, Articles referenced, Drawings referenced, and Files referenced, plus any unresolved references — each entry is clickable and pans/selects that node. Selecting a note or file node instead shows that node's Connected To and Connected From lists, built from the canvas's own edges; selecting an edge shows the same for its two endpoints. Clicking any entry selects the corresponding node on the canvas.

Editing Notes on the Canvas

A note node can expand in place into a full editor, so you can read and write notes without leaving the canvas.

Hover a note node and click the Expand button (⤢) in its top-right corner. The card grows into an editable document with the same editor as the normal note view — formatting, markdown shortcuts, tables, checklists, images, code blocks, and note links all work as usual. Edits save automatically to the note itself.
The expanded note's title bar holds Open in Pane — which opens the same note in the other editor pane while leaving the canvas copy expanded — and Collapse, which returns the card to its compact preview. Your edits, the node's position, and its connections are all kept.
Drag an expanded note by its title bar, or drag over its body while it is not being edited. Double-click the expanded note body to edit it; click outside the note or press Escape to return the body to move mode. The body still scrolls with the mouse wheel while it is in move mode. With the Pan Tool on, dragging over the body pans the canvas instead of editing text, which is useful when a large inline note or article fills the area you want to grab. Resize it from its edges or corners while it is hovered or selected (minimum 650 × 450); on side edges, drag the sections around the middle connection dot to resize, or drag the dot itself to connect. With Auto Layout on, expanding or collapsing a note that belongs to a group re-aligns that group's notes into a tidy left-to-right row and resizes the group's frame to fit, the same as Tidy, so the row — and the frame around it — packs and unpacks cleanly as notes open and close. If that resized group frame would overlap nearby groups or ungrouped nodes, the canvas also runs the same row-preserving pack used by Pack Canvas to make room — so a group growing taller pushes the row below it straight down, and collapsing snaps everything back into the row it started in. A note that isn't in a group instead returns any neighbours it nudged aside back to where they were once you collapse it. Collapsing returns the node to its compact size, and expanding again restores the size you had before.
You can keep several notes expanded at once, and each one remembers its own size and scroll position — saved with the canvas, so reopening the canvas restores your workspace exactly. Expansion is per-canvas presentation: the same note can be expanded on one canvas, compact on another, and open in the normal editor at the same time; the note's content is always the single source of truth.

Drawing Embeds

Click the New Drawing button (paintbrush icon) in the top toolbar, next to New Note and New Canvas, to create a standalone drawing and open it in its own tab straight away — see Opening a Drawing Directly below. Use this when you want a drawing on its own; to add a drawing inside a note instead, use the steps below.

Insert an existing or new Excalidraw drawing into a note as an inline preview. The drawing is always its own file in Drawings/ — a note only stores a reference to it, so removing an embed never deletes the drawing, and the same drawing can be embedded in as many notes as you like.

Click Insert Drawing in the formatting toolbar to open the drawing picker. Search to filter, or click an existing drawing to insert it at the cursor.
Choose Create New Drawing to make a new blank drawing, insert its reference into the current note, and open it for editing — in the other pane if Dual Workspace is available, or a new tab otherwise. The note you were writing in stays open and untouched.
In Rich and Split mode, an embed renders as a preview card: the drawing's name, a static preview image, its file path, and an Open ↗ button. Click the card to select it, then press Enter or click Open ↗ to open the drawing. Cmd-click (or Ctrl-click on Windows/Linux) anywhere on the card opens it directly in a new tab.
Right-click a card, or click its ⋯ button, for Open Drawing, Open in New Tab, Open in Other Pane, Refresh Preview, Replace Drawing, Hide/Show Header & Footer, Reveal on Disk, and Remove Embed.
Hide Header & Footer shows just the image, dropping the name and path bars — useful once you know which drawing it is and want it to feel less like a card and more like a picture. Toggle it back from the same menu at any time.
Remove Embed deletes only the reference from the note. The drawing file itself is never touched, even if it is embedded nowhere else.
In Markdown mode, embeds appear as their raw {{drawing:Drawings/Name.excalidraw}} syntax. Cmd-click (Ctrl-click on Windows/Linux) anywhere in the syntax to open the drawing; an ordinary click still positions the cursor for editing. Right-click for the same actions as the Rich mode card.
If a drawing is renamed or moved from inside Inkolio, every note that embeds it updates automatically. If a drawing's file is renamed, moved, or deleted outside Inkolio, embeds referencing the old location show a restrained "Drawing not found" state instead of disappearing — use Find Replacement to point the embed at another drawing, or Reveal Parent Folder to locate it on disk yourself.
The Details panel's Links tab traces drawing relationships: viewing a regular note shows Uses drawing for every drawing it embeds; viewing a drawing itself shows Embedded in for every note that references it. Click a row to open it.

Opening a Drawing Directly

A drawing is also a normal file in Drawings/ that you can open on its own tab, not just as an embed — click it in the sidebar or Files section like any other note.

The drawing opens full-size in its own Excalidraw canvas. Draw, move, and edit shapes as usual; changes save automatically as you work, so there is no separate Save button for drawings.
Because a drawing has no Markdown content, the note title row shows only the info button — Rich, Markdown, Split, Swap, word wrap, and AI tools do not apply and are hidden. Dual Workspace, Focus Mode, and the tab's own file actions (rename, move, delete) work the same as for any other file.
The info button opens Drawing details instead of Note details. It has the same Space, Collection, status, tags, and timestamp fields as a note, plus a Delete drawing action. Its Links tab shows only Embedded in — the notes that reference this drawing — since a drawing has no wiki-links of its own.
The canvas's own menu button (top-left of the canvas) offers Reset the canvas, Canvas background, Export image…, Find on canvas, Command palette, and Help. It intentionally does not include Excalidraw's hosted-app features (sign-in, live collaboration, library sharing) or its own theme toggle, since Inkolio saves and themes the drawing itself.

File Attachments

Attach any file — a PDF, spreadsheet, ZIP archive, or anything else — to a note. Unlike images, an attached file is never embedded in the note itself: it's copied into the vault's Assets/Files/ folder and the note keeps only an ordinary link to it, so the note stays small and the file stays easy to find on disk.

Click Attach File in the formatting toolbar and choose any file, or drag a file from Finder/Explorer straight into a note, to attach it. This requires the note to be saved inside a vault; if it isn't, Inkolio tells you so instead of attaching the file.
The original file name is kept — Inkolio never renames your files to something unreadable. A short suffix is appended to the stored copy's file name so multiple attachments can never collide, but the note's link always shows the clean original name.
Attaching the exact same file twice reuses the same stored copy instead of duplicating it. Attaching a different file that happens to share a name creates a separate copy — Inkolio checks the actual contents, not just the file name.
In Rich and Split mode, an attachment renders as a small card showing its file type and name. Click a card to select it, then press Enter, Cmd-click (Ctrl-click on Windows/Linux), or double-click to open it in the file's normal application.
Right-click a card for Open, Reveal in Finder, Copy Path, Replace File, and Remove Link. Replace File lets you choose a new file to take over this one link; the new file is copied in as its own attachment and only this link is updated, and the previous attachment is left on disk untouched. Remove Link removes the link from the note, keeping the visible text in place — it never deletes the attached file itself, even if nothing else links to it.
In Markdown mode, an attachment appears as a normal Markdown link, readable and clickable in any other Markdown-aware app too.
Moving or renaming a note inside Inkolio keeps its attachment links pointing at the right file automatically, including when the note moves into a different vault (the attached file is copied along with it). Links to anything else — other notes, web addresses — are never touched by this.

Code Files

Inkolio edits source code alongside your notes. Markdown remains the primary document type and is unchanged; code and text files simply open in a dedicated code editor inside the same editor panel, with the same top toolbar.

Supported file types

The correct editor is chosen automatically from the file extension. Markdown (.md) opens in the rich/markdown note editor. The following open in the code editor with syntax highlighting:

JavaScript — .js, .jsx, .mjs, .cjs
TypeScript — .ts, .tsx
JSON — .json
HTML — .html, .htm
CSS / SCSS — .css, .scss
Python — .py
Rust — .rs
Go, C#, C/C++, SQL — .go, .cs, .cpp/.cc/.cxx/.h/.hpp, .sql
VBA — .vbs, .bas, .vba, .cls

Plain text (.txt) and any other recognised code/config file (for example .yaml, .toml, .xml, .sh, .java, .vue, Dockerfile) open as editable plain text. Unknown or binary files are not shown.

Creating a code file

Click the accent-coloured New Note button in the top toolbar to create a Markdown note immediately. Press and hold New Note to open a menu of file types — each shown with its type icon. Choose Markdown Note, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, HTML, CSS, Python, Rust, C++, VBA, or a plain Text file. For code and text files, enter a name; Inkolio adds the correct extension automatically (.cpp for C++, .vbs for VBA, .txt for Text) and seeds a minimal template (for example {} for JSON or export {}; for TypeScript). The file is created and opened immediately in the code editor.

Creating a code or text file also switches on the matching Code or Docs file-type filter in the note list, so the new file is always visible in the Side Panel even if that file type was filtered out beforehand.

Files are saved through the normal note pipeline: if a default vault is set, the file is written there; otherwise it is stored in Inkolio's app data folder. Files opened from disk save back to their original location.

The code editor

The code editor provides:

Syntax highlighting for the languages listed above.
Line numbers, code folding (click the gutter arrows), bracket matching, and auto-closing of brackets and quotes. Line numbers sit in the left gutter with extra breathing room from the gutter edge.
Auto-indentation, full undo/redo, and find (Cmd/Ctrl+F).
Multiple cursors / column selection with Alt-click and Alt-drag.

The top toolbar is the same one used for notes, so Word wrap, Details, Delete, Reading view, and Focus mode all work for code files too. Two extra controls appear for code:

Format — Reformats the document. JSON is supported today (also Shift+Alt+F); the button only appears when a formatter is available.
Read-only (lock icon) — Toggles editing off so you can view a file without changing it. While read-only, editing and Format are disabled.

The footer at the bottom of the editor shows the code file's context in place of the note word-count: cursor line and column, the folder path, the language, the wrap state, and whether the file is Editable or Read-only.

Linked vaults and search

Linking a vault shows its code and config files in the File Tree alongside Markdown, each with a file-type badge. Dependency and build folders such as node_modules, .git, dist, and target are skipped. Global search indexes both file names and file contents for code files, so searching for a string inside settings.json or app.ts finds it, and opening that result lands you in the code editor.

Backlinks

Code files participate in references exactly like notes. A [[name]] reference resolves to a note by title or to a code file by its file name (with or without extension), and the Backlinks section in the Details panel lists everything that points at the current file — markdown or code.

Note Insights

The Insights panel appears at the bottom of the editor whenever Inkolio has suggestions for the open note. Click the Insights header to expand or collapse it.

Local suggestions (no AI required):

Title — A suggested title derived from the note content. Click it to apply immediately.
Status — A suggested operational state (Active, Draft, or Archived) with a brief reason. Click to apply.
Tags — Suggested tags based on the content. Click any pill to add the tag to the note.
Actions — Checkbox items found in the note body, listed for quick reference. Each item is shown with the same checkbox style used in the note's task list.
Duplicates — Notes with similar content are flagged here so you can review or merge them.

Each suggestion can be dismissed individually with the × button next to it.

If a local AI model is configured in Settings, an Analyse with AI button appears in the panel. Click it to send the note to your model for a deeper analysis. The AI results include a summary, additional tag suggestions, a title suggestion, and a recommended status. AI suggestions can also be dismissed individually. Click Clear to remove AI results and return to the local suggestions view.

Note Actions

Right-click any note row or note chip in the Side Panel to open a context menu. This works from List, Preview, Timeline, A–Z, Resume, Actions, and Bursts surfaces.

Favourite / Unfavourite — Toggle the note's starred status. Starred notes are pinned to the top of the list regardless of the current sort order.
Duplicate — Create an exact copy of the note immediately below it.
Open file location — Reveal the note's file in Finder or your system file manager. Works for vault-backed notes and for App Notes that have been saved to disk; disabled only for a brand-new App Note that hasn't been written to disk yet.
Move to collection — Move the note to another collection in the note's Space, including Inbox.
Move to space — Move the note to another Space. Inkolio places it in that Space's Inbox or first available collection.
Archive — Move the note to the Archive. Archived notes are hidden from the note list but kept intact; you can restore or permanently remove them from the Archive at any time (see Archive and Trash below).
Delete — Move the note to the Trash. The note leaves the note list but is not destroyed — you can restore it from the Trash. If Warn before deleting is enabled (the default), a confirmation dialog appears first.

Archive and Trash

Notes are never destroyed in a single click. Instead they move through two holding areas — the Archive for notes you want out of the way but kept, and the Trash for notes you intend to discard — so you always have a chance to recover them.

Two buttons near the right of the top toolbar open these areas: the box icon opens the Archive and the trash icon opens the Trash. They sit just to the left of Settings. When either holds notes, a small count badge appears on its button.

Archiving a note — Right-click a note and choose Archive, or use the Archive action wherever it appears. The note disappears from the note list, File Tree, and cross-note views, but its content is untouched.
Deleting a note — Choosing Delete moves the note to the Trash rather than erasing it. With Warn before deleting enabled, you are asked to confirm the move first.

Click the Archive or Trash button to open a window listing the notes held there, each with its title, source (App, File, or the vault name), and the date it was archived or trashed. From this window you can:

Restore — Return the note to the active note list and reopen it.
Move to Archive / Move to Trash — Shift a note between the two areas.
Remove from app — Delete Inkolio's record of the note. For a vault-backed note this only removes it from Inkolio; the .md file on disk is left in place.
Remove from disk — Send the underlying .md file to your system Trash and remove the note from Inkolio. This is the only action that touches the file on disk, and it is confirmed separately when Warn before deleting is enabled. If the file was already deleted outside the app, this simply removes the note record.

Each of these also has a bulk equivalent — Restore all, Remove all from app, and Remove all from disk — at the bottom of the window, applying the action to every note currently listed. The bulk removal actions ask for a single confirmation covering the whole batch. Restore, Remove from app, and Remove from disk are color-coded consistently between the per-note buttons and their bulk counterparts so the same action always reads the same color.

Organising with Vaults

Vault Setup

On a fresh install, Inkolio shows a full-screen Vault Setup screen before anything else, so you can choose where your notes live from the start.

Open Vault — Link an existing folder on disk.
New Vault — Create a brand-new, empty folder: choose a location, then give it a name.
The first vault you add becomes your default — new notes are saved there. Use + Add another vault to link more vaults in the same sitting, and Set as default on any vault in the list to make it the save location instead. Notes already in the outgoing default stay tracked; they're kept as a regular linked vault.
Skip for now closes the screen without setting up a vault — notes are still stored safely in Inkolio's own App Notes folder, exactly as if you'd never seen this screen.
If you already had notes stored in-app when you finish setup, Inkolio offers to move them into your new default vault — you can decline and leave them where they are.

Vault Setup only appears automatically once, on a genuinely fresh install — existing users are never interrupted by it. Run it again anytime from Settings → Vaults → Run vault setup again.

Vaults in Settings

Open Settings to configure vault support directly:

Default vault — Set a directory on disk. New notes are saved there as .md files and the vault is watched for changes made outside the app.
Additional vaults — Add more directories to read alongside the default vault. Notes from these vaults appear in the Side Panel with a source label.
Migrate notes — Move all in-app notes to the default vault as .md files. This is useful when you set up a vault after already creating notes.
Run vault setup again — Reopens the Vault Setup screen at any time, for the same add/create/set-default flow described above.

How Inkolio Stores Your Knowledge

Everything you create is stored as ordinary files inside a folder that you own. There is no proprietary database, no cloud-only storage, and no vendor lock-in. Your vault is simply a normal folder that you can browse in Finder or Explorer, back up, sync with your preferred cloud service, or open with other compatible applications.

Finding App Notes on disk — If you haven't linked a vault, notes are saved as .md files in Inkolio's own internal App Notes folder instead. The easiest way to find a specific file is to right-click the note and choose Open file location, which reveals it directly in Finder or Explorer; from there you can navigate up one level to see (and copy) the whole App Notes folder. If you'd rather go straight there, the default locations are:

macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/com.olioforge.inkolio/App Notes
Windows — %APPDATA%\com.olioforge.inkolio\App Notes
Linux — ~/.local/share/com.olioforge.inkolio/App Notes

Tags on Markdown notes are stored directly in YAML frontmatter, so they travel with the file when you copy it, sync it, or open it in another Markdown-aware editor. Drawings and canvases keep their tags in Inkolio's local index because their file formats do not have a standard frontmatter field.

The folder structure described below applies to notes that are saved inside an Inkolio vault (including Inkolio's own internal App Notes folder, which behaves like any other vault).

Creating a new vault — When you create a new Inkolio vault, Inkolio creates a standard folder structure for the content it manages:

Articles/
Drawings/
Canvases/
Assets/Images/
Assets/Articles/
Assets/Files/

These folders are managed automatically by Inkolio. Your own notes are not stored in a dedicated Notes folder — you are free to organise them however you like.

Linking an existing vault — If you link an existing Markdown vault (for example, an Obsidian vault), Inkolio leaves your existing folder structure unchanged. Special folders such as Articles, Drawings, Canvases, and Assets are created only when you first use those features, so Inkolio can work alongside existing vaults without reorganising them.

Notes — Plain .md files, either directly in the vault root or in whatever subfolders you've filed them into. There is no special Notes/ folder — organise your notes however makes the most sense for you. Notes remain compatible with other Markdown editors.
Articles — Captured webpages (via Convert URL) are stored as normal Markdown documents inside the Articles/ folder. Any images or other resources downloaded during capture are stored separately inside Assets/Articles/ — each captured article has its own asset folder, keeping the article itself clean, portable, and easy to back up.
Drawings — Stored as native Excalidraw (.excalidraw) files inside the Drawings/ folder. Because the original file format is preserved, drawings remain compatible with other tools that support Excalidraw. See Drawing Embeds above.
Canvases — Visual boards are stored as standard JSON Canvas (.canvas) files inside the Canvases/ folder. Canvases reference your existing notes rather than copying their contents.
Images — When you paste an image, drag one into a note, or insert one from disk, Inkolio stores the image inside Assets/Images/. Your note contains a standard Markdown image reference using a relative path, making your vault portable and easy to move or back up.
Files — You can attach almost any common file type, including PDF, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, ZIP archives, CSV/JSON files, audio, video, and many more. Attached files are copied into Assets/Files/, and your note stores a standard Markdown link using a relative path. In Rich mode, file links are displayed as file cards for easier browsing — from a card you can Open the file, Reveal it in Finder/Explorer, Copy its path, Replace the attached file, or Remove the link from the note (removing a link never deletes the underlying file). See File Attachments above.

Relative paths — Inkolio uses relative paths throughout your vault. This means you can move your vault to another computer, rename folders, reorganise your notes, sync using Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, or Git, or open your vault in another Markdown editor, without breaking links. When you move or copy notes between vaults using Inkolio, referenced images and attached files are copied as needed and links are updated automatically. Captured article assets remain associated with their original article and are not automatically relocated.

Compatibility — Inkolio stores your knowledge using open, widely supported formats:

Notes — Markdown (.md)
Articles — Markdown (.md)
Drawings — Excalidraw (.excalidraw)
Canvases — JSON Canvas (.canvas)
Images — Original image format (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, SVG)
Files — Original file format

Your knowledge is never stored in a proprietary format.

Existing notes — Older notes containing embedded (Base64) images remain supported, but large embedded images are not decoded automatically when a note opens. In Rich or Reading mode they appear as lightweight Embedded Base64 image placeholders so the app stays responsive. Click Convert on a placeholder to scan the currently open file-backed Markdown note, including notes in additional linked vaults. Or use Extract Embedded Images to Vault in Settings to run the vault-wide extraction tool for your default vault. This is entirely optional and preserves the note if a conversion cannot complete. Existing vaults and previously captured articles remain fully supported.

Your data — Everything you create remains as ordinary files inside your vault. You can browse them in Finder or Explorer, back them up, sync them using your preferred cloud service, edit them with compatible applications, share your vault with others, and keep complete ownership of your knowledge. Inkolio's job is to organise and connect your knowledge — not to own it. Tags are stored as YAML frontmatter inside each Markdown note, so they travel with the file too.

Your Knowledge Travels With Your Files

One of Inkolio's core design principles is that your knowledge should remain part of your files wherever they go.

For Markdown notes and captured articles, the information that describes your knowledge is stored directly inside the file using open standards wherever possible. This includes:

Tags — stored in YAML frontmatter.
Links to other notes — using standard Markdown wiki links ([[Note Title]]).
The relationships between your notes — automatically reconstructed by reading those links. Backlinks are never stored separately; Inkolio simply looks at which notes link to the one you're viewing.

Because this information lives with the note itself, you can open the same vault in another Markdown application, synchronise your vault between computers, edit notes outside Inkolio, and come back to Inkolio without losing your knowledge graph.

For example, a file containing this:

---
tags:
  - planning
  - architecture
---
# Sprint Planning
See also [[Architecture]] and [[Release Checklist]]

is everything Inkolio needs to understand the note's tags, its links to other notes, its backlinks (derived automatically from those incoming links), and its place in your knowledge graph — all from ordinary, readable text.

Drawings and Canvases work a little differently, since the .excalidraw and .canvas formats have no standard place for tags — those remain part of Inkolio's own file organisation rather than embedded in the file. Visual elements such as window layouts, panel arrangements, recent files, and other application preferences are also stored separately, since they describe how you work rather than the knowledge itself.

Our goal is simple: if another application opens your vault tomorrow, it should still understand your knowledge. It may not reproduce Inkolio's interface, but it should never lose your thinking.

Activity Tracking and Intelligence

Inkolio tracks how you interact with notes without any manual input:

Every note open and every edit is logged automatically.
Notes with higher recent activity are shown with a colour-coded indicator dot in the Timeline view. Dots are theme-aware and remain visible even when the current theme hides interface borders. Highest priority first: Currently open note — solid blue with a glow ring. Favourited note — amber/yellow, regardless of activity. Activity heat (all other notes, hottest to coldest) — Blazing (blue, wider glow — edited today with 5 or more edits), Hot (blue, subtle ring — edited within the last 24 hours), Warm (muted blue-grey — edited within the last 7 days), Neutral (grey — edited within the last 30 days), Cold (faint grey — not edited in over 30 days), Fading (translucent grey with border — had 10 or more edits historically but has gone quiet for 7+ days).
The activity data feeds an operational intelligence score that influences the default sort order, surfacing notes you have been actively working on.

Actions Panel

Switch to Actions view using the Side Toolbar to open the Actions attention dashboard. It automatically surfaces items that need your attention across all non-archived notes, organised into four collapsible sections:

Today — Needs Attention, a combined view of open actions, mentions, and notes needing review; and Recent, notes you have opened or edited most recently.
Types — Tasks: all incomplete checkbox tasks across your notes — check the checkbox to mark a task complete directly from the panel, or click the task text to open its note and jump straight to that line, briefly highlighted so you can find it. Links: every hyperlink found in your notes — click to open the URL or navigate to the source note. Mentions: all @handle references found in your notes, with the surrounding line for context.
Health — Needs Review: draft notes, stale notes, or notes with open actions. Stale Notes: notes untouched for 14 or more days, oldest first.
Bursts — Burst History: a chronological list of your recent work sessions, each showing which notes were active during that session.

Results grouped by note — In the Tasks, Links, and Mentions views, results are grouped under the note they were found in. Each note group shows the note icon, title, chevron toggle, and count. Click the note title/header area to open that note in the editor; use the chevron to expand or collapse that note's results. So, for example, every task in your "To do" note sits together under a single To do heading.

Collapse or expand every group at once — When Tasks, Links, or Mentions is the active Actions result view, hover the Actions panel title to reveal a double-chevron toggle. Click it to fold or unfold every note group in that result view in one go. The older double-chevron on the Tasks, Links, or Mentions line in the Types section still switches to that view and performs the same grouped-result collapse or expand.

Burst History — Each burst card shows up to four of its notes as chips. Click the +N chip to expand the card and reveal every note chip, and Show less to collapse it again. Click Show burst to replace the burst list with the full list of that burst's notes; use Back to bursts to return. To expand or collapse every burst card at once, use the double-chevron that appears on the Burst History line in the Bursts section, or — while Burst History is the active view — the double-chevron revealed by hovering the Actions panel title.

Collapsing sections — Hover the Actions panel title to reveal a single chevron that hides or shows the whole sections block (Today, Types, Health, Bursts). Hover any section header inside that block to reveal its own chevron; click the section header or that chevron to collapse or expand just that section. Section states are preserved when the whole block is hidden and shown again.

Use the search bar to filter results across all sections at once. Matching text is highlighted in titles and excerpts.

Actions

Notes that may need attention appear in the Actions panel at the top of the Side Panel. Reasons a note may be flagged include:

The note has gone stale.
The note contains unresolved to-do items.
The note has never been revisited since it was created.
A draft note has not been touched in a long time.
A note that was once highly active has gone quiet.

For each item in the queue you can snooze it, mark it as reviewed, or dismiss it.

Settings

Open the Settings panel via the settings (sliders) icon at the far right of the top toolbar. (The user manual you are reading now opens with the Cmd+Shift+/ keyboard shortcut.)

The app version is shown in the Settings sidebar header so you can quickly confirm which build you are running. Settings is organised into five sections down the left side: Appearance, Editor, Shortcuts, Vaults, and Local AI.

Appearance

Typography and interface size preferences.

Theme — Choose from Light, Dark, Thunder, Neobrutalism, or Ink. Thunder keeps a mid-grey editing surface with a higher-contrast code syntax palette for readability. Ink uses a clean white note panel with a grey sidebar — designed for a calm, distraction-free writing environment. The sidebar's text and borders are contrast-tuned for readability, and selection highlights throughout the sidebar (active tool icon, burst cards, chips, momentum indicators) all use a single accent colour that matches the create menu button. The colour swatches in the toolbar provide a quick shortcut.
Note Font — Set the typeface used for the note body text in Rich view, rendered content, file explorer, and all dropdown and right-click menus.
Note Markdown Font — Set the typeface used specifically when editing in Markdown mode. Defaults to a monospace font for code-like editing; can be set independently of Note Font.
App Font — Set the typeface used for the application interface, including the note title field in the editor.
Theme colors — Edit the labelled interface areas for the current theme. Left Toolbar controls the far-left icon toolbar background. Draw borders turns the structural interface borders on or off — the note tab outline, the note panel and inner content card outlines, the formatting toolbar underline, and the separators between panels (top toolbar, side toolbar, sidebar, workspace and split-view dividers, and panel section rules). Everything else keeps its lines regardless: horizontal rules and tables inside notes, inputs, menus, focus rings, and decorative guides such as the dotted Notes sub-section line. In Thunder, scrollbars keep their own contrast and width whether borders are drawn or hidden. In Neobrutalism the side toolbar is intentionally inverted — black with light icons and a pink accent — so it stays black even if you have saved a Left Toolbar colour for that theme.
Editor Font Size — Use the slider to set Rich-view note text size in em units. Markdown source size is unchanged.
Line Spacing — Use the slider to control the distance between lines in Rich view. Markdown source spacing is unchanged.
Paragraph Spacing — Use the slider to control the space after paragraphs in Rich view.
Use the ↺ icon beside any typography slider to restore its default value. The icon is disabled while the slider is already at its default.
UI Text Size — Use the em-based slider to scale app interface text (excluding the note editor body), including note titles, previews, tags, filter pills, and other Side Panel elements.
Advanced — Click to expand per-element font size overrides. Each element has its own slider ranging from 9 px to 24 px. The top three sliders control the most visible list elements: Title preview (note titles across all panels and sections), Content preview text (the excerpt shown beneath each title), and Path preview (the storage location path shown beneath the note title in the editor, e.g. /Users/...). Below those, individual sliders cover filter pills, sort select, topbar buttons, tab titles, left toolbar labels, note meta, group headers, sidebar sections, sidebar subsections, and dropdown menus. Tab titles and left toolbar labels are separate controls so each can be sized independently. Two sliders size the chips, each linking a whole group so they stay consistent (size only — colours and styles are unaffected): Note preview chips sizes the tag, status, Space, Collection, and source chips shown in Side Panel note rows, including Notes and Timeline views, while Note header & Details chips sizes the tag, status, Space, and Collection chips in the editor header and the Details panel. When an override is active a ↺ button appears to reset that element back to the global preset. Overrides stack on top of the UI Text Size setting. By default the Dropdown menus size tracks the Content preview text size so menus stay visually consistent with the file explorer.

Editor

Controls for note editor behaviour, plus how Spaces and the Actions panel behave.

Spell Check — Underline spelling errors in Markdown mode.
Show file path on note — Display the file path below the note title in the editor.
Hide tabs — Give the note the focus-style editor frame — the tab bar is hidden and the editor gets the same borderless, top-spaced layout as Focus Mode — while keeping the sidebar, top toolbar, and editor controls in place. Unlike Focus Mode, this only affects the note's tab bar and frame, so it is a good middle ground when you want a cleaner note area without losing the surrounding chrome.
Remember editor mode per note — Reopen each note in the Rich, Markdown, or Split mode you last used on it. When off, notes always open in Rich view.
Sync scrolling in Split view — Choose whether the Markdown and Rich panes scroll together or independently while in Split view.
Default inserted date format — Choose how the toolbar's date button and the Today's Date slash command insert dates into notes. The available formats include numeric, abbreviated month, full weekday with ordinal day, and abbreviated weekday styles.
Inserted date style — Choose whether the inserted date is formatted as a heading, so it stands out without you having to format it yourself.
Spaces only show space-specific notes — When on, only the active Space's notes appear in the list and tabs from other Spaces are hidden while it's active. Opening a note that lives in a different Space — for example by clicking a chip in the Actions panel's Bursts or Recent views, a Task or Bookmark result, or a search hit — automatically switches the active Space to that note's Space so the note actually opens.
Hide completed actions in side panel — Hide completed (checked) task items from the Actions panel.

Shortcuts

View, search, change, reset, or clear any keyboard shortcut. The list always reflects your current bindings, including any customizations, and marks which ones are fixed and can't be changed — standard editing shortcuts like Copy, Paste, Undo, and Bold are handled by the system and aren't listed. Shortcuts are grouped by category (General, Layout, View & Modes, File, and so on); use the search field to jump straight to one. Click a shortcut to record a new key combination, or use its Reset button (shown once it's been customized) to restore the default. Reset All, at the top of the list, restores every shortcut to its default binding after a confirmation prompt. See Keyboard Shortcuts below for the default bindings.

Vaults

Where your notes are stored and linked.

Run vault setup again — Reopens the Vault Setup screen at any time, for the same add/create/set-default flow described in Organising with Vaults above.
Default vault — Set a directory on disk. New notes are saved there as .md files and the vault is watched for changes made outside the app. Move all to vault appears here once you have in-app notes, to migrate them into the default vault.
Migrate Captured Articles to Vault — Opens a dedicated migration dialog that moves captured web articles out of the internal App Notes folder and into the default vault's Articles/ folder. Requires a default vault to be set.
Extract Embedded Images to Vault — Opens a dedicated migration dialog that converts older Base64 (embedded) images in your default vault into standard image files stored in Assets/Images/. Requires a default vault to be set. You can also click Convert on an embedded-image placeholder to scan just the currently open file-backed note. See Existing notes under How Inkolio Stores Your Knowledge above.
Additional vaults — Add more directories to read alongside the default vault. Notes from these vaults appear in the Side Panel with a source label. Linked vaults show scan status when Inkolio cannot read them or finds no supported files. Inkolio refreshes watched vaults automatically when the app becomes active and periodically while it is open, so newly saved .md files and file renames normally appear without restarting. Vault refresh waits while you are actively typing, then catches up once the editor is idle — and it never overwrites edits you haven't finished saving or moves your cursor in the note you have open. Use Rescan after files finish syncing when you want to refresh immediately, Re-authorize when macOS/cloud storage needs the folder picker to grant access again, or Locate Vault… from an unavailable vault's File Tree context menu after the vault folder was renamed or moved.

Local AI

Connect Inkolio to a local language model running on your own machine for note analysis — no cloud service or account required.

Enable Local AI — Turn on the connection. When off, the rest of this section is hidden and the editor's Insights panel only shows the built-in local suggestions (see Note Insights above).
Provider — Choose LM Studio or Ollama, matching whichever local model server you have running.
Base URL — The address of your local server, for example http://localhost:1234 for LM Studio or http://localhost:11434 for Ollama. For LM Studio, the required /v1 suffix is added automatically.
Model — Pick from the models your local server currently has available, or type a model name directly. Use the ↺ button to refresh the list after loading a different model in LM Studio or Ollama.
Request timeout — How long Inkolio waits for a response before giving up: 15, 30, 60, or 120 seconds.
Test connection — Confirm Inkolio can reach your local server with the current settings before relying on it in the editor.
Inkolio sends only the content of the note you choose to analyse to your configured local provider, running on your own machine — no data leaves your device.

The native Window menu has two entries for producing clean, consistent screenshots (documentation, the website, marketing material, App Store submissions).

Resize Window — A submenu of fixed sizes: 1280 × 800 (App Store Small), 1440 × 900 (App Store Standard), 2560 × 1600 (Retina), and 2880 × 1800 (Retina Large). Choosing one resizes the current window to that exact size and re-centers it on the monitor it's on, without opening a new window.
Toggle Presentation Mode — Hides the developer performance overlay (only shown in dev builds) and closes anything transient that would clutter a screenshot: open modals (Settings, delete confirmations, Archive/Trash, article capture), open context or overflow menus, and any focus-driven tooltip. It doesn't change your actual notes, layout, or theme. Presentation Mode is remembered only for the current run of the app — it always starts off after a relaunch.

Focus Mode

Focus Mode is on by default. It hides the Resume panel, Actions panel, and other surrounding chrome so you can concentrate on writing. Enter it by choosing Focus (expand-arrows icon) from the View mode menu in the top toolbar — the frame icon with a small caret, just left of the hide/show sidebar button — or press Cmd+Shift+F. Choose Normal from the same menu, or press Escape, to exit focus mode. The View mode button highlights whenever Focus or Reading is active.

On macOS, focus mode still keeps the small pill behind the native window controls visible in every theme, even though the rest of the top toolbar is hidden.

In focus mode the note tab bar is hidden as well. To keep the note title bar uncluttered, the editor-mode controls move into a single view-options menu opened from the square chevron button (▼) at the top-right of the note. A compress icon sits next to it so you can leave focus mode at any time. The menu contains:

Rich / Markdown / Split — Switch the editor mode (a check marks the active one).
Swap — Swap the two panes (available only in Split view).
Info panel — Show or hide the note Details panel.
Word wrap — Toggle word wrap (Markdown and Split views only).
Sync scrolling in Split view — In Settings → Editor, choose whether the Markdown and Rich panes scroll together or independently.
Detail chips — Show or hide the tags and status row. This toggle applies only to focus mode — your tags and status row always stay visible in the normal editor — and it is remembered between sessions.

Your editor mode and word-wrap choices are shared with the normal editor; whether the mode persists across restarts follows Settings → Editor → Remember editor mode per note.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Most shortcuts below can be customized. Open Settings → Shortcuts to view, search, change, reset, or clear any shortcut — the list there always reflects your current bindings, including any customizations, and marks which ones are fixed and can't be changed (standard editing shortcuts like Copy, Paste, Undo, and Bold are handled by the system and aren't listed). The reference below shows the default bindings. On Windows and Linux, use Ctrl wherever Cmd is shown.

General

Cmd+N — Create a new note
Cmd+W — Close the active tab
Cmd+, — Open Settings
Cmd+Shift+/ — Open this manual
Cmd+Shift+M — Cycle the theme (Light → Dark → Thunder → Neobrutalism → Ink)

Layout

Cmd+Shift+D — Hide / show the Side Panel (hidden mode). Ignored while typing in a field or note.
Cmd+Shift+A — Collapse / expand the Side Toolbar (left icon rail). Ignored while typing in a field or note.
Cmd+Shift+1 — Switch the Side Toolbar to Notes
Cmd+Shift+2 — Switch the Side Toolbar to Files
Cmd+Shift+3 — Switch the Side Toolbar to Actions

View & Modes

Cmd+Shift+R — Toggle Reading view
Cmd+Shift+F — Toggle Focus Mode
Cmd+Shift+I — Toggle the note Info (properties) panel
Cmd+1 — Rich editor mode
Cmd+2 — Markdown editor mode
Cmd+3 — Split mode
Cmd+Shift+X — Swap the two panes (in Split mode)
Cmd+Shift+K — Create Note Link

File

Cmd+S — Save the active note to disk (opens Save As for an unsaved note)
Cmd+Shift+S — Save As… (choose a new file location)
Cmd+Shift+L — Link a note vault
Cmd+O — Open an existing file from disk
Cmd+Shift+O — Convert URL (capture a web article)
Cmd+Shift+U — Import a Markdown file as a new in-app note
Cmd+Shift+N — Create a new drawing

Other

Escape — Close Settings, the manual, or Reading view; exit Focus Mode; or close the tag picker
↑ / ↓ (in the tag picker) — Navigate the tag list
Enter (in the tag picker) — Toggle the highlighted tag, or create and apply the typed name
Double-click a title (in the Side Panel) — Edit the note title inline
Enter (in the inline title input) — Save the new title
Tab (in the note title field) — Move focus directly into the note body
Tab / Shift+Tab (inside a table) — Move to the next / previous table cell
Escape (in the inline title input) — Cancel editing