First steps

Getting Started

A quick path into Inkolio's core notes, files, and writing workflow.

Getting Started with Inkolio

Inkolio is a local-first writing app for notes, ideas, articles, drawings, and text files. The important thing to know first: your notes are stored as ordinary files you own. Inkolio helps you write, find, and organize them, but it does not lock your work inside a private database.

Think of Inkolio like a real office.

  • Inkolio is the office building.
  • Spaces are separate offices or rooms, such as Work, Personal, Research, or Writing.
  • Collections are desk drawers inside one office.
  • Notes are the folders or sheets of paper inside those drawers.
  • Vaults are real filing cabinets on your computer: normal folders on disk that Inkolio can watch and use.
  • App Notes are Inkolio's built-in starter desk: safe internal storage for notes you have not moved into one of your own filing cabinets yet.

1. Create Your First Note

Click New Note or press Cmd+N. A blank note opens immediately, with the title ready to edit.

Every new note is saved as a Markdown file. Markdown files use the .md extension and can be opened by many other writing apps. You can write normally in Inkolio's rich editor, but the file stays portable underneath.

Where the note is saved depends on your setup:

  • If you have a default vault, the note is saved there.
  • If you do not have a vault yet, the note is saved in App Notes.

Either way, the note is written to disk so it survives closing and reopening the app.

2. Understand App Notes

App Notes are Inkolio's built-in place for notes. In the office metaphor, App Notes are the temporary desk near the entrance: useful, safe, and always available, but not necessarily where you want your long-term filing system to live.

Use App Notes when:

  • You want to start writing immediately.
  • You skipped vault setup.
  • You are not sure yet where a note belongs.

App Notes are still real Markdown files on disk, but Inkolio stores them in its own app data folder. You do not need to manage that folder yourself. If you later create or link a vault, Inkolio can help move App Notes into that vault.

In the File Tree, App Notes appear in their own In-app Notes section. This is not a linked vault. It is simply Inkolio showing the notes it manages internally.

A vault is a folder on your Mac that Inkolio watches. If you already keep Markdown notes in a folder, you can link that folder instead of importing everything into a new system.

In the office metaphor, a vault is your own filing cabinet. Inkolio does not replace the cabinet. It opens the drawers, reads the folders, and keeps them available in the app.

To link one:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Go to Vaults.
  3. Choose Open/Link vault or run Vault Setup.
  4. Pick an existing folder on disk.

After linking a vault, Inkolio scans that folder and shows supported files in the File Tree. Markdown notes, code files, text files, drawings, and canvases can appear there depending on the file type.

You can also create a new vault from Vault Setup. The first vault you add becomes the default vault, which means new notes are saved there automatically. You can add more vaults later and choose which one is the default.

If a linked vault is renamed, moved, or temporarily unavailable outside Inkolio, the File Tree keeps it listed as Unavailable. Use Locate Vault to point Inkolio at the new folder location, or Retry if the folder is back where it was.

4. Use Spaces for Big Areas of Life

A Space is the highest level of organization inside Inkolio. It is like a separate office room.

Examples:

  • Work
  • Personal
  • School
  • Clients
  • Novel
  • Product Ideas

The active Space controls which notes and collections you see. Use the Space switcher near the top of the app to change rooms.

Spaces do not have to match folders on disk. A note from a vault can belong to any Space. That membership is Inkolio organization metadata, not a change to the note body.

Use Spaces when you want a strong boundary between contexts. If you do not want work notes mixed with personal notes, give them separate Spaces.

5. Use Collections for Smaller Groups

A Collection lives inside a Space. It is like a drawer in that office.

For a Work Space, collections might be:

  • Meetings
  • Projects
  • Planning
  • Reference

For a Personal Space, collections might be:

  • Journal
  • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Health

Every Space has an Inbox collection. Inbox is the catch-all drawer: new notes and moved notes can land there when they do not have a more specific collection yet.

To use collections, click the Collections icon in the Side Toolbar. From there you can create a new collection, rename one, delete one, or click a collection to show only the notes inside it. Deleting a collection does not delete its notes. Those notes move back to the Space's Inbox.

6. How Spaces, Collections, Vaults, and Notes Fit Together

Here is the key idea:

Vaults decide where files live on disk. Spaces and Collections decide how notes are organized in Inkolio.

Back to the office:

  • A vault is the physical filing cabinet.
  • A Space is the office room where you are working.
  • A Collection is the drawer label.
  • A note is the actual document.

This means one note has two kinds of location:

  • Its file location, such as App Notes or a linked vault folder.
  • Its organization location, such as Work -> Meetings or Personal -> Journal.

These are related, but not the same. You can browse by file location in the File Tree, or browse by organization in Spaces and Collections.

7. Find and Work With Notes

Use the Side Panel to search, filter, sort, and group notes. You can group notes by Collection, Tag, Date, Status, Space, Vault, A-Z, or Type. You can also use views like Recents, Favorites, Timeline, Tasks, Bookmarks, and Bursts.

Click a note to open it in a tab. Tabs stay available between sessions, and pinned tabs stay anchored at the left of the tab bar.

Use the info button in a note to open its details. From there you can change its Space, Collection, tags, status, and other metadata.

A Simple Starting Setup

If you are new, start like this:

  1. Create or link one vault called Notes.
  2. Keep one Space called My Space until you need more separation.
  3. Use Collections like Inbox, Projects, Journal, and Reference.
  4. Write first, organize lightly, and move notes later when patterns become clear.

Inkolio works best when you let the filing system grow with your thinking. Start with one office, a few drawers, and plain Markdown files you can always take with you.