Organize notes in notebooks

How the Notes screen is laid out, and how to create, rename and delete notebooks.

In short

Notes keeps your notes in notebooks. The screen has the rail on the left (views, notebooks and tags), the list of notes in the middle and the open note on the right. A note lives in one notebook and can carry any number of tags.

The rail is the one place to pick a notebook: the title above the list is the open notebook's (or saved view's) name. While a note is open on a screen narrower than 1280 px the rail folds away, and on a phone it is a drawer.

Before you start

Who: your own notebooks need no role. In an organization, "Read team notes" reads its notebooks and "Write team notes" creates and writes in them (a Viewer reads, a Member writes).
Plan: Notes is part of every plan, Free included. Your plan caps how many notes a workspace keeps; archived notes do not count. Attached files count toward storage.
First: nothing. Typing your first note creates My notes for you.

Create, rename and delete a notebook

Press + beside Mine in the rail, or choose "New notebook" from the title row's … menu.
Name it. In an organization, tick "A notebook of the organization" to make it the organization's; the dialog says who it starts visible to.
Press "Create notebook".
To rename, press F2 on the notebook, double-click it, or use … › "Rename notebook". To delete, use … › "Delete notebook".

Good to know

Your first note needs no notebook: typing it creates My notes for you.
The list shows pinned notes first, then the most recently edited, with each note's excerpt, change time, anchors and tags.
Deleting a notebook removes its notes from every list, for everyone.
Your plan caps how many notes a workspace keeps (archived notes do not count), and attached files count toward storage.
If a plan stops including Notes, what is there stays - you can open and delete it - but nothing can be added or changed.
"Download" in the title row's … menu saves the open notebook's list - with its search, tag and editor filters - as Excel or PDF.

Download notes or bring them in from files

You can keep a copy of your notes outside {{brand}}, or move notes in from another tool.

One note: open it, press … at the top, then Download, and pick Markdown, Word or PDF.
A whole notebook: press … on the notebook, then Download notes (.zip). You get one Markdown file per note; archived notes are in an archived folder.
Import: press … on a notebook you can write in, then Import notes from files, and pick Markdown (.md), text (.txt) or HTML files - up to 50 at a time, each up to 1 MB.
Each file becomes one note. Its first top heading, or the file name, becomes the title. Headings, bold, italic, links, lists and checklists come in as they were.
A file that cannot be imported is skipped, and the message says which and why. Imported notes count toward your plan like any other note.

Publish a notebook as your team wiki

A notebook of your organization can be your team's wiki: the pages people look up, such as how to deploy, who to ask, or how the team works.

Press … on the notebook. You need to manage it.
Choose "Team wiki". The notebook shows a Wiki mark in the list.

Publishing changes nobody's access. The wiki is read by the people the notebook is already open to.
The assistant reads matching wiki pages first when it answers a question, and says which page it used.
A search in Help lists matching wiki pages below the guides, on the Help page and in the dock.
Choose Team wiki again to stop publishing. The notes stay as they are.

Choose how long earlier versions are kept

Open the notebook's … in the rail and choose "Keep earlier versions".
Choose 30, 90, 180 or 365 days, or "As the workspace keeps them".

Only people who manage the notebook can change this.
Earlier versions older than that are deleted for good a few hours later. Each note always keeps its newest version.
If your organization keeps versions for fewer days, its rule still applies. Nothing is deleted while your organization has a legal hold.

Bring back a deleted note or notebook

Deleting a note or a notebook moves it to Trash at once, and the message that says so has Undo. A deleted notebook takes its notes with it and brings them back when you restore it.

Press "Trash" at the end of "Find" in the rail.
Find the note or the notebook. Deleted notebooks are listed first, each with how many notes come back with it.
Press Restore. The note opens in its notebook again, with the records it was anchored to.

You see the notes you may edit and the notebooks you manage. A note deleted before its notebook stays in Trash when the notebook comes back.
Delete forever (under … on the row) removes the note or notebook with its history, links and files for good. It asks first, because it cannot be undone.
While a legal hold stands on your organization, nothing in its Trash can be deleted for good.

If something goes wrong

"Switch into an organization to create a notebook for it."
"A notebook needs a name."
"This notebook is archived and can no longer be edited."

/help/notes/writing
/help/notes/sharing-notebooks
/help/notes/search