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How notes work

Notes are what you want SaysHere to remember, such as names, numbers and decisions. Each note has a title, a few keywords and its text.

On this page
  1. Add a note
  2. Format a note
  3. Edit or delete a note
  4. Find a note
  5. Keep notes in folders
  6. Add several notes at once
  7. Import files or a folder
  8. Import a web page by its link
  9. Import from GitHub by a link
  10. Keep a repository you import in your Library
  11. Import from Google Drive by a link
  12. Keep Drive files you import in your Library
  13. Import from a source you connected
  14. Send a note to Slack
  15. Start from the examples
  16. Open your notes without a connection

Add a note

Open Notes and press New note. Type the title on the first line, press Enter and write the note under it. Add keywords under the title if you like: each one becomes a chip when you type a comma or press Enter. The note saves as you write, and the line under the keywords says Saving, then Saved on this device. With a mouse, the right end of the same line shows how many words the note's text holds, such as 12 words. The count leaves out the title and updates a moment after you stop typing. SaysHere does not save or send it. Press Done, or Ctrl or Cmd with Enter, to close it. In a window narrower than 1,280 pixels, the note takes the page, and Notes at the top goes back to the list. In a window 1,280 pixels wide or more, it opens beside the list. A note needs a title and text under it, and Done names what is missing. If your browser does not save the note, the page says so, and the note stays open with what you wrote, so you can try again.

Format a note

A note opens with its formatting toolbar in place. The text style key at its left shows the kind of line the cursor is in, such as Paragraph. Press it to make the line a Heading, a Subheading, a Quote, a Code block, a Checklist or a Paragraph again. The keys after it are Bold, Italic and Strikethrough, the three lists (Bulleted list, Numbered list and Checklist), Quote, Divider, Code block, Table, Undo and Redo. The key of a format the cursor is in is tinted, and Undo and Redo are greyed out until there is something to undo or redo. With a mouse, the toolbar sits above the text and stays in view as a long note scrolls. On a touch screen, it sits at the foot of the screen, above the keyboard while you type, and holds the text style key, Bold, Italic, Bulleted list, Checklist and More formatting, which opens the rest. From the keyboard, Alt with F10 goes from the text to the toolbar, the arrow keys move along it, and Escape goes back to the text. You can also type / on an empty line to choose Heading, Bulleted list, Checklist or Divider, or type what makes a block at the start of a line: # and a space for a heading, - and a space for a list, 1. and a space for a numbered list, [ ] and a space for a checklist item, > and a space for a quote, and three dashes for a divider. Ctrl or Cmd with Z undoes, and with Shift as well it redoes. Table puts in a table of three rows and three columns, its first row the header row. Each cell holds one line of words, which can be bold, italic, struck through or code. Tab moves to the next cell and adds a row after the last one, Shift with Tab moves to the cell before, and Enter moves to the cell below, adding a row under the last. While the cursor is in a table, Add row, Add column, Delete row and Delete column stand under it, and deleting a table's only row or only column removes the table. In a cell, the text style key shows Paragraph with its other styles greyed out, the keys for the lists, Quote, Divider, Code block and Table are greyed out too, typing / opens no menu, and what makes a block at the start of a line stays as you typed it. A pasted table keeps its rows when each cell holds one line of words or none. When a cell is merged, or holds more than one paragraph, a line break between its words, a table, a picture or other media, each row comes in as a line of its own, and a line under the text says Some formatting was kept as plain text. The note keeps its formatting as Markdown text, a table as lines of words with | between the cells, so search and the other places that read your notes still read its words.

Edit or delete a note

Press a note in the list and change what you need. Each note has an address of its own, which you can open in a new tab or send to someone who can read it. It saves as you write, and Done or Escape closes it once it is saved. A note you open and leave as it was is not written again. While you are composing a word with an input method, such as one for Japanese or Chinese, Escape and Ctrl or Cmd with Enter go to the input method, and the note stays open. To delete a note, open it, press Delete note and then Delete. Keep it leaves the note as it was. If your browser does not delete the note, the question stays and says so, so you can try again. If the note changed in another window after you opened it, it is not deleted: the list says so and shows your notes as they are now. On a phone, or in any window narrower than 1,024 pixels, you can move or delete several notes at once. Press Select above the list, or touch and hold a note, and a ring stands at the left of each note. Press a ring or its note to choose it, and press it again to leave it out. The bar at the foot of the screen counts the notes you chose, such as 2 selected, and they stay chosen as you move between pages. Move to opens the same Move to as a note's folder pill and files them in the folder you choose. A note this browser cannot move because it changed in another window stays where it is, and the list says how many. Remove asks Delete 2 notes? They can't be brought back. first: Delete deletes them, and Keep them leaves them as they were. If your browser does not delete them, the question stays and says so, so you can try again. A note that changed in another window after you chose it is not deleted, and the list says how many. Cancel, Escape or Select again ends the selection, and so does choosing another list, searching or changing the order.

Find a note

The list starts with the notes you changed most recently. Under each title, the row says who can read the note and when you last changed it. To list your notes from A to Z, press Last change above the list and choose Title. This device keeps the order you choose. Press the pin at the right of a note to keep it at the top, under Pinned. Your other notes follow under Other notes. Press the pin again to unpin the note. Pinning a note does not count as a change to it. The list shows 50 notes at a time, and Next page and Previous page at its foot move between pages. To find a note by its words, type in Search notes. The notes whose title, keywords or text hold what you typed replace the list, the best match first. The words that match are highlighted. A result's keywords show on one line, from the first keyword that matches when many come before it. Press a note to open it, and Clear brings the whole list back. When no note matches, New note called starts one with what you typed as its title.

Keep notes in folders

In a window 1,024 pixels wide or more, the Notes page shows the column Notes beside the list, with All notes, Pinned and Only you, each with how many notes it holds. Below 1,280 pixels a note you open there takes the page, and the column and the list come back when you close it; from 1,280 pixels the open note stands beside them as a third column. Hide collections at the top right of the column folds it into a narrow strip that holds Show collections, New note and Import. The list and the note then take the column's room. From 1,280 pixels, with a note open, Hide the list at the right of the list's order folds the list into the same strip as Show the list. The note grows to its full width, centred in the room left, and the list comes back where you left it. Ctrl or Cmd with a backslash hides both, even while you type in the search field, and brings them back as they were last open. This device keeps what you hid, so a reload opens the page the same way. Press a row to list its notes. In a window narrower than 1,024 pixels, All and Only you above the list do the same, and Show all notes goes back to every note. The page's address keeps what you chose, so a reload or a link opens the same list. A link to a folder this device does not hold, such as one deleted since, opens Only you instead. Folders hold notes and other folders, five levels deep, under Only you. Press New folder, type a name and press Enter. A name needs a letter or a digit, holds 60 characters at most, and two folders in one place cannot share a name. Under Only you, the group Folders lists your folders, then Unfiled for the notes in no folder. Press a folder to open it: the list shows the folders inside it and its own notes, and the path above the list goes back up. A note you make while a folder is open is filed in that folder. The first item in the line under a note's keywords names its folder. Press it to choose another folder in Move to, then press the key that names the folder. With a mouse, you can also drag a note onto a folder. Each folder has a key with three dots, Work actions for a folder called Work, with Rename, Move to, New folder inside and Delete folder. In the first column it stands at the right end of the folder's row; with a mouse it shows in the place of the row's count when you point at the row or reach it with the Tab key. In a window narrower than 1,024 pixels it stands at the right of the row above the folder's name on the folder's page. Deleting a folder deletes no note, after one question: its notes and folders move up to the folder it was in, or, from a folder at the top, its notes become unfiled and its folders move to the top. When a folder that moves up this way has the name of a folder already there, a number goes after its name. Folders are kept on this device with your notes.

Add several notes at once

Press Import on the Notes page, then Paste text, and paste your text. Start each note with a line like "## Budget | kw: budget, spend", or put a blank line between notes, and each block's first line becomes its title. A line like "kw: budget, spend" under a title gives the note its keywords, and How the text is split shows these rules with an example. Before anything is added, the sheet lists the notes your text makes, and a note whose title is already in your notes is skipped. Press the key that adds them, such as Add 3 notes. The new notes go after the ones you have, and nothing you already have is changed. Stop ends the run, and Paste more starts another paste. If your browser cannot read your notes, the sheet says so and adds nothing. Reload the page and paste your text again.

Import files or a folder

Press Import on the Notes page, then Files or a folder. Press Choose files or Choose a folder, or drop them on the sheet. Text, Markdown, PDF, Word (DOCX), Word 97 to 2003 (DOC), HTML and CSV files become notes, one note a file. Your browser reads PDF, Word, HTML and CSV files on your device, and SaysHere does not upload them. Before anything is added, the sheet says what the files become and lists each one with its kind, and a file SaysHere does not read says why. A workbook in Excel's old .xls format comes in once you save it as CSV, and a PowerPoint .ppt deck once you save it as PDF. A folder becomes a collection named for the folder, and the same folder chosen again adds to that collection and skips the notes already there. If every file it would add is a text or Markdown file already in your notes, the sheet says so. A key such as Open Trip notes then opens the folder's collection when it holds them all, and Open your notes takes you back to your notes when it does not. SaysHere checks each PDF, Word, HTML or CSV file as it reads it. One already in your notes is skipped, and its row says Already in your notes. SaysHere leaves out hidden files and folders inside a folder. Their names start with a dot, such as the settings folder of an Obsidian vault. It also leaves out the folder a browser saves with a web page, named for the page with _files after it, which holds the page's pictures and styles. When a folder holds nothing else, the sheet says why nothing comes in. A note's title is a Markdown file's first heading, the title saved in a PDF, Word (DOCX) or HTML file, or else the file's name, and the names of the folders the file sits in become its keywords. Press the key that adds them, such as Import 3 notes. Once they are added, the top of your notes says what came in, and a collection's name there opens its notes on their own, with Show all notes to go back. An imported note says it came from a file, an Apple Notes export or a Notion export, with its path and the day it was imported. A saved web page or another HTML file keeps its headings, lists, quotes and code, its tables as lines of text, and its links keep their words. Reading a page fetches nothing it points to, such as its pictures and styles. Its images are not read, and its row says how many. A CSV or TSV file becomes one note that holds the sheet as lines of text: a line for each row, its cells between bars, and a line of dashes under the first row, which is the header. A CSV file whose first line uses semicolons is read with semicolons, and its row says so. SaysHere reads a page in the character encoding the page names, and any other text, Markdown, HTML or CSV file as UTF-8. A file that is not UTF-8 is read as Windows-1252, and its row says so. If a few characters of a UTF-8 file can't be read, its row says how many. SaysHere opens a zip file on your device and lists its files as if you had chosen its folder. A zip can hold up to 50,000 files in a list of up to 8 MB. If it holds more, its row says so: unzip it on your computer and choose its folder. The zips inside it open too while together they unpack to 50 MB or less and hold up to 50,000 files, and a zip inside one of them stays closed. If a zip inside a zip stays closed, its row says why: unzip the outer zip on your computer, then choose the zip that was inside it. A zip made by Export everything holds sessions, not notes, so it stays closed and its row says to import it on the Library page. If SaysHere can't read a file in a zip, its row says so. It says so before you import, and the import key does not count the file, when the zip lists the file as compressed or encrypted in a way SaysHere does not read, or when SaysHere finds out while it reads the titles. Another app's export takes the zip Notion makes when you export as Markdown & CSV, also when your browser added a number such as (1) to its name because the folder already held one of that name. Choose Notion, then the zip. The export becomes the collection Notion, and a later export of your workspace adds to it. Each page becomes a note, and each database becomes one note that holds its sheet as lines of text, as a CSV file does. The notes go in folders named for your pages. Titles, folder names and the paths the sheet and a note show leave out the 32-character ID Notion adds after each name. A page's links to other pages and databases in the export keep their words. Its pictures are not read, and its row says how many. It also takes notes exported from Apple Notes as Markdown or PDF, and a folder of Markdown files such as an Obsidian vault, the same way. A scanned PDF holds no text to read, so it is skipped. A file SaysHere cannot read, such as a damaged file or one with a password, shows Failed, and a key such as Try 1 file again reads the failed files once more. Stop ends the run, and the files not added yet stay out of your notes. One run adds up to 500 files and 50 MB. Files already in your notes do not count toward that, so a folder of more than 500 files chosen again adds the files the last run left out. SaysHere checks a PDF, Word, HTML or CSV file only as it reads it, so a file past those bounds says If room while files before it may already be in your notes, and it comes in if they are. A file in a zip counts by its size once unpacked. A text, Markdown, HTML or CSV file can be up to 2 MB, and a PDF or Word file up to 20 MB. A note keeps the first 200,000 characters of a longer document. A PDF or Word file is cut at the end of a paragraph, or at the end of a line if no paragraph ends after its first 100,000 characters, and an HTML file between two words. A table keeps its first 500 rows and 30 columns, and the row of a file that was cut says so.

Press Import on the Notes page, then A link, paste the page's address and press Read the link. SaysHere's server reads the page and keeps nothing of it, so the page's site sees a request from SaysHere and never from your device. Before anything is added, the sheet says what the page becomes. Press Import 1 note and the page is a note on your device, titled as the page is, saying under its title where it came from and the day it was imported. A page can be up to 2 MB, and a workspace reads up to 20 pages a day. A note keeps the first 200,000 characters of a longer page. The page is cut at the end of a paragraph, or at the end of a line if no paragraph ends after its first 100,000 characters, and the sheet says so before you import it. A link to a Google Drive file or a GitHub page is not read as a web page. Open the note and press Read again to read the page again: a note you have not changed takes the page's new text; one you have changed is marked Edited here, and Take the source's text asks before it replaces your text. The mark and the page's new text stay on this device, even after you leave the page, until you replace your text or a later read finds the page as you imported it. A page that is no longer there marks its note No longer in the source, and a page grown past 2 MB marks it Too large to read again. Each of these marks stays until a later read finds the page, and your note keeps its text. Open the page opens the page in a new tab.

Import from GitHub by a link

Press Import on the Notes page, then A link, paste the address of a GitHub repository, of a folder in it or of one file, and press Read the link. SaysHere reads it through a GitHub connection you made yourself, so your notes hold only what your own GitHub account can read. With no connection of yours, the sheet says so under the link, and Connect GitHub takes you to GitHub and back to the link, which the sheet then reads. Before anything is added, the sheet lists each file with its kind and what it becomes. The Markdown, text, HTML, PDF and Word files become notes, in a collection named for the repository or the folder, and code files come in once you turn Include code on. A file in a folder of installed or built files, an image or a file past its size stays out, and its row says why. One import reads up to 2,000 files of a repository, each up to 10 MB and a code file up to 1 MB, and a workspace reads up to 4,000 files from GitHub an hour. A repository too large to read whole asks for a folder in it. Press the key that adds them, such as Import 3 notes, and each file is a note on your device. Its line names GitHub, the repository and the file's path, and the day it was imported. Open a note and press Read again to read the file again: a note you have not changed takes the file's new text, and one you have changed is marked Edited here. Open on GitHub opens the file at the commit SaysHere read. A link to a branch reads that branch, and a link to a commit keeps its notes at that commit, with no Read again. A file you delete from its collection stays out when you import the repository again.

Keep a repository you import in your Library

When a repository comes through a GitHub connection in your personal workspace, Keep importing starts on. It adds the repository to that connection, and SaysHere reads it again after each push and keeps its documents in your Library. Turn it off to import the notes alone. For a repository of a team's connection, the sheet says to choose it in Integrations, where it is kept for the team.

Import from Google Drive by a link

Press Import on the Notes page, then A link, paste the address of a Google Doc, Sheet or Slides deck, of another file in your Drive or of a folder, and press Read the link. SaysHere reads it through the Google Drive connection you made yourself, and only files you own. With no connection of yours, the sheet says so under the link, and Connect Google Drive takes you to Google and back to the link. A file you have not picked for SaysHere before, and every folder, open Google's file picker: on the file, or inside the folder, where you choose the files to bring in. The files you pick in a folder become a collection named for the folder. A Doc becomes a note in its own headings and lists, a Sheet a note that holds its first sheet as lines of text, as a CSV file does, and a deck a note of its slides' text. SaysHere leaves out a Doc's pictures, and when they take a Doc past 10 MB, its note holds the Doc's plain text. Each note's line names Google Drive and the file's name, with Read again and Open in Google Drive. If the page closes while a folder's files come in, the top of your notes offers a key such as Finish importing 3 files to bring in the rest. Files in a shared drive can't be imported yet.

Keep Drive files you import in your Library

When you import files from Google Drive, Keep importing starts on. It keeps the files in your Library, and SaysHere reads them again once a day. Turn it off to import the notes alone. If the Library cannot keep a file, such as a scanned PDF with no text, the preview says so, and the file still becomes a note.

Import from a source you connected

Press Import on the Notes page, then A connected source. The sheet lists the connections you made yourself in this workspace, Google Drive first, each with the account it is connected as. A Google Drive row reads Choose files. Press it to open Google's file picker on your Drive and pick up to 50 files you own. Each file becomes a note of its own, outside any collection, and its line names Google Drive and the file's name. A GitHub row reads Choose repositories. Press it to see the repositories your own GitHub connection reads, each with a box. Kept marks a repository your Library keeps already, and ticking it imports its notes without changing anything else. A repository too large to read whole is marked Too large to read and has no box to tick: import a folder of it through A link instead. Turn on Include code to bring in code files too, then press the key that counts the boxes you ticked, such as Preview 2 repositories. The preview shows each repository as a collection of its own, with every file and what it becomes, before anything is added. If GitHub says repositories were added, Check my access takes you to GitHub and back to the list. One import reads up to 2,000 files of a repository. Each preview of a repository or pick of files counts as one listing, and a workspace makes up to 60 listings and reads up to 4,000 files an hour. Connect another source opens Integrations, and when you come back to Notes the sheet opens on your connections again. A connection that needs connecting again says so, and pressing it opens Integrations.

Send a note to Slack

Once you save a Slack link on the Integrations page, an open note has Send to Slack beside Done. The sheet it opens shows the note's title and text as Slack will get them. Tick Everyone in that channel may see these notes. and press Send to Slack to post it to the link's channel. Send notes to Slack shows how to make the link.

Start from the examples

On a device with no notes yet, Use the example notes fills the list with examples you can edit or delete. If your browser stops before every example is saved, the page says so. Press Use the example notes again to add the rest.

Open your notes without a connection

After you open Notes on a device, the device keeps a copy of the page, so Notes opens there without a connection for up to 30 days after your last visit with one. Signing out or signing in on that device removes the copy, so another account never opens yours. If your sign-in ends some other way, for example when you press Sign out everywhere on another device, the copy goes the next time that device opens SaysHere with a connection. Without a connection, a note still saves on the device as you write, and the line under its keywords says it is saved here until the connection is back.

What happens to your data

Your notes are saved in your browser's storage on your device, under your account. They aren't stored on our server or copied to your other devices. Signing out leaves them on the device, and another account signed in on the same browser can't see them. What stays on your device