Folders and organizing notes

You create notes and organize them into folders in the sidebar on the left of the Notes screen. Drag the sidebar’s right edge to change its width.

Sidebar layout

From top to bottom, the sidebar has these sections.

Section	What it shows
Favorites	Notes added to favorites. Everyone in the workspace sees the same list.
Recent	The last 5 notes you opened in this browser.
Pages	The folder and note tree. Most of your notes live here.
My drafts	Your personal drafts. Shown only when you have at least one.
Shared pages	Notes shared with you whose folder you can’t see. Shown only when there are such notes.
Trash	The button at the very bottom of the sidebar. Review and restore deleted notes.

Favorites and Recent start collapsed. Click a section name to expand or collapse it; your browser remembers the state.

Creating things

Use the buttons at the top of the sidebar to create notes and folders.

• + button (New note): creates a new note at the top level.
• The arrow next to + (Create options): choose New note, New meeting note, New folder or New personal draft from the menu.
• Hover over a folder row and click its + button to create a note directly inside that folder.

For meeting notes, see Meeting notes. To start from a template, see Templates.

Folders

Create a folder

1. In Create options, choose New folder. For a subfolder, use New subfolder in a folder’s menu.
2. Enter a folder name.
3. Pick a color: No color or one of six colors (Ochre, Sage, Mustard, Terracotta, Plum, Slate). Terracotta is selected by default. The Sidebar preview at the bottom of the dialog shows how it will look.
4. Press Enter or choose Create folder.

Folder menu

The Folder options (three dots) menu on a folder row offers:

• Rename: edit the folder name in place. You can also press F2 with the folder row selected.
• Change color: change the folder color.
• Share: open the folder’s sharing settings. See Sharing notes.
• Add note / New subfolder: create a note or folder inside it.
• Delete: delete the folder.

Delete a folder

Deleting a folder happens right away, with no confirmation, and its subfolders are deleted too. However, the notes inside aren’t deleted; they move to the top level. You can restructure without worrying about losing notes.

Drag and drop

Drag notes and folders to organize them.

• Drag a note onto a folder to move it into that folder.
• Drag a note above or below another note to change the order.
• Drag a folder into another folder to change the hierarchy.
• While dragging, pause over a collapsed folder and it expands automatically.
• Drag to the empty area at the bottom of the tree and Move to root appears; drop there to move the item to the top level.

Favorites and Recent

• Favorites: in a note row’s three-dot menu, choose Add to favorites. Favorited notes get a star; remove them with Remove from favorites in the same menu.
• Recent: the last 5 notes you opened appear automatically. The list is stored in your browser, so it isn’t shared with other devices or browsers.

Favorites are shared by the workspace

Favorites aren’t saved per person. The whole workspace shares one Favorites list. When you add or remove a favorite, everyone else in the workspace sees the same change. Use it to collect the notes your team opens most.

Show meeting notes only

Click the meeting-note icon at the top of the sidebar (Show meeting notes only) to keep only meeting notes in Favorites, Recent and Pages; the My drafts and Shared pages sections are hidden. Click it again to show all notes.

Personal drafts

Use a personal draft when you want to work on a note privately before publishing it. In the English UI, the sidebar section is called My drafts and the label on an open draft is Personal draft.

Create a personal draft

In Create options, choose New personal draft. The menu item notes Only you can see it until published.

• A personal draft doesn’t belong to a folder. It appears in the My drafts section of the sidebar.
• Drafts aren’t included in Favorites, Recent or drag and drop, and you can’t move them into a folder.
• When you open a draft, the top bar shows the Personal draft chip and a Publish button, and the Share button isn’t shown. You can’t share a personal draft or create a public link for it.
• If you delete a draft whose title and body are both empty, it’s removed immediately without going to the trash, and Empty draft deleted. appears.
• Notes made with Create output in AI Cortex are also saved as personal drafts.

Note

Personal drafts don’t appear in other members’ sidebars or search. However, workspace owners and admins can open a draft if they have its address (link).

Publish a draft

1. Choose Publish in the draft’s top bar. You can also choose Draft options (three dots) → Publish on the draft row in the sidebar.
2. In the publish dialog, choose where the note goes under Folder. The default is Top level.
3. Choose Publish. Note published appears and the note moves into the Pages tree.

Publishing can’t be undone

As the dialog says: Publishing makes it visible to every workspace member and can't be undone. You can’t turn a published note back into a personal draft. Only the person who wrote a draft can publish it.

The sidebar for guests

Guests browse the notes opened to guests in read-only mode. They can’t create notes or folders, drag and drop, rename, delete or change favorites, and they don’t see personal drafts or the Trash button. For what each role can do, see Roles and permissions.

Search

Type in the Search box at the top of the sidebar to filter every section by note title. While you search, folders that contain matches expand automatically. Search doesn’t look at note body text.

Finding deleted notes

A deleted note disappears from the regular lists and moves to the Trash. You can search the trash by title too, and restore notes within the retention period. See Trash and restoring notes.

Related articles

• Trash and restoring notes
• Sharing notes
• Meeting notes
• Templates