Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified with your own text editor.
Notes exported from Evernote via .enex files [can be imported](https://joplinapp.org/#importing) into Joplin, including the formatted content (which is converted to Markdown), resources (images, attachments, etc.) and complete metadata (geolocation, updated time, created time, etc.). Plain Markdown files can also be imported.
The notes can be [synchronised](#synchronisation) with various targets including the file system (for example with a network directory), Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive or WebDAV. When synchronising the notes, notebooks, tags and other metadata are saved to plain text files which can be easily inspected, backed up and moved around.
Linux or Windows (via [WSL](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/faq?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396)) | **Important:** First, [install Node 8+](https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/). Node 8 is LTS but not yet available everywhere so you might need to manually install it.<br/><br/>`NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.joplin-bin npm install -g joplin`<br/>`sudo ln -s ~/.joplin-bin/bin/joplin /usr/bin/joplin`<br><br>By default, the application binary will be installed under `~/.joplin-bin`. You may change this directory if needed. Alternatively, if your npm permissions are setup as described [here](https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/fixing-npm-permissions#option-2-change-npms-default-directory-to-another-directory) (Option 2) then simply running `npm -g install joplin` would work.
Arch Linux | An Arch Linux package is available [here](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/joplin/). To install it, use an AUR wrapper such as yay: `yay -S joplin`. Both the CLI tool (type `joplin`) and desktop app (type `joplin-desktop`) are packaged. For support, please go to the [GitHub repo](https://github.com/masterkorp/joplin-pkgbuild).
To start the application type `joplin`. This will open the user interface, which has three main panes: Notebooks, Notes and the text of the current note. There are also additional panels that can be toggled on and off via [shortcuts](#shortcuts).
Allows moving from one pane to another using the `Tab` and `Shift-Tab` keys, and to select/view notes using the arrow keys. Text area can be scrolled using the arrow keys too. Press `Enter` to edit a note. Various other [shortcuts](#shortcuts) are available.
Press `:` to enter command line mode. From there, the Joplin commands such as `mknote` or `search` are available. See the [full list of commands](#commands).
It is possible to refer to a note or notebook by title or ID. However the simplest way is to refer to the currently selected item using one of these shortcuts:
Shortcut | Description
---------|------------
`$n` | Refers to the currently selected note
`$b` | Refers to the currently selected notebook
`$c` | Refers to the currently selected item. For example, if the note list is current active, `$c` will refer to the currently selected note.
**Examples:**
Create a new note with title "Wednesday's meeting":
To edit a note, select it and press `ENTER`. Or, in command-line mode, type `edit $n` to edit the currently selected note, or `edit "Note title"` to edit a particular note.
## Getting help
The complete usage information is available from command-line mode, by typing one of these commands:
* First, export your Evernote notebooks to ENEX files as described [here](https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005557-How-to-back-up-export-and-restore-import-notes-and-notebooks).
* In Joplin, in [command-line mode](#command-line-mode), type `import /path/to/file.enex`. This will import the notes into a new notebook named after the filename.
One of the goals of Joplin was to avoid being tied to any particular company or service, whether it is Evernote, Google or Microsoft. As such the synchronisation is designed without any hard dependency to any particular service. Most of the synchronisation process is done at an abstract level and access to external services, such as Nextcloud or OneDrive, is done via lightweight drivers. It is easy to support new services by creating simple drivers that provide a filesystem-like interface, i.e. the ability to read, write, delete and list items. It is also simple to switch from one service to another or to even sync to multiple services at once. Each note, notebook, tags, as well as the relation between items is transmitted as plain text files during synchronisation, which means the data can also be moved to a different application, can be easily backed up, inspected, etc.
Currently, synchronisation is possible with Nextcloud, Dropbox (by default) and OneDrive, or the local filesystem. To setup synchronisation please follow the instructions below. After that, the application will synchronise in the background whenever it is running, or you can click on "Synchronise" to start a synchronisation manually.
You will need to set the `sync.target` config variable and all the `sync.5.path`, `sync.5.username` and `sync.5.password` config variables to, respectively the Nextcloud WebDAV URL, your username and your password. This can be done from the command line mode using:
If synchronisation does not work, please consult the logs in the app profile directory (`~/.config/joplin`)- it is often due to a misconfigured URL or password. The log should indicate what the exact issue is.
For Dropbox, type `:config sync.target 7`. For OneDrive, type `:config sync.target 3`. Then type `sync` to login to the service and start the synchronisation process.
It is possible to also synchronise outside of the user interface by typing `joplin sync` from the terminal. This can be used to setup a cron script to synchronise at regular interval. For example, this would do it every 30 minutes:
When Ctrl+Clicking a URL, most terminals will open that URL in the default browser. However, one issue, especially with long URLs, is that they can end up like this:
Since this is still an actual URL, the terminal will still make it clickable. And with shorter URLs, the text is more readable and the links unlikely to be cut. Both resources (files that are attached to notes) and external links are handled in this way.
# Attachments / Resources
In Markdown, links to resources are represented as a simple ID to the resource. In order to give access to these resources, they will be, like links, converted to local URLs. Clicking this link will then open a browser, which will handle the file - i.e. display the image, open the PDF file, etc.
Commands can also be used directly from a shell. To view the list of available commands, type `joplin help all`. To reference a note, notebook or tag you can either use the ID (type `joplin ls -l` to view the ID) or by title.
For example, this will create a new note "My note" in the notebook "My notebook":
There are two types of shortcuts: those that manipulate the user interface directly, such as `TAB` to move from one pane to another, and those that are simply shortcuts to actual commands. In a way similar to Vim, these shortcuts are generally a verb followed by an object. For example, typing `mn` ([m]ake [n]ote), is used to create a new note: it will switch the interface to command line mode and pre-fill it with `mknote ""` from where the title of the note can be entered. See below for the full list of default shortcuts:
Shortcut can be configured by adding a keymap file to the profile directory in `~/.config/joplin/keymap.json`. The content of this file is a JSON array with each entry defining a command and the keys associated with it.
`keys` | The array of keys that will trigger the action. Special keys such as page up, down arrow, etc. needs to be specified UPPERCASE. See the [list of available special keys](https://github.com/cronvel/terminal-kit/blob/3114206a9556f518cc63abbcb3d188fe1995100d/lib/termconfig/xterm.js#L531). For example, `['DELETE', 'BACKSPACE']` means the command will run if the user pressed either the delete or backspace key. Key combinations can also be provided - in that case specify them lowercase. For example "tc" means that the command will be executed when the user pressed "t" then "c". Special keys can also be used in this fashion - simply write them one after the other. For instance, `CTRL_WCTRL_W` means the action would be executed if the user pressed "ctrl-w ctrl-w".
`type` | The command type. It can have the value "exec", "function" or "prompt". **exec**: Simply execute the provided [command](#commands). For example `edit $n` would edit the selected note. **function**: Run a special commands (see below for the list of functions). **prompt**: A bit similar to "exec", except that the command is not going to be executed immediately - this allows the user to provide additional data. For example `mknote ""` would fill the command line with this command and allow the user to set the title. A prompt command can also take a `cursorPosition` parameter (see below)
`command` | The command that needs to be executed
`cusorPosition` | An integer. For prompt commands, tells where the cursor (caret) should start at. This is convenient for example to position the cursor between quotes. Use a negative value to set a position starting from the end. A value of "0" means positioning the caret at the first character. A value of "-1" means positioning it at the end.
This is the list of special functions:
Name | Description
-----|------------
enter_command_line_mode | Enter command line mode
focus_next | Focus next pane (or widget)
focus_previous | Focus previous pane (or widget)
move_up | Move up (in a list for example)
move_down | Move down (in a list for example)
page_up | Page up
page_down | Page down
activate | Activates the selected item. If the item is a note for example it will be open in the editor
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