When the Web Clipper service is enabled, Joplin exposes a [REST API](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer) which allows third-party applications to access Joplin's data and to create, modify or delete notes, notebooks, resources or tags.
In order to use it, you'll first need to find on which port the service is running. To do so, open the Web Clipper Options in Joplin and if the service is running it should tell you on which port. Normally it runs on port **41184**. If you want to find it programmatically, you may follow this kind of algorithm:
```javascript
let port = null;
for (let portToTest = 41184; portToTest <= 41194; portToTest++) {
const result = pingPort(portToTest); // Call GET /ping
if (result == 'JoplinClipperServer') {
port = portToTest; // Found the port
break;
}
}
```
# Authorisation
To prevent unauthorised applications from accessing the API, the calls must be authentified. To do so, you must provide a token as a query parameter for each API call. You can get this token from the Joplin desktop application, on the Web Clipper Options screen.
This would be an example of valid cURL call using a token:
In the documentation below, the token will not be specified every time however you will need to include it.
# Using the API
All the calls, unless noted otherwise, receives and send **JSON data**. For example to create a new note:
curl --data '{ "title": "My note", "body": "Some note in **Markdown**"}' http://localhost:41184/notes
In the documentation below, the calls may include special parameters such as :id or :note_id. You would replace this with the item ID or note ID.
For example, for the endpoint `DELETE /tags/:id/notes/:note_id`, to remove the tag with ID "ABCD1234" from the note with ID "EFGH789", you would run for example:
The four verbs supported by the API are the following ones:
* **GET**: To retrieve items (notes, notebooks, etc.).
* **POST**: To create new items. In general most item properties are optional. If you omit any, a default value will be used.
* **PUT**: To update an item. Note in a REST API, traditionally PUT is used to completely replace an item, however in this API it will only replace the properties that are provided. For example if you PUT {"title": "my new title"}, only the "title" property will be changed. The other properties will be left untouched (they won't be cleared nor changed).
* **DELETE**: To delete items.
# Filtering data
You can change the fields that will be returned by the API using the `fields=` query parameter, which takes a list of comma separated fields. For example, to get the longitude and latitude of a note, use this:
In case of an error, an HTTP status code >= 400 will be returned along with a JSON object that provides more info about the error. The JSON object is in the format `{ "error": "description of error" }`.
# About the property types
* Text is UTF-8.
* All date/time are Unix timestamps in milliseconds.
* Booleans are integer values 0 or 1.
# Testing if the service is available
Call **GET /ping** to check if the service is available. It should return "JoplinClipperServer" if it works.
# Searching
Call **GET /search?query=YOUR_QUERY** to search for notes. This end-point supports the `field` parameter which is recommended to use so that you only get the data that you need. The query syntax is as described in the main documentation: https://joplinapp.org/#searching
# Notes
## Properties
Name | Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
id | text |
parent_id | text | ID of the notebook that contains this note. Change this ID to move the note to a different notebook.
title | text | The note title.
body | text | The note body, in Markdown. May also contain HTML.
created_time | int | When the note was created.
updated_time | int | When the note was last updated.
is_conflict | int | Tells whether the note is a conflict or not.
latitude | numeric |
longitude | numeric |
altitude | numeric |
author | text |
source_url | text | The full URL where the note comes from.
is_todo | int | Tells whether this note is a todo or not.
todo_due | int | When the todo is due. An alarm will be triggered on that date.
todo_completed | int | Tells whether todo is completed or not. This is a timestamp in milliseconds.
source | text |
source_application | text |
application_data | text |
order | int |
user_created_time | int | When the note was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time | int | When the note was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
base_url | text | If `body_html` is provided and contains relative URLs, provide the `base_url` parameter too so that all the URLs can be converted to absolute ones. The base URL is basically where the HTML was fetched from, minus the query (everything after the '?'). For example if the original page was `https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%5Bjava%5D+test`, the base URL is `https://stackoverflow.com/search`.
image_data_url | text | An image to attach to the note, in [Data URL](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/Data_URIs) format.
crop_rect | text | If an image is provided, you can also specify an optional rectangle that will be used to crop the image. In format `{ x: x, y: y, width: width, height: height }`
When a new note is created, it is automatically assigned a new unique ID so **normally you do not need to set the ID**. However, if for some reason you want to set it, you can supply it as the `id` property. It needs to be a 32 characters long hexadecimal string. **Make sure it is unique**, for example by generating it using whatever GUID function is available in your programming language.
curl --data '{ "id": "00a87474082744c1a8515da6aa5792d2", "title": "My note with custom ID"}' http://127.0.0.1:41184/notes
## PUT /notes/:id
Sets the properties of the note with ID :id
## DELETE /notes/:id
Deletes the note with ID :id
# Folders
This is actually a notebook. Internally notebooks are called "folders".
## Properties
Name | Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
id | text |
title | text | The folder title.
created_time | int | When the folder was created.
updated_time | int | When the folder was last updated.
user_created_time | int | When the folder was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time | int | When the folder was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
Gets the actual file associated with this resource.
## POST /resources
Creates a new resource
Creating a new resource is special because you also need to upload the file. Unlike other API calls, this one must have the "multipart/form-data" Content-Type. The file data must be passed to the "data" form field, and the other properties to the "props" form field. An example of a valid call with cURL would be:
