oplin

An open source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation capabilities.

Joplin API🔗

When the Web Clipper service is enabled, Joplin exposes a REST API 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:

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:

curl http://localhost:41184/notes?token=ABCD123ABCD123ABCD123ABCD123ABCD123

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:

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:41184/tags/ABCD1234/notes/EFGH789

The four verbs supported by the API are the following ones:

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:

curl http://localhost:41184/notes/ABCD123?fields=longitude,latitude

To get the IDs only of all the tags:

curl http://localhost:41184/tags?fields=id

Error handling🔗

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🔗

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.
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
markup_language int
body_html text Note body, in HTML format
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 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 }

GET /notes🔗

Gets all notes

GET /notes/:id🔗

Gets note with ID :id

GET /notes/:id/tags🔗

Gets all the tags attached to this note.

GET /notes/:id/resources🔗

Gets all the resources attached to this note.

POST /notes🔗

Creates a new note

You can either specify the note body as Markdown by setting the body parameter, or in HTML by setting the body_html.

Examples:

Creating a note with a specific ID🔗

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.
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
parent_id text

GET /folders🔗

Gets all folders

The folders are returned as a tree. The sub-notebooks of a notebook, if any, are under the children key.

GET /folders/:id🔗

Gets folder with ID :id

GET /folders/:id/notes🔗

Gets all the notes inside this folder.

POST /folders🔗

Creates a new folder

PUT /folders/:id🔗

Sets the properties of the folder with ID :id

DELETE /folders/:id🔗

Deletes the folder with ID :id

Resources🔗

Properties🔗

Name Type Description
id text
title text The resource title.
mime text
filename text
created_time int When the resource was created.
updated_time int When the resource was last updated.
user_created_time int When the resource was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time int When the resource was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
file_extension text
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
encryption_blob_encrypted int
size int

GET /resources🔗

Gets all resources

GET /resources/:id🔗

Gets resource with ID :id

GET /resources/:id/file🔗

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:

curl -F 'data=@/path/to/file.jpg' -F 'props={"title":"my resource title"}' http://localhost:41184/resources

The "data" field is required, while the "props" one is not. If not specified, default values will be used.

PUT /resources/:id🔗

Sets the properties of the resource with ID :id

DELETE /resources/:id🔗

Deletes the resource with ID :id

Tags🔗

Properties🔗

Name Type Description
id text
title text The tag title.
created_time int When the tag was created.
updated_time int When the tag was last updated.
user_created_time int When the tag was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time int When the tag was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int

GET /tags🔗

Gets all tags

GET /tags/:id🔗

Gets tag with ID :id

GET /tags/:id/notes🔗

Gets all the notes with this tag.

POST /tags🔗

Creates a new tag

POST /tags/:id/notes🔗

Post a note to this endpoint to add the tag to the note. The note data must at least contain an ID property (all other properties will be ignored).

PUT /tags/:id🔗

Sets the properties of the tag with ID :id

DELETE /tags/:id🔗

Deletes the tag with ID :id

DELETE /tags/:id/notes/:note_id🔗

Remove the tag from the note.

Improve this doc
Copyright (c) 2016-2019 Laurent Cozic