oplin

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

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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 either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format.

Notes exported from Evernote via .enex files can be imported 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 with various cloud services including Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive or the file system (for example with a network directory). 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.

The UI of the terminal client is built on top of the great terminal-kit library, the desktop client using Electron, and the Android client front end is done using React Native.

Installation

Three types of applications are available: for the desktop (Windows, macOS and Linux), for mobile (Android and iOS) and for terminal (Windows, macOS and Linux). All applications have similar user interfaces and can synchronise with each others.

Desktop applications

Operating System Download Alternative
Windows (32 and 64-bit) Get it on Windows or Get the Portable version
(to run from a USB key, etc.)
macOS Get it on macOS
Linux Get it on Linux An Arch Linux package
is also available.

The portable application allows installing the software on a portable device such as a USB key. Simply copy the file JoplinPortable.exe in any directory on that USB key ; the application will then create a directory called "JoplinProfile" next to the executable file.

Mobile applications

Operating System Download Alt. Download
Android Get it on Google Play or Download APK File
iOS Get it on the App Store -

Terminal application

Operating system Method
macOS brew install joplin
Linux or Windows (via WSL) Important: First, install Node 8+. Node 8 is LTS but not yet available everywhere so you might need to manually install it.

NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.joplin-bin npm install -g joplin
sudo ln -s ~/.joplin-bin/bin/joplin /usr/bin/joplin

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 (Option 2) then simply running npm -g install joplin would work.
Arch Linux An Arch Linux package is available here. 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.

To start it, type joplin.

For usage information, please refer to the full Joplin Terminal Application Documentation.

Features

Importing

Importing from Evernote

Joplin was designed as a replacement for Evernote and so can import complete Evernote notebooks, as well as notes, tags, resources (attached files) and note metadata (such as author, geo-location, etc.) via ENEX files. In terms of data, the only two things that might slightly differ are:

To import Evernote data, first export your Evernote notebooks to ENEX files as described here. Then follow these steps:

On the desktop application, open File > Import > ENEX and select your file. The notes will be imported into a new separate notebook. If needed they can then be moved to a different notebook, or the notebook can be renamed, etc.

On the terminal application, in command-line mode, type import /path/to/file.enex. This will import the notes into a new notebook named after the filename.

Importing from Markdown files

Joplin can import notes from plain Markdown file. You can either import a complete directory of Markdown files or individual files.

On the desktop application, open File > Import > MD and select your Markdown file or directory.

On the terminal application, in command-line mode, type import --format md /path/to/file.md or import --format md /path/to/directory/.

Importing from other applications

In general the way to import notes from any application into Joplin is to convert the notes to ENEX files (Evernote format) and to import these ENEX files into Joplin using the method above. Most note-taking applications support ENEX files so it should be relatively straightforward. For help about specific applications, see below:

Exporting

Joplin can export to the JEX format (Joplin Export file), which is a tar file that can contain multiple notes, notebooks, etc. This is a lossless format in that all the notes, but also metadata such as geo-location, updated time, tags, etc. are preserved. This format is convenient for backup purposes and can be re-imported into Joplin. A "raw" format is also available. This is the same as the JEX format except that the data is saved to a directory and each item represented by a single file.

Synchronisation

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 Dropbox, 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), 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.

Nextcloud synchronisation

Nextcloud is a self-hosted, private cloud solution. It can store documents, images and videos but also calendars, passwords and countless other things and can sync them to your laptop or phone. As you can host your own Nextcloud server, you own both the data on your device and infrastructure used for synchronisation. As such it is a good fit for Joplin. The platform is also well supported and with a strong community, so it is likely to be around for a while - since it's open source anyway, it is not a service that can be closed, it can exist on a server for as long as one chooses.

On the desktop application or mobile application, go to the config screen and select Nextcloud as the synchronisation target. Then input the WebDAV URL (to get it, click on Settings in the bottom left corner of the page, in Nextcloud), this is normally https://example.com/nextcloud/remote.php/webdav/Joplin (make sure to create the "Joplin" directory in Nextcloud), and set the username and password. If it does not work, please see this explanation for more details.

On the terminal application, 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:

:config sync.5.path https://example.com/nextcloud/remote.php/webdav/Joplin
:config sync.5.username YOUR_USERNAME
:config sync.5.password YOUR_PASSWORD
:config sync.target 5

If synchronisation does not work, please consult the logs in the app profile directory - it is often due to a misconfigured URL or password. The log should indicate what the exact issue is.

Dropbox synchronisation

When syncing with Dropbox, Joplin creates a sub-directory in Dropbox, in /Apps/Joplin and read/write the notes and notebooks from it. The application does not have access to anything outside this directory.

On the desktop application or mobile application, select "Dropbox" as the synchronisation target in the config screen (it is selected by default). Then, to initiate the synchronisation process, click on the "Synchronise" button in the sidebar and follow the instructions.

On the terminal application, to initiate the synchronisation process, type :sync. You will be asked to follow a link to authorise the application. 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:

*/30 * * * * /path/to/joplin sync

WebDAV synchronisation

Select the "WebDAV" synchronisation target and follow the same instructions as for Nextcloud above.

WebDAV-compatible services that are known to work with Joplin.

OneDrive synchronisation

When syncing with OneDrive, Joplin creates a sub-directory in OneDrive, in /Apps/Joplin and read/write the notes and notebooks from it. The application does not have access to anything outside this directory.

On the desktop application or mobile application, select "OneDrive" as the synchronisation target in the config screen. Then, to initiate the synchronisation process, click on the "Synchronise" button in the sidebar and follow the instructions.

On the terminal application, to initiate the synchronisation process, type :sync. You will be asked to follow a link to authorise the application (simply input your Microsoft credentials - you do not need to register with OneDrive).

Encryption

Joplin supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on all the applications. E2EE is a system where only the owner of the notes, notebooks, tags or resources can read them. It prevents potential eavesdroppers - including telecom providers, internet providers, and even the developers of Joplin from being able to access the data. Please see the End-To-End Encryption Tutorial for more information about this feature and how to enable it.

For a more technical description, mostly relevant for development or to review the method being used, please see the Encryption specification.

Attachments / Resources

Any kind of file can be attached to a note. In Markdown, links to these files are represented as a simple ID to the resource. In the note viewer, these files, if they are images, will be displayed or, if they are other files (PDF, text files, etc.) they will be displayed as links. Clicking on this link will open the file in the default application.

On the desktop application, images can be attached either by clicking on "Attach file" or by pasting (with Ctrl+V) an image directly in the editor, or by drag and dropping an image.

Resources that are not attached to any note will be automatically deleted after 10 days (see rationale).

Important: Resources larger than 10 MB are not currently supported on mobile. They will crash the application when synchronising so it is recommended not to attach such resources at the moment. The issue is being looked at.

Notifications

On the desktop and mobile apps, an alarm can be associated with any to-do. It will be triggered at the given time by displaying a notification. How the notification will be displayed depends on the operating system since each has a different way to handle this. Please see below for the requirements for the desktop applications:

See documentation and flow chart for reporter choice

On mobile, the alarms will be displayed using the built-in notification system.

If for any reason the notifications do not work, please open an issue.

Sub-notebooks

Sub-notebooks allow organising multiple notebooks into a tree of notebooks. For example it can be used to regroup all the notebooks related to work, to family or to a particular project under a parent notebook.

Markdown

Joplin uses and renders Github-flavoured Markdown with a few variations and additions. In particular:

You can create a link to a note by specifying its ID in the URL. For example:

[Link to my note](:/0b0d62d15e60409dac34f354b6e9e839)

Since getting the ID of a note is not straightforward, each app provides a way to create such link. In the desktop app, right click on a note an select "Copy Markdown link". In the mobile app, open a note and, in the top right menu, select "Copy Markdown link". You can then paste this link anywhere in another note.

Math notation

Math expressions can be added using the Katex notation. To add an inline equation, wrap the expression in $EXPRESSION$, eg. $\sqrt{3x-1}+(1+x)^2$. To create an expression block, wrap it as follow:

$$
EXPRESSION
$$

For example:

$$
f(x) = \int_{-\infty}^\infty
    \hat f(\xi)\,e^{2 \pi i \xi x}
    \,d\xi
$$

Here is an example with the Markdown and rendered result side by side:

Checkboxes

Checkboxes can be added like so:

- [ ] Milk
- [ ] Rice
- [ ] Eggs

The checkboxes can then be ticked in the mobile and desktop applications.

HTML support

Only the <br> tag is supported - it can be used to force a new line, which is convenient to insert new lines inside table cells. For security reasons, other HTML tags are not supported.

Donations

Donations to Joplin support the development of the project. Developing quality applications mostly takes time, but there are also some expenses, such as digital certificates to sign the applications, app store fees, hosting, etc. Most of all, your donation will make it possible to keep up the current development standard.

Please see the donation page for information on how to support the development of Joplin.

Community

Contributing

Please see the guide for information on how to contribute to the development of Joplin: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

Localisation

Joplin is currently available in the languages below. If you would like to contribute a new translation, it is quite straightforward, please follow these steps:

This translation will apply to the three applications - desktop, mobile and terminal.

To update a translation, follow the same steps as above but instead of getting the .pot file, get the .po file for your language from the table below.

Current translations:

  Language Po File Last translator Percent done
Basque eu juan.abasolo@ehu.eus 71%
Croatian hr_HR Hrvoje Mandić (trbuhom@net.hr) 57%
Czech cs_CZ Lukas Helebrandt (lukas@aiya.cz) 89%
Dansk da_DK Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér (mjjzf@syntaktisk. 91%
Deutsch de_DE Philipp Zumstein (zuphilip@gmail.com) 92%
English en_GB 100%
Español es_ES Fernando Martín (f@mrtn.es) 99%
Français fr_FR Laurent Cozic 100%
Galician gl_ES Marcos Lans (marcoslansgarza@gmail.com) 89%
Italiano it_IT 59%
Nederlands nl_BE 71%
Português (Brasil) pt_BR Renato Nunes Bastos (rnbastos@gmail.com) 91%
Slovenian sl_SI 88%
Русский ru_RU Artyom Karlov (artyom.karlov@gmail.com) 88%
中文 (简体) zh_CN 85%
日本語 ja_JP 57%

Known bugs

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2016-2018 Laurent Cozic

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Copyright (c) 2016-2018 Laurent Cozic