Sidebar and folders

The sidebar tracks the folders and files you work with and stays in sync with what is on disk.

How to reach it

Open Folder… in the sidebar (or File → Open…) starts tracking a folder. Each tracked folder is a row you can expand; the row shows how many files it contains.

The tree

Expand a folder to see its files and subfolders — Markdown, plus read-only YAML and JSON files and HTML files. Each file's icon is coloured by type — teal for YAML, gold for JSON, blue for HTML — so you can tell them apart at a glance; Markdown stays the plain muted icon. The same colours appear in search results and in the file picker of the internal-link dialog. Every folder row has a ⋯ menu:

• New File — opens a picker where you choose the folder and subfolder, or type a new subfolder name inline.
• New Subfolder
• Rename — subfolders only; a tracked root can only be renamed on disk, not from here.
• Copy folder path
• Delete folder — moves the folder and everything in it to the Trash, after confirmation.
• Remove folder — untracks it. Nothing on disk changes.

Drag a file or subfolder onto another tracked folder row to move it on disk. Dragging a folder row's grip handle, or Move up / Move down in its menu, reorders the tracked folders; the order persists. A folder you add later joins at the end of that order.

"Last changed"

The Recent heading labels this list below Watched Folders and hides while you search.

A flat list of every tracked file, most recently changed first. The ranking is the later of the file's modification time on disk and the last time you deliberately opened it, so saving a file in the app moves it to the top immediately, and an external edit does too. Two toggles in the sidebar header control the tree:

• Sort files by recency (off by default) — replaces the folder tree with this flat list.
• Show gitignored files (on by default) — shows files your .gitignore hides, such as agent output. There is no size cap on a large ignored tree, so an unusually large one can slow the sidebar down.

Pinning one folder

Hover a tracked folder's row and a small ring-with-a-dot pin appears at its right end; click it, or focus it with the keyboard and press Enter or Space, to pin that folder. While a folder is pinned, "Last changed" lists only that folder's files, subfolders included, and a strip above the list says Pinned: followed by the folder's name. Files you opened from Finder outside any tracked folder are hidden while the pin is on, and so is an open file that belongs to another folder. Click the pin again, or the × in the strip, to unpin and get the full list back.

Only one folder is pinned at a time — pinning another moves the pin. Only tracked folders have a pin; their subfolders do not. The pin narrows the "Last changed" list and nothing else: the folder tree, search and File → Open Recent are unchanged; typing in a search box that reuses the list searches every tracked file, pinned or not. With a pin on, Close Note, Move to Trash and Remove from Recents pick the next Markdown file from the pinned folder only, never from a folder the list does not show. The pin is remembered after a restart and is the same in every window. Removing the pinned folder from the sidebar unpins it.

Importing from Finder

Drag files or a folder from Finder onto a tracked folder row to copy them in. Dropping a folder asks for confirmation first. A colliding filename is skipped, never overwritten. Only .md and .txt files are imported this way.

Reconciliation

The sidebar re-checks every tracked folder against disk at launch and whenever the app window regains focus. There is no manual rescan button.

Removing a folder

Remove folder only stops the app from tracking it — the folder and its files are untouched on disk. Use Delete folder if you want the files gone.

Sidebar width

Drag the sidebar's edge to resize it, from 200 to 600 px. The width persists and is shared with the cloud workspace's sidebar.

Limits

• The pin scopes only the desktop app's "Last changed" list; the cloud workspace has no folder pin, because its recent list has no tracked folders to pin.
• A dropped .txt file can occasionally leave an orphan row that disappears on the next scan.
• A folder with more than 50,000 subfolders stops scanning partway through — see Large folders.
• Finding files by name or content is a separate box above the tree — see Search and frontmatter filters.

Favorites and Edited by me

In the desktop Local sidebar, choose Favorites below the search box. This view has two lists:

• Favorites contains files you star. Hover a Recent or Favorites row and click its lower-right star, use the star before Search in document above an open file, or right-click any file row and choose Add to Favorites. Click the filled star or choose Remove from Favorites to remove it. Drag a Favorites row above or below another to set its order, or open its context menu from the keyboard and choose Move up / Move down. New favorites go to the top. Removing and adding one again also puts it on top. Your existing favorites keep their previous order until you rearrange them. Dragging a favorite onto the editor leaves your note unchanged.
• Edited by me contains files you edited and saved in the app, plus files you created, newest edit first. Restore file, Locate… followed by saving, and Save As… also count when they write a buffer you edited. Opening, switching to editing mode, edits in another editor, automatic link or asset-path repairs and restoring or copying untouched content do not add it.

A file may appear in both lists. Its favorite follows renames and moves. Both lists use the same pinned-folder scope and visibility rules as Recent; untracking removes the file from them. Each window keeps its own view. Your last choice is the starting view for new windows and restarts. Stars and Favorites order sync across windows and survive restarts, renames and moves. A pinned folder does not narrow this view: Favorites and Edited by me always list files from every tracked folder. Search replaces either view with the usual results; search results cannot be reordered. Choose Folders & recent to return to the folder tree and Recent list.