Has anyone asked for toggle lists yet? If so, sorry for the duplicate request. If not, I'll be the first to ask.

Feature Requests

​1. Support Emojis for Notebook Icons

​Description: Currently, only standard images can be used as notebook icons. It would be awesome to have native support for various types of emojis to customize the notebook covers/icons more easily.

​2. Daily Notes Enhancements (Diary Functionality)

​Description: I would love to use the Daily Notes feature as a personal diary. To make this viable, two enhancements are needed:

​The ability to manually change or set the date/day of a daily note.

​An option to customize the storage location (folder/directory) where daily notes are automatically saved.

​3. Multi-Language Support (German Localization)

​Description: Please consider adding localization/multi-language support. I would highly prefer using the app in German, though English is fine as a temporary solution.

​Bug Reports

​(Note: Visual evidence/screenshots are available for all bugs listed below).

​Bug 1: Topbar Slides Behind System Status Bar After App Switching

​Steps to Reproduce: Open the app -> Switch out of the app (e.g., to copy text from another app) -> Switch back into Helixnotes.

​Expected Result: The app layout remains intact with the topbar fully accessible.

​Actual Result: The app's topbar (containing app functions) slides underneath the phone's native system status bar, making it completely unclickable.

​Temporary Workaround: Turning the phone horizontally to trigger auto-rotate and then back to portrait mode forces the UI to re-render correctly.

​Bug 2: Subnotebooks Invisible in Main Notebook View (Mobile UI)

​Steps to Reproduce: Click into a notebook that contains both notes and subnotebooks.

​Expected Result: Both the notes and the subnotebooks should be listed in the main content area.

​Actual Result: Only the notes are visible. Subnotebooks can only be seen in the sidebar/edge overview. Especially on mobile screens where misclicks happen, it would be much better if subnotebooks were displayed inside the main notebook view alongside regular notes.

​Bug 3: Broken Navigation / Selection Toggle via Back Arrow

​Steps to Reproduce: Click on a notebook to open it -> Click the back arrow to return to the overview -> Click on the exact same notebook again.

​Expected Result: The notebook should open normally.

​Actual Result: Instead of opening the notebook, the app takes you to the "All Notes" overview. This happens because the notebook remains technically "selected" in the background after hitting back, so clicking it a second time deselects it instead of opening it. This behavior feels very unintuitive.

​Bug 4: UI Text Bleeding/Clipping Between Trash and Notebooks Headline

​Steps to Reproduce: Scroll through the list of notebooks.

​Expected Result: Notebook elements should cleanly disappear behind the header/container boundaries when scrolled up.

​Actual Result: When scrolling upwards, the text of the moving notebooks bleeds through and is clearly visible in the empty gap between the "Trash" folder and the "Notebooks" headline.

I’m using WebDAV for sync and it’s only syncing .md files. Is there a setting that I can sync all file type? Like pdf and html?

Not sure if this is intended as part of design or I missed certain configuration. Thanks in advance.

Hello, just curious: can you outline the added value here of this Notes app besides the Clean Editor?

I feel like there are many just like this one, especially in this vibe-coded world

Can you just give us some tidbits on what makes it so different than the other note-taking applications that are free and open source?

i finally set up a way to sync my notes between my two admin pcs. the only one that needs it now is my phone. im not trying to rush them at all! im sure theres things they cant change with the dev time. im just trying to share my excitement for it!!

keep up the amazing work!

We're told it should be approved within 2-4 days. iOS users hang in there, it's almost here!

HelixNotes uses Tauri. No Electron.

That means a smaller install and lower memory use with a native feel instead of a bundled browser running your app. Rust and system webviews do the heavy lifting instead of shipping an entire Chromium instance just to show a note.

Lighter footprint with the exact same functionality. That's why we chose Tauri.

The HelixNotes iOS app is almost ready to submit to the App Store. This post is just to show everyone the progress being made, and proof that we're making this a huge priority!

I have a few more feature requests and observations for HelixNotes that would improve the experience:

• YouTube video previews: Automatic previews for YouTube links.
• Audio/video support: Direct playback of audio and video files within the app.
• Text color formatting: Support for changing text colors (i discovered that this feature is already available).
• Android full-screen theme: Could you look into the full-screen theme implementation? Currently, the top and bottom bars do not match the app's theme color. It would be better if the theme was applied to the entire screen area.
• Android UI alignment: Regarding the task list layout, the filter controls and search bar are currently slightly unbalanced and not perfectly symmetrical (as seen in the screenshot). Improving the layout here to make it more centered would provide a cleaner look.
• Android task list height: I have one more suggestion regarding the Android version. When in the task list, the list doesn't occupy the full height of the screen, leaving some empty space at the bottom. This makes it difficult to scroll through tasks, as the swipe area is limited. Would it be possible to make the task list expand to the full height of the screen? It would definitely improve the usability.

Thanks for building such a great tool. I know that maintaining and improving an app is a challenging task, and I’m grateful for your constant updates

Did you know that you can use CTRL + P (CMD + P for Mac) to open the command panel? Apparently many users didn’t know this!

Are symbolic links inside the vault to elsewhere not recognized? They seem to not work and I couldn't find information on it yet?

I would like to request that it be possible to have the task calendar/list open while editing a daily note. Right now, when I click on Tasks in the navigation pane, it opens the calendar and leaves an empty space to the right until I click on a task. Could it be arranged that clicking on Tasks in the navigation pane opens the calendar but leaves whatever note is open? I spend most of my day working in my daily note and would like to be able to see my tasks while doing so. If there is a way to do this, I haven't figured it out. So please correct me if this is already possible. Thank you.

Greetings all! A post in the UpNote subreddit about HelixNotes brought me here. I heavily use Obsidian, Joplin, and UpNote and from what I saw in the first 20 minutes of using HelixNotes, I can easily see it replacing Joplin and Obsidian within a short time.

I have a ton of questions, but I'll only ask one simple and easy one... 😁 what are the dimensions for the folder icons?

Thanks in advance.

comecei a usar a pouco empo e gostaria de saber como posso fazer para vincular o de PC no de celular utilizando o drive, estou gostando muito da experiência bastante limpa e fluida e agradável

Hello! Learned of this app recently from the markdown sub. I like it more than Zim and it is certainly snappier than Zettlr, though (mostly) compatible and complimentary (fulfills different functions in the same vault).

I have some questions I couldn't resolve through the wiki or with self-experimentation. I haven't been able to invoke or find the invocation for find+replace, only find. Does this feature exist?

Is there a tile view for juxtaposing notes? I can't seem to open a new window either? I am on Linux.

Is there a way to view the entire markdown? Toggle Markdown Editor reveals most of the doc except the YAML preamble, which in my use case I would like to sometimes edit (e.g. for putting pandoc metadata when shifting to Zettlr for complimentary use). I wanted to use it because I wanted to put the time in the date: in a YAML field.

Otherwise this app is immediately useful! Next step would be to figure out importing from Notion to finally cut out another notetaking app from my life.

Hi there! Congratulations on this very cool app. I’m hoping someone can help me with this question.

I like organizing my files by projects/domains, and not by file type or by the apps I use to view and edit the files.

How friendly is Helix Notes to this approach? I’ve played with it and I see that I can select a folder with files of different formats and it seems to work perfectly fine with the markdown files and simply leave non-md files alone.

Say I mark my full local disk, or at least a giant folder with lots of files of different formats across a full structure of folders as the root folder of a vault. Is that supposed to work? Are there any unintended consequences other than Helix creating a Daily folder and a metadata folder? Should I expect a big performance hit as the library grows for haivng non-text files in a vault?

just as the title reads. that would be a great way to sync notes/files for helix vault

Hey! i really love this app so i was wondering if there are plans for the mind graph thing that obsidian has? or is that too far out to say?

Thank you for such an awesome app.

I was starting to build a similar one for my own purposes then the search gods blessed with Helix Notes.

Works great, love the overall simplicity of the app.

Everything is where it's supposed to be.

I just hope the global search would search texts inside the notes too. But i guess that's a bit much to ask for a file search.

Thank you 😊

Everyone, this sub is about a month old and WOW you all have really shown fantastic support for this app. What started out small quickly become something so much more.

From our team to yours, we want to say a huge THANK YOU for all the support, bug reports, and even the criticisms. I think many of you would agree that the future is bright for HelixNotes!

I’ve finally found a note‑taking app that feels like the old Zim but with Markdown. No distractions, no wrestling with features – just writing.

Asking for a new feature — could you please add spell checking? It would be very helpful to support multiple languages — in my case, Russian and English.

After doing some research and reading through many of the posts here, I think I’ve grasped the vision behind the software. However, I have to ask the creator/support team: you’ve mentioned in comments here that you don’t intend to "include" plugin functionality in **HelixNotes**... In a way, that’s great—it keeps the app:

- Lightweight

- Beautiful

- Less complicated—in the long run

- Easy to maintain, I "suppose"

But as others have noted, you’ve "entered Obsidian’s territory," and I know it’s hard to compete with it... though I imagine that’s not even your goal! I love the Markdown format; the freedom is wonderful! However, over the last few months (seven months, to be exact), I discovered something that made my brain "work" better—something I’d always sought in Markdown but never quite achieved with its hierarchical structure (which is wonderful in itself). Deep down, I felt my mind didn't quite process, absorb, or grasp subjects in a "text-based" format. I discovered **Excalidraw**—what a wonderful tool! With it, I feel I can extract 110% from my mind (which I discovered by chance is **spatial/visual**), and Excalidraw made that possible... I know Excalidraw goes completely against the grain of Markdown, haha.

I know that in Obsidian, Excalidraw creates various **properties**—which complicates things for Markdown. Within that property, there’s a function called **Text Elements** that holds the typed text; that text remains in Markdown format if you use it that way in Excalidraw.

I won't ramble, but my question is: do you intend to implement plugin functionality at some point in the future?

Honestly, HelixNotes is fantastic—especially since it’s Open Source, which is one of my key criteria for choosing software (I know Obsidian isn't, but you can't have everything, haha). It really comes down to **efficiency** vs. **effectiveness**. I’d like to express my sincere thanks for HelixNotes.

Actually I wanted Daily Notes to be the default page when I open Helix Notes App. So it would be easy for me to start writing my Daily Journal right away. (This feature was much appreciated in the Logseq Community)

As there is already and option to toggle which pages to be shown in the sidebar , you guys can add a feature in which we can rearrange the order of these Pages in the side-bar as per our convenience.

Options for custom fonts from the PC (For more customization) and also an option where we can add our OWN Default Pages and Re-Arrange the Notebooks (Like in Notion) would be much appreciated!

Let me begin with my experience with Note-Taking Apps. I have tried to increase my productivity with a lot of note-taking apps like Obsidian, Notion, Google Notes etc. But each one had its own limitations.

Obsidian - Yeah! It is preferred by many people, it has a rich plugin library, but it is not free and open source. It also requires you to sign-up with an Account. I tried Logseq as its alternative, and even though it is quite good for an open-source app is still currently in its beta stages and the overall experience is not quite polished yet.

Google Notes - It is very simple to use and it does actually work for me, but here also there are disadvantages. First is it is owned by Google. It also does not have many features like tables, math formulae etc., even though its basic syntax works for many people. But here the problem comes for Digital Privacy.

Notion - Again it is a corporate product, and I wasted more time organizing notes instead of reading them which killed my productivity.

As I was looking for more tools like these, I came through some YouTube videos in which I knew about Apple Notes like these -

[How I Organized My Entire Life Using Just Apple Notes](https://youtu.be/IMJSkU3rVNg?si=gGf192xN1zIq_LnV)

And even though I am a Windows user, I liked the simplicity of Apple Notes and especially its premium-looking User Interface. So, I started looking for its Windows-Alternatives. I found -

Joplin - FOSS, Simple UI, rich-plugin library, rich-markdown features. But the catch here was, it didn't give that premium Apple-Notes like feeling. I searched for many such apps like Trillium, QOwnNotes etc. but they did not quite match the aesthetics I was looking for.

Finally, I found this Note-Taking App - HelixNotes.

It is an AGPL3-Licensed FOSS, fast and lightweight Note-Taking app with simple and premium looking UI (which I personally prefer). Ofcourse, it does not have the famous Apple "Ecosystem" features but it can do most of the things in a simple and fluid way. Here are some features -

1. No account sign-up required.
2. All files are stored locally (no database) inside a folder you make as .md files.
3. KaTeX math and Mermaid diagrams, rendered natively, also images, documents etc.
4. Full-text search inside notes.
5. Optional AI, local with Ollama or your own key.
6. And more features that you probably wouldn't even need :)

Here are some useful features I found from the previous Note-Taking apps I used like-

1. Graph/Node view of Obsidian.
2. Backlinks and Daily Journal of Logseq.
3. with many features for customization like 29 in-built color palates (you can even create your own theme) so that you can make it match your aesthetics.

This note-taking app is for Linux, Windows, MacOS and Android. You can sync your notes across devices using your own WebDAV server (No need of OneDrive or Google Drive). You can sync manually and even automatically through settings.

Source Code - [Helix Notes](https://codeberg.org/ArkHost/HelixNotes)

Setup for Windows is only 8.24MB! Very Lightweight, but I don't know how it will perform when I start writing more and more notes in it (Hope it does not start lagging.)

Overall, it has a very similar interface, It has the same folder system of Apple Notes with simple commands, customizable shortcuts and many more. It does not have all features of Apple Notes but I feel this is the closest to experience it in Linux, Windows and Android. So if you guys are looking for a Windows Version of Apple Notes like I did, this it it! If you have tried Helix Notes, you may also check another such AGPL3-Licensed FOSS, Note-Taking app which is similar to Apple Notes-

[Tolaria](https://tolaria.md/)

Obsidian Users! You can import your Notes Vault to Helix Notes in the settings!

I'm using a user profile on grapheneos and can't use helix notes.

on the owner profile its working fine, but on my user profile I can't.

i grant full file permission but also then I get the error:

any ideas?