One reason we built Loknot was a frustration with how overloaded many note-taking apps have become. The more features they add, the harder it can be to simply write something down. Before the first sentence, you may be asked to choose a workspace, design a hierarchy, set properties, and decide exactly where the note belongs. Eventually, the filing system becomes another project to maintain.
We wanted Loknot to feel different. You can start writing immediately and think about structure later. When your collection grows, folders, nested tags, pins, search, sorting, and straightforward automation are already there.
You do not have to adopt all of them. Use as much organization as you need today, and no more.
Capture first. File later.
Ideas tend to show up when you need to catch them quickly, not when you have time to pick a folder and invent the perfect tags. You might be on a train, in the middle of a conversation, or half awake at night. In that moment, saving the thought matters more than filing it perfectly.
That is why a new note can simply stay in Unfiled. It remains available in All notes, in the recent-notes strip, and through search.
You can tidy things up later, one note at a time, in a batch, or with automatic rules. And if search and recent notes already cover your needs, you may never have to file them at all. Loknot does not make you build a perfect system before it becomes useful.
Folders for the big, obvious parts of your life
Folders work best as broad, familiar buckets: Work, Personal, School, Health, Money, Travel, Book, or Project ideas.
Meeting notes can live in Work, recipes in Cooking, and story drafts in Writing. You always know what kind of place you are looking at.
Folders in Loknot are deliberately flat. A deep folder tree may look tidy at first, but it quickly becomes a maze: was that note under Work / Projects / Active, or Clients / Current / Materials? For extra detail, nested tags are more flexible and easier to scan.
Pin the folders you use most, and they stay at the top. When a pile of notes belongs together, select them with a long press and move the whole batch at once.
Sync can also be turned off folder by folder. Your work material might follow you across devices while a journal or early drafts remain on this phone only.
Tags for notes that belong in more than one place
A note rarely belongs to only one context. Observations from a trip to Japan may sit in the Travel folder while also relating to a future article, photography, and personal memories.
Give it several tags — japan, article ideas,
photography, and personal. It appears under each tag while remaining
a single note. No duplicate copies, and no pressure to choose one supposedly correct
category.
When the list grows, a slash creates a hierarchy: work/meetings,
work/reports, writing/short-stories, or
travel/japan. Loknot shows these as a collapsible tree, giving you depth where it
helps without burying every note in nested folders.
As you type, Loknot suggests tags you already use, which helps prevent
near-duplicates such as books, book, and Books. Pin
frequently used tags so they are always close at hand.
Renaming or deleting a tag never deletes the notes behind it. Removing the tag only removes that label.
Pin what matters right now
Not every important note needs its own folder. Sometimes you simply want this week's plan, a shopping list, tomorrow's address, the chapter you are drafting, or your interview questions within easy reach.
Pin the note and it stays at the top of Unfiled. When it is no longer current, unpin it without moving it or rearranging anything else.
Folders and tags can be pinned too. While you are writing a book, its folder
and the tags characters, plot, and research can stay at
the top. Unpin them when the project ends and make room for whatever comes next.
Pinned notes are never auto-archived. Loknot treats a pin as a clear signal that you want the note to stay visible.
Pick up where you left off
Most of the time, you do not need your entire archive. You need the few notes you were working on today or yesterday.
A recent-notes strip at the top of the home screen takes you straight back to the last meeting note, to-do list, email draft, or manuscript page. There is no folder path to remember and no search to repeat.
It is especially useful for work that stays active for several days: a travel plan, a talk you are preparing, questions for a meeting, or the chapter currently on your desk.
Search by what you remember
Even a careful filing system has limits. You may forget the folder and every tag, yet still remember a phrase such as “lease agreement,” a person's name, or the title of a book.
Loknot searches both titles and note text, without caring about uppercase or lowercase. “Contract,” “contract,” and “CONTRACT” all lead to the same results.
That makes quick capture forgiving. Even an untagged note left in Unfiled is still easy to find by the words inside it.
Sort the list for the job at hand
The same list can answer different questions. Sort by last edited to get back to current work, by creation date to revisit the beginning of a project, or by size to find long drafts and substantial notes.
- By creation date.
- By last edited.
- By note size.
A quick change of sort order often saves you from creating a folder or tag for something you only need to see once.
Tidy up a whole batch at once
Some people prefer a weekly tidy-up to filing every note the moment it is written. Others wait until a project is over. Both approaches should be easy.
Long-press a note to enter multi-select mode. Then move the selected notes to a folder, archive them, delete them, or share them in one go.
After a trip, collect all the travel notes in one folder. When a project ends, clear its working material out of the main list. Send temporary scraps to the Trash without opening every note one by one.
Auto-file new notes with rules you understand
If you capture the same kinds of notes again and again, Loknot can file new ones for you. The rules are based on keywords and can be explained in a single sentence.
- Notes containing
recipe,dinner, orcookinggo to Cooking. - Notes containing
receipt,purchase, orpaymentgo to Money. - Notes that mention a project name go to that project's folder.
- Anything containing
story ideagoes to Writing.
Add as many rules as you need and give each one several keywords. Loknot does not make opaque guesses about what a note means. You set the condition, so you always know why something landed in a particular folder.
Auto-filing only applies to notes created after a rule is set up. Existing notes stay exactly where they are, so turning on a rule cannot unexpectedly rearrange your archive.
Auto-filing is off by default.
Auto-archive sweeps up what you have stopped using
Over time, the main list gathers one-off lists, temporary addresses, short reminders, stray ideas, and questions that no longer matter. You may not want to delete them yet, but you do not need them competing with current work either.
Auto-archive can move these notes out of Unfiled after a day, a week, a month, three months, six months, or a year. The timer starts with the last edit, not the creation date. A note you still update regularly will not be archived, however old it is.
Auto-archive never touches:
- pinned notes;
- notes inside a folder;
- notes with tags.
The logic is simple: if you pinned or deliberately filed a note, you care about it. Auto-archive only handles notes that have been left unattended.
Loknot shows when an unfiled note is due to be archived, so the move is not a surprise. The Auto-archive card also reports how many notes came in and how many were removed today, making unexpected rule behavior easy to spot.
Auto-archive is off by default.
Archive and Trash do different jobs
The archive is for notes you no longer need in the main list but may want again. Trash is for notes you have chosen to delete.
Notes can be restored from either place. Permanent deletion is a separate, confirmed action.
That protects against everyday mistakes. A deleted note does not vanish immediately. Removing a tag leaves every note intact. Deleting a folder triggers a warning and sends the notes inside it to Trash rather than silently erasing them.
Automatic cleanup for notes that are truly temporary
If Loknot holds a lot of short-lived material, you can set Auto-archive and Trash to clean themselves up. Think old shopping lists, temporary addresses, one-day plans, rough calculations, or scraps that have already made their way into a finished draft.
Choose a retention period from one day to one year, or leave it at Never. In Trash, the clock starts when a note is deleted. In Auto-archive, it starts when the note enters the archive.
Important: once the retention period ends, the note is gone for good. Auto-archive cleanup bypasses Trash. Automatic deletion is therefore off by default; if you have any doubt, keep it set to Never and review the archive yourself.
Automation should never surprise you
Every rule that can move or delete a note starts out disabled. Loknot does not file, archive, or remove anything until you turn the feature on and choose the conditions.
The safeguards are intentionally easy to understand:
- auto-filing follows the keywords you chose;
- a new rule never rearranges existing notes;
- auto-archive leaves pinned and organized notes alone;
- you can see when an unfiled note is due to move;
- automatic deletion can stay off permanently;
- notes you delete by hand go to Trash first.
Organization only helps when you remain in control of what happens to your notes.
Choose how much structure you want
Loknot does not insist on a single correct method.
You can skip formal structure and rely on Unfiled, All notes, recent notes, and search. You can create a handful of folders for the major parts of your life. You can add nested tags when notes cross categories, then pin whatever is active right now.
If the volume keeps growing, turn on auto-filing, auto-archive, and retention rules. These tools work together, but none is mandatory. Your system can grow only when your needs do.
A simple way to get started
- Create three to five folders for the broadest parts of your life: Work, Personal, Writing, and Money, for example.
- Let quick thoughts stay in Unfiled. Do not force yourself to classify every note immediately.
- Add a few broad tags for subjects that cut across folders.
- Pin the notes and sections you are actively using.
- Sort by last edited to keep current work near the top.
- Set up one or two obvious auto-filing rules.
- Turn on Auto-archive only when the main list genuinely starts getting in your way.
- Leave automatic deletion off until you are completely comfortable with the retention periods.
A filing system should save your time, not consume it.
Order that leaves room to think
Notes do not exist to make a folder tree look impressive. They exist to hold your thoughts, help you work with information, and bring you back to what matters.
That is why organizing notes in Loknot is meant to feel simple and obvious. Write first. Later, if it would genuinely help, file things yourself or hand repetitive work to rules you can see and understand.
No elaborate setup required. No constant maintenance. And no need for another productivity system just to manage your notes app.
For step-by-step instructions, see Folders, tags, and search and Automatic organization in the guide.