Vaults

A vault is a plain folder of .md files on your disk. Sub-folders are your folder tree; the filename is the note title. Znote adds a single self-contained .znote/ directory inside the vault:

MyVault/
├── Meeting notes.md
├── Meeting notes.secrets.yaml   # only if the note has secrets — encrypted
├── Projects/
│   └── Roadmap.md
├── attachments/          # pasted images, recordings, snapshots
└── .znote/
    ├── settings.json     # vault-local settings, tabs, last note
    ├── metadata.json     # minimal per-note flags (pin, run permission…)
    ├── .gitignore        # only in a git-versioned vault (see Git sync)
    └── trash/            # soft-deleted notes

There is no database: your notes stay portable, syncable and greppable. Everything Znote writes into a note (wikilinks, embeds, code results) is plain markdown.

Opening and switching vaults

The vault switcher sits at the bottom of the left sidebar (a compact button when the tree panel is collapsed). It lists your known vaults with, per row, a Show in explorer button and a ✕ Remove from list button (nothing is deleted on disk).

• Open folder as vault… initializes any folder of markdown files as a vault — including an existing Obsidian vault.
• Each vault opens in its own window (Obsidian-style); the same folder never opens twice — its window is focused instead. Window titles show the vault name.
• From the command line: znote /path/to/vault opens that vault.
• Each vault remembers its own layout: sort order, sidebar state, focus mode, open tabs and last note are stored per vault.

Trash

• Deleting a note is a soft delete into .znote/trash/; Restore puts it back where it was — with its secrets sidecars, which follow the note wherever it goes.
• Deleting a vault folder sends all its notes (including nested ones) to Trash.
• Deleting an item already in Trash removes it permanently; Empty trash clears everything after a confirmation showing the item count.

External edits & sync

The vault is watched: edits made by other apps (Obsidian, git, iCloud…) are picked up automatically and reconciled with your session — unsaved in-memory edits always win over disk. Znote's own saves never trigger a rescan, and a clean close doesn't touch file modification times, so sync tools don't see phantom changes.

A manual Refresh from disk button lives on the All files root row of the tree. Linked external folders are not watched — they keep their own refresh button.

When the vault is a git repository, that same button also runs a git fetch, and the tree gains pull / push controls — see Git sync.

Backups & storage (Settings → Backup)

• Backup vault — zips the vault itself (it's self-contained). Private secrets sidecars are included: they are out of git by design, so the zip is their only copy.
• Import backup — restores a vault zip into a folder you choose. A legacy (pre-vault) zip is re-migrated at next launch.
• Clean orphan attachments — sweeps attachment files no longer referenced by any note, with a preview of the files and total size before anything is deleted.
• Storage — shows the Vault folder and the Global app folder (preferences, licence, vault list) with Show-in-explorer buttons.

Note naming

• New notes are named "New note N" — rename via the inline title or the tree Rename action.
• Filesystem-reserved characters (: / " ? * < > |) are normalized automatically (Note: v2 → Note v2).
• The .md extension is hidden everywhere in the app.
• Duplicating or copy-pasting a note reuses the source name (deduplicated) and never rewrites the content.

Migrating from an older Znote?

See Upgrading from an older Znote for how the automatic migration works.