Tags, links and backlinks

Tags and links let you organise notes from inside the notes themselves, with no folders to maintain. Tags gather related notes in the sidebar, links take you from one idea to the next, and backlinks show you every note that points back.

Tag a note

Type # followed by a word, anywhere in a note:

Slow-cooked chickpea stew for Sunday. #recipes #vegetarian

The tag appears in the sidebar straight away. Click it to see every note with that tag, or click a tag inside a note to jump to the same list.

A few things to know:

• A tag starts right after the #, with no space. # Shopping with a space is a heading, not a tag.
• A tag starts with a letter, number or underscore, and can contain letters, numbers, underscores, hyphens and slashes.
• The # must start a word, so C# isn’t a tag. To write a # that isn’t a tag, put a backslash before it: \#1.
• Capitals don’t matter: #Recipes and #recipes are the same tag.
• Anything that looks like a tag inside code, a calc block or YAML front matter is ignored.

As you type a tag, Varlig suggests tags you already use that contain what you’ve typed, which keeps spelling consistent. You can switch suggestions off with Autocomplete tags, wiki links and emoji in Settings › General.

Nested tags

Use a slash to put one tag inside another:

Kick-off call with the Acme team. #work/clients/acme

The sidebar shows acme inside clients inside work. Choosing work shows notes from all of its subtags too, so you can look at a whole area or zoom in on one part. To see only the notes tagged work itself, turn on Hide Subtag Notes in the note list’s Preview Style menu.

Tags with spaces

To use a tag with more than one word, close it with a second #, with no space before it:

Borrowed from Sam. #reading list#
Ideas for spring. #home/garden plans#

Make tags work for you

Right-click a tag in the sidebar for these options:

When a tag is selected in the sidebar, or you’re using a tag as your workspace, a new note (⌘N) gets that tag automatically. Choose whether it goes at the top or bottom of the note with Add tags at in Settings › General › New notes.

View › Tags sorts tags by title or note count, reverses the order, and expands or collapses the whole tree.

Link notes together

Type [[ and Varlig suggests notes straight away; keep typing the start of a title to narrow the list, then pick one and the link is complete. Select some text and press ⌘D to turn it into a link, or press ⌘D with nothing selected to start one.

Menu ideas are in [[Dinner party]].

Click a link to open that note. If no note has that title yet, clicking the link creates one with that title, so you can link to an idea first and write it later.

When you rename a note by editing its first line, links to it in your other editable notes update to match.

Give a link a label

Add | and the words you want to show:

See [[Dinner party|the menu]] for quantities.

The note shows “the menu”, and the link still opens the Dinner party note.

Link to a heading

Add / and a heading name to jump straight to a section. Varlig suggests the note’s headings after you type the slash. Start with / to link to a heading in the current note:

[[Dinner party/Shopping list]]
[[/Budget]]

You can also right-click the level icon beside a heading and choose Copy Link to here, then paste the link into another note.

Backlinks

Backlinks show which notes link to the one you’re reading. Choose View › Toggle Backlinks (⇧⌘B), or click the ⓘ button at the top of the note.

• Backlinks lists every note that links here, with the surrounding text, so you can see why each one points here.
• Unlinked Mentions lists notes that mention this note’s title without linking to it. They’re good candidates for new links.

Links you paste from Note › Copy Link to Note count as backlinks too.

Build a connected notebook

Tags and links do different jobs, and they work best together.

• Use tags for broad areas such as #work, #home or #recipes, and nested tags for projects inside them. A note can have as many tags as it needs.
• Use links for specific connections. Link a meeting note to the project it’s about, or a recipe to the dinner party it’s for.
• Make a hub note for anything big, such as a trip or a house move. Link from it to each detailed note, and let the backlinks lead you back.
• Check Unlinked Mentions now and then. They often reveal connections you hadn’t noticed.
• Pin what you use most. Note › Pin Note (⌘⇧P) keeps a note at the top of the list. Note › Archive Note moves a finished note out of the way without deleting it.

To find notes by tag, links or content, see Finding anything.