Settings

Varlig works well straight away, and Settings is where you make it yours: how notes start, when private notes lock, how answers look, and what Varlig may do online. This page walks through every pane in the order Varlig shows them, with each option’s default.

Open Settings with Varlig › Settings… (⌘,), or click the gear at the top of the sidebar.

Settings is laid out like System Settings. Its sidebar starts with Search settings, which finds the pane for a word such as backup or currency, then a card showing what iCloud sync is doing, then the panes in groups, each with a coloured icon. Every pane opens with a short description of what it’s for. On iPhone and iPad, see Themes and Settings on iPhone and iPad.

General

The everyday behaviour of the app and the editor.

Language, in this pane, chooses the interface language. System follows your Mac’s language preferences. A new choice applies after restarting Varlig; Restart Now saves your work and reopens the app. Calculation input and answer formats are separate, under Calculations.

On launch

Workspace

Formatting toolbar

While the toolbar is shown, this group pins more buttons after the standard ones: Undo and Redo, Calculation Block, Code Block, Math and Current Date. None is pinned to begin with. A pinned button never pushes out a standard one — in a narrow window the pinned ones go first — and each stays in the toolbar’s More menu and the menu bar either way.

Menu bar

Keyboard shortcuts

Three shortcuts work from any app: Open Varlig, Create a new note and Show scratchpad. Show scratchpad starts as ⌃Space; the other two work once you record them.

Click Record Shortcut and press the keys you want. A shortcut must include ⌘ or ⌃. Press Escape to cancel, or click the clear button to remove a shortcut.

Editor

How writing behaves, and what a new note starts with.

Writing

A note can override spelling on its own: the … menu’s Spelling submenu turns checking on or off for that note and pins its language.

Pasted links

Pasting a web address over selected text always makes a link, whatever this is set to.

New notes

Record time spent editing each note is off by default. Turned on, the word-count capsule also shows something like 12 min editing. It counts the time between edits you make in the editor and stops after a minute without one, while Varlig is in the background, and while the app is locked — so thinking, reading and leaving a note open overnight count for nothing. It is kept on this Mac only, never in the note, in sync or in a backup, and Remove All deletes it. It records the edits Varlig saw; it is not a record of who wrote anything.

Scroll long code lines instead of wrapping is described in Long lines.

Remember answer formats in Markdown files is on to begin with. It keeps each line’s answer format with a Markdown file you open in place, in the file’s metadata; see Answer formats stay with the file.

Text Transformations

Saved find-and-replace rules you apply yourself from Format › Transformations, after a preview. The list is empty to begin with, and nothing runs a transformation on its own. See Saved text transformations.

Journal & Review

Daily and weekly notes chooses what today’s note and this week’s note start from: a date or week heading, or one of your templates.

Review sets how many notes the review queue offers each day, from 1 to 50, and the tags never to review. Review choices and the daily and weekly templates are stored on this Mac; when each note was reviewed is stored in the library.

Typography

Fonts, text size and the shape of the page: the interface, text, heading and code fonts, plus font size, line spacing, line width, paragraph spacing and paragraph indent, with a preview that changes as you do. Themes, fonts and icons covers each one.

Themes

The colours of your workspace, as a gallery you can search, with your own themes beside Varlig’s. System follows macOS light and dark mode. See Themes, fonts and icons.

App Icon

Choose Varlig’s icon in the Dock and Finder. See Themes, fonts and icons.

Calculations

How calc blocks read numbers, show answers and fetch exchange rates.

Numbers

Answer formatting

These are the defaults for every line. To change one line, use the menu on its answer.

Answers changes only how answers look. What a line means, the order of a slashed date and which currency $ or kr names still follow the number format, and an answer copied back into the note is written the other way; Convert foreign numbers when pasting converts a single pasted number. A note can have its own Number format and Answers in Calculation Settings for This Note…, from the Calculation Line menu when you right-click a calculation or under Calculations in the note’s … menu.

Currency

Calculation summary

While you work in a calc block, or select some lines, a floating summary adds them up. It only adds lines in the block’s main unit or currency and leaves counts and other units out, as The summary under each block explains.

Each block’s summary menu can change these for that block.

Variables

Everyday calculations

Type these numbers with a full stop as the decimal point, whatever your number format.

Both of the last two settings are shortcuts rather than switches: a line that names a country of its own always wins, so public holidays in Ireland in 2027 and income tax on €55,000 in Germany give the same answer whatever you’ve chosen, and they work before you choose anything. Leave a setting on None and the short forms ask you to name a country instead of guessing one from your Mac’s region.

Income tax answers are estimates for a single person claiming the standard allowance, so treat them as a guide rather than a tax return. Income tax lists every country, its tax year and what the figure leaves out, and Public holidays covers the holiday phrases.

Shared definitions

Values, units and functions you write here work in every note, so you don’t have to define them again. For example:

Workday holidays

Extra days off that workday counts should skip, one date per line in YYYY-MM-DD form. Out of the box only Saturdays and Sundays are skipped. Add days and lines like December 24 2026 + 2 workdays or workdays until 4 January 2027 skip them too:

2026-12-25
2026-12-28
2027-01-01

With those three dates listed, December 24 2026 + 2 workdays lands on December 30 instead of December 28.

This list and the Public holiday calendar above work together rather than replacing each other. The calendar brings in a whole country’s public holidays without any typing, and this list adds days it doesn’t know about: your company shutdown, a regional day such as a German Land’s Fronleichnam or an Australian state holiday, an inset day, or a Friday you’ve booked off. Use the list on its own if your country has no built-in calendar or you’d rather pick the days yourself. See Workdays and Public holidays.

Exchange rates

Refresh currency and crypto rates hourly is on to begin with. Varlig then:

• downloads daily exchange rates from the European Central Bank and cryptocurrency rates from Coinbase when a calculation first needs them, and again once they’re an hour old
• downloads exchange-rate history and US inflation figures soon after Varlig opens, for historical conversions and inflation calculations.

Turn it off and Varlig downloads nothing on its own. Refresh Now fetches everything once, whenever you choose. The pane shows when each source was last updated, and any problem in red. Varlig keeps the last rates it downloaded, so conversions keep working offline.

Live data

Two lookups that leave your Mac, each on to begin with: a line that names a place has asked for that lookup. They run only for an expression that needs them, never send the rest of the note, and take effect immediately.

Turn one off and the lines that need it show no answer; everything else is unaffected. If you turned live data on or off in an earlier version of Varlig, that choice is kept. A status line under the switches says how the lookups are doing, including when Apple WeatherKit didn’t answer and that Varlig will ask again in a few minutes. Under the weather switch are the Apple Weather mark and its Other data sources link; see Weather.

Privacy

Locking, protected tags and where your notes may appear. What’s protected, at the bottom of the pane, explains exactly what encryption covers. See Privacy and locking.

Varlig has two widgets on the Mac, and both stay empty until Show notes and calculations in widgets is on: Varlig Notes & Tasks, with your pinned notes and their unfinished tasks, and Calculation, with one answer from a note you choose, as on iPhone and iPad. Neither ever shows a password-protected note, and while Varlig is locked both are empty.

Sync & Backup

Import & Export

Files holds Import Notes…, and Export holds Keep tags when exporting, which is the same setting as the export sheet’s Include tags.

Export Bear notes you’ve encrypted in Bear unlocked first, and let Bear download all attachments before importing. For other apps and files, see Import, export and backups.

Published snapshots lists every folder of read-only pages this library has written, says whether the notes have changed since, and holds Show in Finder, Update Snapshot… and Remove…. See Publishing a snapshot.

Advanced

Automation

Allow authenticated automation lets other tools and scripts work with your notes through varlig:// links. Turning it on creates a private token: Copy API Token copies it, and Reset Token replaces it. The token can read your unprotected notes and change the ones that aren’t read-only, so keep it private.

Desktop connector

Allow local MCP connections lets an AI assistant on your Mac search and read your notes through Varlig’s connector. It’s off to begin with.

• Allow changes to notes also lets the assistant edit notes.
• Only tags and Exclude tags limit which notes it can see. Separate tags with commas; nested tags are included, and exclusions always win.
• Password-protected notes are never available.

An assistant may send the notes it reads to its own service, so choose tags carefully.

Crash and hang reports

The crash, hang and resource reports macOS gives Varlig: the last 20, and 10 days of performance figures, kept on this Mac and never sent by themselves. The line at the top says how many are kept and when the latest happened. Send Report… opens a sheet that lists each report and shows the file as it will be sent, then Email… addresses it to [email protected] and Share… sends it another way. Delete Reports… removes them. See Crash and hang reports.

Plan

The last pane: “See what Varlig costs, what it includes, and restore a purchase.” Varlig › Varlig Plan… opens it, and so does Varlig › Restore Purchases…, which starts restoring straight away. Varlig is free to download, and a plan is what lets you write. One plan covers your Mac, iPhone and iPad when they use the same Apple Account in the App Store; on iPhone and iPad this page is Settings › Plan.

This Mac says what this Mac can do now: Choose a plan to start writing before you’ve bought one, Your plan is active with the plan and when it renews, or Writing is paused with the date a plan ended. Until Varlig has been able to ask the App Store, it reads Varlig is unlocked: nothing is limited while it doesn’t know, and a check that fails later never takes anything away.

Plans lists Monthly, Yearly and Pay once, each with its price, its length (“1 month, renews automatically”, “1 year, renews automatically”, “Lifetime, never renews”) and how it’s billed. The prices come from the App Store, in your own currency and with any local taxes; until it answers, the list says “Asking the App Store for prices in your currency…”. Subscribe buys a monthly or yearly plan and Buy Once the one-time licence, and the plan you have says Current Plan. Under the list are “There is no free trial. To try Varlig, start with the monthly plan and cancel whenever you like.”, how subscriptions renew and are charged, and links to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy.

Restore a purchase is always there, so an existing owner is never sent through a purchase first. Beside Already bought Varlig? it explains: “Brings back a plan bought with this Apple Account, on this Mac, an iPhone or an iPad. Varlig never asks you to start a trial first.” Restore Purchases runs it, and becomes Try Again if an attempt is worth repeating.

What every plan includes says there are no feature tiers and no add-ons, lists the devices a plan covers, and explains cancelling: a cancelled plan keeps working until the end of the period you’ve paid for. Manage Subscription…, beside Change or cancel a subscription, opens your subscriptions in the App Store.

If a plan ends states what keeps working even then: “Your notes stay on this Mac and stay yours. Reading, selecting, copying, printing, export in every format with its attachments, version history and backups keep working offline and forever. Only writing new notes and editing existing ones needs an active plan.” Import and restoring a backup write into the library, so they follow editing. What your other devices write still syncs in.

Without a plan, a banner at the bottom of the library window says so, with Plan… to open this pane and Don’t Show Again. It’s never a sheet and never covers a note. Buying or restoring lets you write again at once, without restarting Varlig.

The pane closes with the part that doesn’t change: “Varlig has no account and no server: nothing about your notes leaves this Mac when a plan is checked.”

Options outside Settings

A few preferences live in menus instead: