Folders and pages

The sidebar shows a vault’s notes three ways. Choose one above them:

• Folders: the vault’s folders and the notes in them, as a file manager shows them.
• Pages: notes inside notes, as in Notion.
• List: every note, with the folder it is in.

Pages inside pages

A note’s pages are the notes in the folder beside it with its name. The pages of Projects.md are the notes in the Projects folder, and the pages of Projects/Plan.md those in Projects/Plan. A folder that no note names shows as a folder.

To add a page inside a note, point at it in the Pages view and click +. The new note goes in its folder, made then if it is the first. In the Folders view, the + beside a folder makes a note in that folder.

Nothing else records which page is inside which, so the two views always agree, and other apps, such as Obsidian, see ordinary folders. Notion’s Markdown export has the same shape.

Making folders

Click the New folder icon at the top of the sidebar, or choose File, then New folder, and give it a name; write / between names to make folders inside folders at once, as Projects/Website. Right-click a folder, or press Shift+F10 on it, for its menu:

• New note here and New folder here make one inside it.
• Delete folder deletes it. An empty folder goes at once; for one with notes or files in it, Nether says how many and asks first, then moves each to the trash and deletes the folder. Restore in the notice puts them all back where they were, and so does restoring each from the Trash tab. A folder holding hidden files, such as .obsidian, stays, with only those in it.

A folder shows in the sidebar from the moment it is made, with or without notes in it, and so do the vault’s other folders, such as one that holds only images. An empty folder is on this device alone: sync and export carry notes and files, not folders, so a folder reaches another device with the first note put in it.

The buttons at the top of the sidebar are icons: New note, New folder, New database, and Today, This week and This month when they are turned on. Point at one, or move to it with Tab, to see its name and shortcut.

Opening and closing

Click a folder, or the arrow beside a page, to open or close it; click a note to open it. With the keyboard:

Key	Does
↓ and ↑	Move to the next or previous row
→	Open a folder or page, or move into it when open
←	Close it, or move to the one it is in
Enter	Open the note, or open or close the folder
Home and End	Move to the first or last row
Shift+F10, or the menu key	Open the note’s menu

The note you have open shows in the tree, its folders opened. What you open and close is remembered for the vault.

Moving notes and folders

Drag a note or a folder onto a folder, or onto a page in the Pages view, to move it there; drag it onto the space below the rows to move it to the top of the vault.

• A page moves with its pages, and a folder with the page that names it, so pages stay inside their pages.
• Images and other files in a moving folder move with it, and so do the empty folders in it.
• Every link to what moved is rewritten to find it, as when you rename a note.

A note’s menu

Right-click a note in any view, or press Shift+F10 or the menu key on it, for what you can do with it without opening it first:

• Open it, Open in new tab, or Open to the right; see Tabs and panes.
• Rename… it in its folder; links to it follow.
• Make a copy beside it, named as the next free Name 2, Name 3.
• Move to… a folder, found by typing its name; its pages go with it and links to it follow, as when you drag it.
• Merge into… another note, found by typing: its text goes after the other’s, its properties join the other’s (lists such as tags are joined), every link to it leads to the other, keeping the heading or block it named, and it moves to the trash.
• Add tags…: its tags as chips, and more typed in, the vault’s tags offered as you type. They are kept in its tags property; tags written in its text stay where they are.
• Bookmark it, or Remove bookmark.
• Copy link as [[Name]], Copy path in the vault, or Copy full path on disk.
• Open in default app, the one the system opens Markdown with, or Show in system explorer.
• Export… it, see its Version history, or Move to trash.

The arrow keys move through the menu, a letter goes to the next item starting with it, Enter chooses, and Escape closes it.

Bookmarks

Bookmarked notes show above the others, under Bookmarks, in the order you bookmarked them; click the heading to close or open the list. Bookmark a note from its menu, or the open note with Bookmark the note in the command palette. Click a bookmark to open its note, right-click it for the note’s menu, or click its × to take the bookmark away.

A bookmark follows its note when you rename or move it. A note in the trash keeps its bookmark, shown in grey, until it comes back.

Bookmarks are kept in .nether/bookmarks.json, in the vault’s folder, in the shape Obsidian uses; a vault from Obsidian starts with the bookmarks it had there. Sync does not carry them to your other devices yet.

Tabs and panes

Notes open in tabs above the note. Clicking a note in the sidebar shows it in place of the note you were reading; Ctrl+click (Cmd+click on a Mac) or a middle click opens it in a new tab. A note already open in a tab is shown there, not opened twice.

Open to the right, in a note’s menu or the command palette, shows a note beside the one you are reading, in a second pane with its own tabs. Click in a pane, or move into it with Tab, to work there: commands, links and the sidebar open notes in that pane. Closing a pane’s last tab closes the pane.

Key	Does
Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Show the next or previous tab (Control+Tab on a Mac)
Ctrl+W	Close the tab
← and → on a tab	Show the tab before or after
Delete on a tab	Close it

A middle click or a tab’s × closes it too, and a right click opens the note’s menu. Your tabs are remembered for the vault on this device, and come back when you open it again.