Notes

Notes are personal scratch space — quick thoughts, meeting prep, half-formed ideas — that live outside any project until you are ready to bring them in.

Open the Quick-Note Modal

Click Notes in the main sidebar. The quick-note modal opens as a floating panel — your current page stays exactly where it is.

You can also press ⌘ Option N (Mac) or Ctrl Alt N (Windows) to open it from anywhere.

Click New note (the pencil icon) to start a blank note. Your cursor lands inside an empty heading for immediate typing.

Write and Format a Note

Type directly into the editor. The first line becomes the note title.

A floating toolbar or bubble menu provides standard formatting (headings, bold, lists, etc.).

Use ⌘ F (Mac) or Ctrl F (Windows) to search within a note.

Find a Note

Notes are listed in the sidebar, grouped by date. Use the search bar to filter by keyword. Click any note to open it.

To open the full notes page, click the expand icon in the modal header.

Share a Note

You can share a note directly without exporting it to a project. Click the ⋯ menu in the note header and select Share. From there, grant access to specific people by email or copy a shareable link.

Recipients with link access can view the note in their browser. If you grant editor access, they can edit it alongside you in real time.

You can also share directly with the Obvious assistant by adding it as an editor. With editor access, the assistant reads and writes to the note itself, not a copy. Any edits it makes stream into your editor immediately without a page reload. This is different from @mentioning a note in a thread, which makes a one-time copy as a project artifact.

To stop sharing, return to the ⋯ menu, open Share, and remove the person or turn off link access.

Export a Note to a Project

When a note is ready for a project, click the ⋯ menu in the note header. Options include:

1. Create project from note to start a new project.
2. Add to existing project to copy the note into an existing project.

You can also @mention a note in any thread. Obvious copies it into the current project as a document artifact. From the same menu, you can also duplicate, download as Markdown, or permanently delete a note.

Tip: Exporting does not delete the original note.