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Import & Export

Jotaid stores standard Markdown, and neither direction is locked.

Exporting the Current Note

FormatShortcutNotes
Markdown⇧⌘EA portable .md
PDFA typeset, printable document; LaTeX and Mermaid both render correctly

macOS also supports bulk export: select several notes and export them to a folder, one .md each. iOS goes through the system share sheet, without bulk export.

Exports carry no attachments

An export is your text. Images and other attachments are not in it. To migrate those too, use an encrypted backup.

Importing Markdown

Import in the menu (⇧⌘I) offers two modes:

Import File(s)

Pick one or more .md files; they land wherever you currently are.

Importing into the Inbox is always free. If you are currently inside a project, the notes go into that project — which falls under multiple projects and needs Pro. On the free tier, switch back to the Inbox first.

Import Folder

A whole folder comes in, its directory structure mapping itself onto Jotaid's hierarchy:

On diskBecomes
The folder you pickedA project
Each top-level subfolderA theme
Anything deeperFolded into #tags

Importing a folder needs Pro

It necessarily creates a project, so the action is refused on the free tier. Importing individual .md files into the Inbox is unaffected and always free.

Nesting stops after two levels and turns into tags instead, because Jotaid has only two container tiers. Forcing deeper directories through would manufacture a pile of shell themes holding one note each; tags carry that information and retrieve better.

What Gets Skipped

  • Files over roughly 10 MB
  • Files that are not UTF-8

They do not fail the whole import; they are listed in the report ("N imported, M skipped") for you to handle separately.

Moving In From Elsewhere

Coming from a folder-based tool such as Obsidian or Typora, Import Folder usually does it in one step — those are already a directory tree of .md. Afterwards:

  1. Check that the project / theme structure the folders produced is what you wanted
  2. [[backlinks]] in the bodies are recognised, and nodes come into being with them
  3. Use Link All to backfill plain-text mentions into real links

Next Steps