A bit of Everything

Syncing Notebooks

You can store your notebooks on Dropbox or sync them with a directory on your device.

Notebooks are written as plain-text files in Org mode file format.

Synchronization is currently manual – you have to initiate it yourself by clicking the Sync button. Button is located in the navigation drawer.

Repository Types

Dropbox

You have to specify a directory for storing your notebooks in.

  • Go to Settings
  • Click on Sync
  • Click on Repositories
  • Click the plus icon and choose Dropbox
  • Enter the directory inside Dropbox (without "Dropbox" part)

Device (local storage)

Notebooks can be synced with one or more directories on your device.

  • Go to Settings
  • Click on Sync
  • Click on Repositories
  • Click the plus icon and choose Device Storage
  • Click Browse and select (or create new) directory

Status Messages

After syncing is done, every notebook will have its sync status message updated.

No change

Notebook is already synced. Nothing to do.

Saved to URL

Notebook has been successfully synced by being saved to the repository represented by URL.

Loaded from URL

Notebook has been successfully synced by being loaded from the notebook represented by URL.

Notebook has no link and one or more remote notebooks with the same name exist

Orgzly doesn't know which remote notebook to use for syncing.

Each notebook must have a link to a remote notebook. Link is usually set automatically after the first sync. However, there are cases when this is not possible, or when the link is removed.

Link can not be created after the first sync if:

  • Notebook was created in Orgzly, but there is already a remote notebook with the same name in one of the repositories
  • Multiple repositories are used and there is a notebook with the same name in them

Link is removed when:

  • Repository is renamed or deleted

Link can be set manually:

  • Open the list of notebooks ("Notebooks")
  • Long-click on a notebook
  • Click on Set Link
  • Choose a repository
  • Click Set

Link is set if you can see the URL next to the small link icon in notebook's details.

Notebook has no link and multiple repositories exist

See Notebook has no link and one or more remote notebooks with the same name exist.

Both local and remote notebook have been modified

If you modify a notebook in Orgzly and at the same time (before performing a sync) you modify its linked remote notebook, next sync will leave the notebook in a conflicted state.

When notebook is not synced due to conflict, you have two options:

  • Force Load to import remote notebook and overwrite the local version
  • Force Save to export local notebook and overwrite the remote version

These actions are available in notebook's contextual menu:

  • Open the list of notebooks ("Notebooks")
  • Long-click on a notebook to open the menu

There is currently no other way to resolve a conflict within Orgzly itself.

Manually merging the two, conflicting files when using Dropbox

When the local and remote notebooks have been modified in a Dropbox repository you can take advantage of the facts that Orgzly stores information in text files (in the Org file format) and that Orgzly will create a new copy of the file if you remove it from Dropbox.

For example, you might move the original, underlying .org file in Dropbox to a different directory, then tell Orgzly to sync the files again (which will cause Orgzly to create a new file (with the same file name)). You can then use an external tool (such as a diff program) to compare your original file and the file that Orgzly created. You can then determine what changes were made, and which ones you wish to keep.

Be sure to remember that the new file (the one created by Orgzly) is where you want to put your final, merged version of the file.

Notes for Org mode users

Notebooks are encoded in Org mode file format.

Generated Org files

When compared to your original Org files, files generated by Orgzly might differ in the amount of white space, outlined below. Any other difference would be considered a serious bug.

  • By default, tags are separated from title with a single space character. You will lose your tags' indentation, as if you had org-tags-column set to 0.
    • You can change the tags-column in the app's preferences, which should behave just like org-tags-column.
    • There is also a preference to make tags-column output compatible with org-indent-mode.
  • Unsupported metadata below header is part of note's content. As soon as any unsupported metadata is encountered, lines from that point until the next heading are considered part of note's content. You might find an unexpected new line between supported and unsupported metadata, because note's content is normally separated from heading by a new line.

If any of this is not working for you, please contact us.

Search expressions are separated with space.

They are implicitly joined by logical AND. OR operator is also supported. Both operators are case insensitive. AND has higher precedence then OR.

Search expressions

Following search expressions are supported.

Most of them support . (NOT) operator (see the last column).

Expression Finds notes Example .
s.PERIOD Scheduled within period s.today N
d.PERIOD Deadline within period d.le.2d N
c.PERIOD Closed within period c.yesterday N
cr.PERIOD Created within period cr.ge.yesterday N
i.STATE With state i.todo Y
it.STATE-TYPE With state type .it.done Y
b.NOTEBOOK From notebook .b.Work Y
t.TAG With tag (inherited too) t.errand Y
tn.TAG With tag (note's only) tn.toRead N
p.PRIORITY Having priority .p.c Y
ps.PRIORITY Having set priority ps.b Y

PERIOD is in the format of OP.TIME

OP can be:

  • eq – equal to TIME
  • ne – not equal to TIME
  • lt – less than TIME
  • le – less than or equal to TIME
  • gt – greater than TIME
  • ge – greater than or equal to TIME

If OP is not specified:

  • Default value for s, d and cr is le
  • Default value for c is eq

TIME can be:

  • Nh – N hours from now
  • Nd – N days from now
  • Nw – N weeks from now
  • Nm – N months from now
  • Ny – N years from now

N can be negative.

For example:

  • -2h – two hours ago
  • 5d – five days from today
  • -2w – two weeks ago
  • 3m – three months from today
  • 1y – one year from today

Few aliases for TIME are available:

  • tomorrow, tmrw or tom
  • today or tod
  • now
  • yesterday

PERIOD can be none or no which matches notes without the property.

STATE is a keyword like TODO, DONE, NEW, etc. Keywords are case insensitive. Only states specified in Settings can be searched by. Any keywords not included in the settings are not treated as states - they become part of note's title.

STATE-TYPE can be todo, done or none.

NOTEBOOK is the name of notebook. It must be surrounded with double quotes if it contains spaces.

TAG is searched as a substring. For example t.bee will find notes which are tagged with beeblebrox.

PRIORITY is a priority starting from A.

Sorting

Default ordering of notes is by notebook name then priority. If s or d are used in the query, they are also sorted by scheduled or deadline time. They are always sorted by position in the notebook last.

You can change this behavior by using o operator.

Using o.PROPERTY will sort notes by property. .o.PROPERTY is also supported which sorts notes by property in reverse order. You can specify multiple operators and they will be used in order.

Following properties are supported:

Property Order by
b book notebook Notebook name
s sched scheduled Scheduled time
c close closed Closed time
d dead deadline Deadline time
cr created Created-at time
p pri prio priority Priority
st state States as defined in Settings

Agenda

You can add ad.DAYS to any query to display search results grouped by day.

DAYS is a number of days you want to display.

For example, (t.gym or t.class) ad.3 will display notes tagged with gym or class with any type of time set within next 3 days.

Examples

  • i.todo t.john - Search for TODO notes which are tagged with john
  • b.Work .i.done - Search in notebook Work for notes without DONE state
  • (b.Home or b.Work) phone - Search in notebooks Home and Work for notes which contain the string phone in their title, content or any of the tags
  • s.1d p.a - Search for priority A notes scheduled for tomorrow or earlier (same as p.a s.tom)
  • s.ge.today o.book o.pri - Search for notes scheduled for today or later, sorting them by notebook name then priority
  • o.book o.pri o.s - Sort by notebook name then priority then scheduled time
  • p.b - Search for notes with priority B (includes notes with no priority if default priority is B)
  • ps.b - Search for notes with priority set to B

Search Results

For each note you can tap on it to edit the note immediately. For each note you can also swipe right to display a menu of options that allow you to assign a starting time, cycle through the TODO and DONE states, or to simply mark the note as DONE. If you swipe left you'll be given a single option: displaying the note in the notebook that contains it.

FAQ

How much does it cost?

Orgzly is free.

Is the source code available?

Yes, source code is available on GitHub.

I don't use Google Play, any alternatives?

Orgzly is also available on F-Droid. Or you can download APK files directly from GitHub releases page.

Dropbox sync option is missing

Are you using F-Droid version? Dropbox is only available in Google Play's version of the app.

Is there an iOS version?

No, only Android version is available at the moment.

After implementing some of the important features which are still missing in the current Android version, there is an idea to start working on either iOS version or a Web application.

Privacy Policy

Other Data

When you give Orgzly access to Dropbox, an authentication token is stored on your device to allow receiving and sending of notebooks from and to Dropbox. No other data is being transferred. Your Dropbox credentials are not visible to Orgzly.

Contact

Email us at support@orgzly.com and visit Orgzly.com.

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