Tips

None of this is required. These are the habits that tend to develop after a few weeks, and having them up front saves you the few weeks.

Type first, think second

The reason to open this app rather than a document is that you can start typing before you have decided where the thought belongs. Resist the urge to organise on the way in.

Command L⌘L, type, Return⏎, write.

Let titles be sentences

ask Dave about the invoice discrepancy is a better title than Dave. You will type something like the former when looking for it later, and auto-completion matches from the start of the title.

Keep a daily note, but not only a daily note

A note titled with today’s date is a good landing pad for things that have no home yet. Just move anything that turns out to matter into its own note, or you will end up scrolling through a long log looking for the one line you wanted — exactly the problem small notes avoid.

Use Command Shift V⌘⇧V more than you expect

Paste-as-new-note is the fastest capture path there is: copy the error message, the address, the quote, the snippet, then one chord and it is saved and searchable.

Bookmark the two or three notes you live in

Command Shift D⌘⇧D. If you find yourself typing the same search several times a day, that note wants a bookmark.

Widen a search you narrowed too far

Command D⌘D puts your search text back into the field with the note de-selected, which is faster than retyping. EscapeEsc clears it entirely.

Set the storage format before you have a thousand notes

Decide early whether you want plain files or an encrypted database. Converting later works, but it is a real operation on real data, and it is a nicer decision to make with twenty notes than with two thousand.

Turn on FileVault if you turn on encryption

Database encryption protects your notes at rest; FileVault covers the swap file that decrypted notes can pass through. They belong together — see Encryption.

For writers and researchers

Store notes as individual plain text or RTF files in a synced folder. You get this application’s speed for capture and recall, and every other tool you own can still read your notes — including whatever you eventually draft in.

For developers

A folder of .txt or .md files is grep-able, rg-able, and diffable. Point Kinetic Notes at a directory under version control and you have a searchable snippet library with history, without adding a service to your life.