Prepare for your life to get easier: Simplenote widgets are coming to iOS. As of v4.45, anyone with Simplenote on their iPhone or iPad will be able to add our widgets directly to their device’s home screen. There are three widgets to choose from, in a range of sizes.
New Note
A big, blue shortcut—that’s all you have to click on to create a new note. One tap takes you straight to the editor in the Simplenote app, so you can start taking notes instantly. This widget is available in the small size only.
Note
Is there a particular note you access frequently? This widget lets you jump right back into it, without having to search. The widget displays your most recent note by default. You can also long-press the widget and select “Edit Widget” to change which note is displayed. This widget is available in small and medium sizes.
Note List
With this widget, you’ve got options: It can display your “All Notes” list or the list of notes associated with one of your tags. Whatever you choose, you can tap one of the notes to open it in the app’s editor. If you display the list of notes with a particular tag, tapping the blue new note icon in the top right will automatically apply that tag to your new note. In this widget, notes are ordered according to your sorting settings in the app. It is available in medium and large sizes.
We hope you enjoy using our new Widgets. Got feedback? Don’t hesitate to tell us what you think.
We’re excited to announce that one of our most frequently-requested features, the ability to link to a note from within another note, is now available.
Download the latest version of Simplenote and you’ll be able to insert links from one note into another note to easily organize and cross-reference information.
I operate by investigating the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Every particle in the universe affects every other particle, however faintly or obliquely. Everything interconnects with everything.
Dirk Gently, in Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
How it works
Internal note links begin with simplenote:// instead of the usual https:// prefix, which lets the app know that it should load up a different note within the editor.
When you insert an internal link, it will use Markdown formatting by default: A title in brackets followed by a URL in parentheses. However, these links work in all notes, whether or not Markdown formatting is enabled. Once the link is inserted, you can edit or remove the title without changing the link’s destination.
Internal Links on Simplenote OSX
There are two ways to insert internal note links: autocomplete or copy and paste.
Autocomplete
Simply start typing a note link by using the [ character and some text from your note title, and you will be offered a list of notes to choose from. This feature is available on Android, macOS, and web, and will be in an upcoming release on Windows/Linux and iOS.
Autocomplete on Simplenote OSX
Autocomplete on Simplenote Android
Copy and paste
Each note now has the ability to view and copy its internal link. This works differently on each platform. Once you’ve copied the note link, you can paste it into a different note.
Android
Select one or more notes in the note list and use the link icon in the top bar to copy a link (or links) to the selected note(s).
Copy a link from the notes list on Android
You can also copy a note’s link from its ellipsis menu.
Copy a link from the ellipsis menu on Android
iOS
iOS also has two ways of copying a note’s internal link. You can swipe left on the note from the note list and then tap on the link icon.
Swipe to copy a link on iOS
As of the upcoming release, you can also long press on any note in the note list and choose Copy Link.
Long press to copy a link on iOS
MacOS
Right-click or Ctrl-click on a note in the note list and select “Copy Internal Link.”
Copy Internal Link on Simplenote MacOS
Web and Windows/Linux apps
Open the details panel of any note by clicking on the “info” icon. Near the bottom, you’ll see its internal link, which you can copy to your clipboard.
Internal Link in the note details on Simplenote Web
What about links in published notes?
If you publish a note which contains internal links, any links to other published posts will be automatically converted to their public links in the published version! Now you can create a Table of Contents, a homepage of your published notes, or a navigation bar that links to the previous/next notes in a series. The possibilities are endless.
But no fear about accidentally publishing private information: links to non-published posts will be removed.
A published note with links to other notes
Bonus: link references
You can view which notes link to a particular note by viewing its details. This feature is currently available on the Android and web apps; it’s coming soon on other platforms.
Note references on Simplenote Android
Join the Android and iOS beta programs
As always, if you want to be the first to explore new features like this one and share feedback with us, check out our beta testing program!
We beta test each new update for two full weeks before releasing it. Although our team tests the apps extensively, your testing helps us find even more ways to improve, whether that’s fixing a bug or simplifying a screen.
Ready to join in? Here’s how:
Get the beta apps
On your Android device, head to Simplenote in the Google Play Store, scroll down to the “Join the beta” section, and tap “Join” to opt into the beta program. You’ll get the latest beta as an update in the Play Store.
On your iOS device, join the TestFlight beta program — open that link on your iOS device and follow the instructions on that page to opt-in. You’ll get the latest beta in the TestFlight app.
In both cases, the beta app will come with details about what’s new or changed, so you know where to focus your testing.
Share your feedback
Once you have a beta version of the Simplenote app installed on your device, you’re ready to go. Use the app as you normally do, or push the limits of the changes in each release. Then, let us know how it’s going! You can submit feedback through the Google Play Store (Android) or TestFlight (iOS) — or contact us if you’d like more help.
We’d love to hear from you
We hope the new internal links come in handy, whether you’re organizing class notes, writing a novel, or even trying to crack the latest case! Leave us a comment to let us know how you’re using these new links.
You may have already noticed that simplenote.com looks a bit different. Eagle eyes might have also noticed that our brand blue is also a little different. Well-spotted!
The Website
We wanted our website to mirror the simplicity in design that’s the hallmark of our apps (and a redesign was certainly overdue!). Our new site was built entirely on WordPress.com using the new block editor and is a testament to what’s possible with a good WordPress theme and a sprinkle of CSS.
Our New Blue
As you may know, our goal has been to improve accessibility across all platforms. Simplenote is part of the Automattic product family, so we’d temporarily incorporated a more accessible color from the WordPress palette into the Simplenote apps. But now we’re moving to our own new brand blue to provide an accessible experience for Simplenote fans and also give Simplenote its own unique identity.
We want you to be able to find your notes more easily so you can spend less time locating and more time note-taking. Enter: advanced search.
Download the latest version of Simplenote and you’ll be able to search your tags, search notes by tag or – if you’re a legendary note tagger† – combine multiple tags in one search.
We’ll also be adding sorting options directly to search, so you can find that one note you made in February 2011, or maybe it was in April 2013 that you’re sure you used the word “astronauts” and contained something important.
To start using the new search features, make sure you’re running the latest version of the Simplenote app. Then just start searching and you’ll get tag suggestions based on what you type. Currently available on iOS and Android, if you don’t see the new search yet, keep your app updated – it will be with you soon!
Got feedback? Don’t hesitate to tell us what you think.
† How many tags do you have in Simplenote? Tell us in the comments. The person with the most tags gets to feel good about their exemplary organizational skills.
After a short hiatus, Simplenote is actively being developed again! We’ve been busy cleaning up the user interface, bringing old code up to date behind the scenes, and fixing some long-standing bugs. Check out the recent release notes below.
Android
Added search sorting by date created, date modified, and alphabetically with search history and suggestions.
Added a resizable note widget to view a note and open it in the app from the home screen.
Added an option to the Theme setting to follow the system day/night mode.
Updated dark theme with darker colors for less eye fatigue and better battery life.
Fixed multiple bugs with cursors for notes with checklists, syncing for deleting tags and emptying trash, and networking causing interface slowness.
One particular bug was plaguing Simplenote for years: a specific set of circumstances in which seemingly harmless edits would crash the app or corrupt a note. This was more likely to affect notes written in certain languages with complex scripts and notes containing emojis. Representing human text is hard, but this should no longer cause you any trouble. Special thanks goes out to our users who write poetry in early dynastic cuneiform – you can now express yourselves again without issue.
Join the Android and iOS Beta Programs
Do you enjoy the Simplenote apps? (We sure hope so!) If you like exploring the latest features and wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with us, join our beta testing program!
We beta test each new update for two full weeks before releasing it. Although our team tests the apps extensively, your testing helps us find even more ways to improve, whether that’s fixing a bug or simplifying a screen.
Ready to join in? Here’s how.
Get the beta apps
On your Android device, head to Simplenote in the Google Play Store, scroll down to the “Join the beta” section, and tap “Join” to opt in to the beta program. You’ll get the latest beta as an update in the Play Store.
On your iOS device, join the TestFlight beta program — open that link on your iOS device and follow the instructions on that page to opt in. You’ll get the latest beta in the TestFlight app.
In both cases, the beta app will come with details about what’s new or changed, so you know where to focus your testing.
Share your feedback
Once you have a beta version of the Simplenote app installed on your device, you’re ready to go. Use the app as you normally do, or push the limits of the changes in each release. Then, let us know when something goes wrong. You can submit feedback through the Google Play Store (Android) or TestFlight (iOS) — or contact us if you’d like more help.
Thank you
To all our passionate and loyal users, thank you! We’ve got some exciting ideas planned for the future of Simplenote and we can’t wait to share them with you. We’ll be posting release notes and new features on this blog, so stay tuned for more info.
We greatly appreciate all our open-source contributors as well! If you’re interesting in contributing to Simplenote, check out the repositories below.
Simplenote is great for keeping your life organized without getting in your way. Now, it gives you a whole new way to stay on top of your tasks: Checklists! Here’s one in action:
Adding a checklist in the macOS app.
On our mobile apps, you’ll find a new button in the editor toolbar to add a checklist. On Desktop, head to Format → Insert Checklist. Nested Checklists are also supported, in case you need an extra level of organization.
A nested checklist in the iOS app.
Checklists are compatible with the GitHub task lists markdown syntax, so Markdown users will see their existing lists automatically transform to checkable lists in the app! You can see this in action by typing “- [ ]” in a note.
And as always, every update to your checklists will get synced with all of your devices, for free.
Collaborate on a Checklist
Did you know you can collaborate on a note with other Simplenote users? With checklists that becomes even more powerful — use shared notes to working with others on shopping lists, to-dos, and more. To share a note with another user, add their Simplenote account email address to the tags field of the note, or use the Sharing menu in the app.
Simplenote is powered by Automattic, which also runs WordPress.com — so as you can imagine, we love blogging. I’ve written for a few different sites, some using WordPress and some not. No matter where I publish my posts, I have a great, consistent writing experience by drafting in Simplenote first.
I use Simplenote from the moment I think of an idea, by opening up a new note and adding a title. Later, I can check those notes and start writing more. Because it’s in Simplenote and synced to all my devices, I can do this from anywhere I happen to be!
If I think of a great opening line for a post while I’m out having coffee, I can open up Simplenote on my phone and jot that down. That way, it’s always waiting for me when I get back to my computer and ready to flesh things out.
If the site will take formatting and reproduce it, like the new WordPress Editor, I turn on Markdown to write the blog post. When I’m done, I copy the full text of the note. Pasting that into the editor preserves all the formatting and splits it into the appropriate blocks.
It will do this whether you copy the text from the Edit view showing the Markdown, or from the Preview option displaying the actual formatting. It’s like magic!
This saves some time, since I can type the formatting easily in Markdown while I’m taking my notes. It even loads the image from the URL provided in the image Markdown!
Some tips:
Add titles to your notes right away so you know where to look later.
Use Markdown to bold and italicize text, create headers, and add lists.
Focus mode on the desktop apps is a great way to write with less distraction (pictured in the gif above).
Publish the note from the Simplenote app to share it with a friend or editor first.
Do you have any tips for Blogging with Simplenote? What do you use Simplenote for?
Written in Simplenote, edited and posted with the new WordPress Editor
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve added note importing to our desktop app for Windows, Linux, and macOS: now it’s super-easy to import notes from other services, including Evernote, so all your ideas and links and snippets are in one place.
Importing notes into the Linux App.
(A quick note, Mac users! To use the importer, make sure you’re using the Electron version of the app, available here. The standard version of the app available in the Mac App Store doesn’t support importing yet.)
To get started, select File → Import Notes from the app menu, then pick the type of notes you’ll be importing. The options are:
You can browse to the notes you want to import or drag and drop a file into the import window, and the app takes care of the rest. If you’re importing notes with Markdown and you’d like to keep them that way, check the Enable Markdown on all notes box and they’ll be automatically configured as a Markdown note in Simplenote.
This release also adds a lot of great enhancements and bug fixes. For more details, check out the release notes on GitHub.
We hope you enjoy this update, and happy noting (and importing!).
The latest update to the Simplenote Desktop Apps for Windows, Linux and macOS is a big one! Here’s what’s new:
Focus Mode
We’ve heard some amazing stories about writers that use Simplenote to create their content, drafting blog posts and even publishing a book created with the app. To make it even easier to have a distraction-free writing experience in Simplenote, we’ve added Focus Mode to all the Desktop apps. Turn it on, and it hides all the sidebars and makes the editor full-width, so you see nothing but the blank screen and the most basic tools.
The macOS app in Focus Mode.
Reading full-width notes can be a little tough depending on your screen size, but never fear: you can shorten the line length of your notes for easier note readability. Head to via the View ▸ Note Editor ▸ Line Length, and adjust the length until it’s comfortable.
Windows and Linux Updates
In addition to Focus Mode, the Windows and Linux apps got a spit-shine:
No mroe typos: they’ve got a spell-checker! (If you don’t care for spellcheck, you can disable it in the “Edit” menu.)
A new user setting lets you opt out of analytics sharing.
Exported note files (“File menu ▸ Export Notes”) are dated to reflect the last modified date of the note. (Thanks to @ianmorti for the improvement!)
Modification dates are now updated when you add or remove tags. (A tip of our collective hats to @hanhmchau for this one.)
“Font Size” is now called “Zoom,” matching standard app conventions. And it’s easier to find — and therefore, to adjust — in the “View” menu. (Props, @gie3d!)
Download
Visit our homepage to start using Simplenote on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, or the web.
What’s Next?
Love Simplenote? Wish you didn’t have a bunch of older notes scattered across the other apps you tried before you discovered it? We’re focused on an importer to make it easy to bring notes from other apps to Simplenote — look for it in a future update!
A special thanks to all our open source contributors who help make Simplenote better. If you’d like to help, check out our developer page for links to all of our GitHub projects.
As part of our commitment to privacy and transparency, we’re updating our Privacy Policy for Simplenote.
“Your privacy is critically important to us.” These are the first words of our Privacy Policy, and words we live by when designing and building our products.
Starting on September 24, 2018, Simplenote will be covered in our Privacy Policy for the products and services from us, the folks at Automattic. No more fragmenting: We’re retiring Simplenote’s separate Privacy Policy — our privacy practices should be straightforward and easy to understand, so now you only have to understand one.
Here are some of the other updates you’ll see:
Our Privacy Policy includes real-world, concrete examples to give you a clearer picture of how we collect and use personal information.
We provided more information, in the Choices section, about how you can limit and control the data that you provide to us when you use our services.
There’s also added information about your data protection and privacy rights, how long we keep information, and how we handle transfers of personal data outside the EU.
Our new Privacy Policy will take effect on September 24, 2018. We’re announcing the update now, to give you time to take a look at it.
If you continue to use our services on or after September 24, 2018 you acknowledge that your use will be subject to our new Privacy Policy.
And we’d love it if you follow us on privacy.blog for more information about privacy and transparency at Automattic.
***
Although we updated the Privacy Policy, our core values remain unchanged: We strive to be fully transparent. We keep the data we have a reason to keep. We are thoughtful about how we collect, use, and share personal information. And your notes belong to you.
Simplenote 