Appearance
Your first workspace
A workspace is the top-level container for your pages, databases, and tasks. Most teams keep separate workspaces for personal and shared work.
Creating a workspace
- Click the workspace switcher at the top of the sidebar.
- Click + New workspace.
- Give it a name.
- Choose a storage mode — Browser storage, AuroraCloud, Local folders, or (desktop only) Offline folders. See Sync & storage for the trade-offs.
- Browser storage needs no account. For folder-backed modes, pick the on-disk folder when prompted; for AuroraCloud, sign in to your account.
You can change storage mode later in Settings → Data or Settings → Workspace sync / Local folders. Browser storage can be promoted to Local folders or AuroraCloud, and Offline folders can be promoted to Local folders by enabling AuroraCloud sync.
The sidebar
The sidebar is your main navigation. It shows:
- Workspaces — switch between workspaces at the top.
- Pinned pages — quick-access rows at the top of the sidebar.
- Favorites — the existing collapsible favourites section.
- Pages — all your top-level pages. Drag to reorder.
- Databases, Tasks, Journal, Bookmarks — filtered views by page type.
- Tags, Flagged, and Trash — lightweight ways to find, mark, and recover pages.
- Pinned widgets — Recent pages and Favorites, if you've pinned them.
Pinned pages in the sidebar
Right-click a page and choose Pin to sidebar. Pinned rows appear at the top of the sidebar above Favorites.
Each pin can show its first-level children inline:
- A chevron appears when the page has children.
- Use Show / Hide nested children per pin from the context menu.
- Settings → Preferences → Sidebars → Show nested pages under pinned items is the global override.
How Pinned and Favorites differ
Both surface pages you want to reach quickly, but they're independent lists with different shapes:
| Pinned | Favorites | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it sits | Flat rows at the very top of the sidebar | Inside a labelled, collapsible Favorites section |
| Section header | None — pins read as first-class nav items | "Favorites" header you can collapse / hide |
| Nested children | Optional first-level children with a chevron | None — flat list only |
| Shortcut | None — set via right-click | Star icon on the page header / Add to favorites from context menu |
A page can be both pinned and favorited.
Reordering and unpinning
- Drag a pinned row to reorder it.
- Right-click a pinned row → Unpin from sidebar to remove it.
- Pin state is saved per device per workspace (not cloud-synced yet).
Creating pages
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| New page (context-aware: new page in Notes, new task in Tasks) | ⌘N |
| New page inside a page | Click + next to any page in the sidebar |
| Quick capture (note inbox) | ⌘J |
Emoji icons and covers
- Click the emoji to the left of a page title to choose an icon from the full picker.
- Click Add cover at the top of any page to add a cover image. Drag it vertically to reposition.
Deleting a workspace
Go to Settings → Workspace and click Delete workspace. This is irreversible. All data in the workspace will be permanently deleted.