---
title: Quick notes
description: Write a thought down without leaving the page you are on — where notes live, who can read them, and how to get one back.
section: Wiki
order: 2
---

# Quick notes

A quick note is somewhere to put a thought without stopping what you were
doing. Every other way Laver stores text costs a navigation — a ticket needs a
board and a column, a comment needs its ticket, a wiki page needs a wiki — and
that navigation is usually the moment the thought gets away.

## Take one

Click **Quick note** at the edge of the screen, or press
`Cmd`/`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`K`. The panel opens out of the button it came from and
sits over the page you were on. Type, and press **Save note** or
`Cmd`/`Ctrl`+`Enter`. `Enter` on its own starts a new line, because half of all
notes are two lines long.

The shortcut works from anywhere in the app, **including with a ticket open** —
so a thought that arrives while you are reading something does not cost you the
thing you were reading. The launcher button hides itself while a dialog is
open, since it could not be clicked through it anyway; the keyboard shortcut is
unaffected.

A note can be up to **5,000 characters**. An empty one is refused rather than
stored.

## Write it properly

A note is written in the same editor a wiki page is, so a thought that turns out
to be worth keeping does not have to be retyped somewhere else to get a heading
on it. Type `/` for the command menu, or use the toolbar: headings, **bold**,
_italic_, inline code, bullet lists, numbered lists, checklists, quotes, code
blocks, links and tables. Images and `@` mentions belong to wiki pages and
tickets, not to notes.

A note can also have a **title**, in the field above the editor. Leave it blank
and the note is listed by its first line.

## Move it and size it

Drag the panel's header to move it, and its bottom-right corner to resize it.
Where you leave it is where it opens next time, on this browser — a note taken
beside a ticket wants a small panel, and an afternoon of writing wants a big
one. On a narrow screen it fills the screen instead.

## Nothing is lost

What you are typing is kept as you type it, on this browser, and put back the
next time you open the composer — so `Escape`, a closed tab or a stray click
costs you nothing. The draft is only cleared once the server has the note.

## Your notes are yours

A note belongs to its author and to nothing else: no board, no workspace, no
ticket. Nobody else in your workspace can read, edit or delete one, and no
workspace owner or admin can either. They are not turned up by the
`Cmd`/`Ctrl`+`K` search, which looks at tickets, wiki pages and boards, and
they are not in a board's CSV export.

That is also why an API key cannot reach them. A key is scoped to a workspace
and a note has no workspace to be scoped to, so notes are readable only from a
signed-in session — see [API keys](/docs/workspaces-and-access/api-keys).

## Read them back

Your **most recent 500 notes** are listed down the side of the panel, newest
first. Click one to open it; **New note** starts another.

An open note saves itself as you type — the pill beside the title says whether
it has — so there is no separate save to remember.

A note also remembers **where** you were when you wrote it, and says so — "Taken
on a board", "Taken in the wiki" — as a link back to that exact page. A note
taken while reading a ticket reopens that ticket.

**Delete** on a note removes it immediately. Notes do not go to Trash and there
is no undo, which is the trade for a scratch pad: a note is a thought on the way
to somewhere else, not a record. Deleting a note does not delete what was filed
inside it, though: its contents move up to where it was.

## File them

Notes are kept in a tree, the same way wiki pages are. Drag a note onto another
to file it inside, or between two to reorder it, and click the arrow beside a
note to fold its contents away. A note with a title and nothing written in it
works as a folder.

## When to use something else

- The thought is **work somebody has to do** → make a ticket. See
  [Tickets](/docs/boards-and-tickets/tickets).
- The thought is **something the team needs to find later** → write a wiki page.
  See [Wiki pages](/docs/wiki/wiki-pages).

A quick note is the step before both of those, not a replacement for either.