Bring your notes
Etonym opens an existing folder of notes as it is. There is no import step, and Etonym never rewrites your files on its own. Opening a note and closing it without edits changes no bytes, so Git sees no difference.
Open the folder
Section titled “Open the folder”Choose Open folder… and pick the folder that holds your notes. If the folder is a Git repository, Etonym also shows its changes and history in the Git tab.
The file tree shows folders, .md files and images. Other files stay on disk; they are only hidden from the tree. Links to them are kept, but Ctrl+click does not open them. To show .html files too, turn on Show HTML files in Settings → Notes. Folders and files whose names start with a dot, such as .git or the settings folders of other apps, are hidden too. Etonym never reads or changes them.
Links you already have
Section titled “Links you already have”Etonym reads standard Markdown links and [[wikilinks]], including [[Note#Heading]], [[Note|label]] and ![[image.png]]. A [[Note]] link finds the note by name in any subfolder, ignoring case, and also matches the aliases in a note’s frontmatter. Ctrl+click a link to open it.
Etonym leaves existing wikilinks as they are and never converts them. Links you insert in Etonym are standard Markdown links, which also work on GitHub and GitLab. Renaming a note in Etonym updates links of both kinds and keeps each in its form.
See Links for the details, and run Find broken links to check the folder after you bring it in.
Images and attachments
Section titled “Images and attachments”Existing images show where your notes link to them. Pasted images go into an attachments folder next to the note. See Images.
What shows as written
Section titled “What shows as written”Etonym displays some syntax without changing it:
- Frontmatter (the
---block at the top) shows as a Properties table (details). Its lines stay as written until you change a property. #tagsare highlighted.%%comments%%and<!-- comments -->are dimmed.==highlights==are shown highlighted. Etonym never writes this syntax itself.
Syntax Etonym does not know stays as plain text and is never changed. This includes note embeds (![[Note]] for a note, not an image), math and callouts. See Markdown support for the full list.
Nothing is added to your folder
Section titled “Nothing is added to your folder”Etonym keeps its own data, such as the search cache and the last open note, in the Windows app data folder. It adds no files to your notes folder. A .etonym folder left by a version before 0.6.0 is not used, and you can delete it.