Capturing QuKis
The editor
The editor is the first thing you see when you open the app, and it's always home. Open, type, done. That's the whole capture workflow.
Tap New QuKi in the top bar to start another new QuKi.
Spell check
Misspelled words are underlined using your device's own spellchecker (your keyboard's on Android, Windows' on Windows, your browser's on the web), so the language and any words you've added to its dictionary carry over. On Linux the app uses its own built-in spellchecker in your system language. On Android, your keyboard's autocorrect and automatic capitals work the same as in any other app. On Windows and Linux, right-click an underlined word to pick a suggestion or add the word to the dictionary. Text inside inline code and code blocks is never underlined.
Coming back after being away
If QuKi Notes has been out of sight for 2 minutes or more (you switched to another app, went to the home screen, or minimized the window), coming back starts a new, blank QuKi, ready to type. The QuKi you were on was saved when you left. On Android, press Back to return to it, or find it in the QuKis list.
Leaving QuKi Notes open and on screen never does this, however long it sits. Neither does coming back from Send's share sheet, or sharing text into QuKi Notes from another app (that opens the shared text instead).
Change the time, or turn it off, with New QuKi after being away in Settings.
Auto-save
QuKis auto save as you type. No need to manually save them, pick filesystem locations, or create names for them.
When a save fails
If a QuKi's file was changed or deleted by another program since QuKi Notes last saved it, QuKi Notes won't overwrite it automatically. A banner appears at the top of the screen, above the app bar, on whichever screen you're on (the editor, the QuKi list, Settings or Trash) — a save can fail in the background after you've left the editor, such as the save made when you open the QuKi list:
Could not save — it changed elsewhere. Your latest edits have not been written to disk.
It says "it was deleted elsewhere" if the file is gone. Tap Overwrite to save what's on screen over the other version (or recreate the file), or copy your text somewhere safe first. A similar banner appears if a save fails for any other reason, such as a full disk or a folder that's no longer reachable, and the same place shows other errors, such as a QuKi that could not be opened from the list.
Reading and editing
The editor has two states:
- Editing: the cursor is in the text (on Android, the keyboard is up). The formatting toolbar sits at the bottom, and the element under the cursor shows its raw markdown so you can edit it character by character.
- Reading: the cursor isn't in the text (on Android, the keyboard is down). Everything is rendered, and the toolbar is hidden.
A new QuKi opens in editing mode. A QuKi you open from the list opens in reading mode; tap into the text to start editing.
Tap anywhere below your text to start typing right there: QuKi Notes adds blank lines down to where you tapped, so you can jot something mid-page without touching what's already written. If you don't type anything, those blank lines aren't saved.
INFO
On Android, editing mode follows the on-screen keyboard. If you type with a hardware keyboard, the on-screen keyboard may never appear, and the toolbar and raw-markdown reveal with it.
How the rendered view works
While you're editing, headings look like headings, links show their label, images appear inline and checkboxes look like checkboxes, except for the element your cursor is in. That element shows its markdown source. Move the cursor away and it renders again.
- Inline formatting (bold, italic, strikethrough, code, links) reveals as a whole unit. If formatting is nested, such as a bold phrase with italics inside, the outermost element reveals all at once.
- The cursor right after the closing marker still counts as inside. Type
**bold**and stop, and the asterisks stay visible. Type one more character and they disappear. - Headings, list bullets, numbers, checkboxes and quote markers reveal only the marker itself, when the cursor is right at it. Elsewhere on the line, the marker stays rendered. A new, empty list item shows its bullet, number or checkbox straight away, ready for you to type.
- Images, horizontal rules, tables and fenced code blocks reveal completely whenever the cursor is anywhere inside them.
- An alert's title line (
> [!NOTE]and the like) shows its markdown whenever the cursor is anywhere on that line. - If you select text, what reveals follows where the selection started, not where you dragged to.
Tapping a rendered link opens it. To edit a link, move into it with the arrow keys. A revealed link is plain text and doesn't open.
Plain-text mode
The Mode button switches the whole QuKi to plain text: every character of markdown shown, in a monospace font, nothing rendered and code not coloured. Use it for bulk edits, for pasting raw markdown, or to see the markdown behind what you're reading. Tap it again to go back to the rendered view.
It works the same while you're editing or reading. While editing, the keyboard stays up. While reading (on Android, with the keyboard down), you stay reading: the keyboard doesn't come up. Either way, the text you were looking at stays where it was on screen.
The button's icon shows which view you're in, whether you're editing or reading:
| Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Markdown logo (M↓) | Rendered view |
| Code brackets | Plain-text mode |
QuKi Notes remembers your choice: if you leave it in plain-text mode, it starts in plain-text mode next time.
Word and character count
Turn on Word and character count in Settings to see how long the QuKi is, for example 42 words · 260 characters. It sits in the lower right corner of the editor, just above the formatting toolbar while you're editing, and at the bottom edge while you're reading. It updates as you type, and stays clear of the line you're typing on.
The count is of the text as Send delivers it, so it matches what a character-limited app (such as Bluesky's 300 or Mastodon's 500) will see:
- Characters include spaces, line breaks and markdown symbols such as
**and-. An emoji or an accented letter counts as one. - Words don't include markdown symbols on their own:
- [ ] buy milkis two words, and**bold**is one.
Formatting toolbar
While you're editing, a toolbar sits at the bottom of the editor:
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Undo | Takes back your last change, whether you typed it or made it with a toolbar button. Greyed out when there's nothing to undo. |
| Redo | Puts back a change you just undid. Greyed out when there's nothing to redo. Typing something new after an undo clears what Redo can bring back. |
| Bold | Wraps the selection in **. With no selection, inserts **** with the cursor in the middle. |
| Italic | Same, with _ |
| Strikethrough | Same, with ~~ |
| Inline code | Same, with a backtick |
| Heading | Cycles the line through normal → # → ## → ### → normal. The icon shows what the next press gives you: H1, H2, H3, or for normal text. A line already at #### or deeper goes back to normal. |
| Unordered list | Adds - , or removes it if the line already has it. On a numbered or task line, swaps that marker for - . |
| Ordered list | Same, with 1. |
| Task list | Same, with - [ ] |
| Indent | Indents the line. See below. |
| Dedent | Removes one level of indentation |
Undo only reaches back within the QuKi you're editing. Opening another QuKi, starting a new one, or relaunching the app starts with nothing to undo.
With several lines selected, the heading button sets every line to the same level, taking its cue from the first line.
INFO
With several lines selected, the list buttons toggle each line on its own, so a mix of list and non-list lines stays mixed, just flipped. The list buttons also don't recognise + bullets; they add a - in front instead of converting it.
Indenting
Tab and the Indent button indent the current line (or every selected line). Shift+Tab and Dedent remove a level. It works like this:
- List, numbered and task items move a level deeper or shallower. The checkbox state is kept.
- Plain paragraphs get a leading tab added or removed.
- Horizontal rules are left alone.
- Headings, quotes and image lines: Indent inserts a tab at the cursor instead of indenting the line. Dedent does nothing.
Lists and quotes continue on Enter
Press Enter at the end of a list item, task item or quote line, and the next line starts with the same marker at the same indentation. Press Enter on an item that has nothing after its marker to end the list. On an indented item, that Enter moves the empty item out one level instead; press Enter again to keep going until the list ends. Backspace deletes one character at a time, markers included: with the caret just after - [ ] , each press removes one more character of the marker.
Supported markdown
| Markdown | Renders as |
|---|---|
# Heading through ###### Heading | Headings H1–H6 (the # needs a space after it) |
**bold** or __bold__ | Bold |
_italic_ or *italic* | Italic. * also works inside a word (foo*bar*baz); _ doesn't. |
~~strikethrough~~ | Strikethrough |
`code` | Inline code |
- item, * item, + item | Bullet list |
1. item | Numbered list, renumbered from the first item's number: 1. 1. 1. shows as 1, 2, 3 |
- [ ] task / - [x] task | Checkbox. Checked items are struck through. |
[label](url) | Link showing its label |
https://…, www.…, email addresses | Clickable link |
 | Image, shown inline |
> text | Blockquote with a bar on the left; >> nests deeper |
> [!NOTE] on a quote's first line | GitHub-style alert: a coloured bar and an icon with a title. Also [!TIP], [!IMPORTANT], [!WARNING], [!CAUTION], in any case. Put the alert's text on the quote lines below the marker. |
--- | Horizontal rule |
GFM pipe tables (| a | b |) | A table, with bold, italic, code and links inside cells |
``` fenced code blocks | A monospace block with a shaded background and the fence lines hidden, coloured by language |
Code colours. Name the language after the opening fence, as in ```js or ```python, and keywords, strings, numbers and comments in the block show in their own colours. Common short names work too: js, ts, py, sh, json, yml, html, css, md and more. A block with no language, or one QuKi Notes doesn't know (text, say), stays plain monospace. The colours stay while the cursor is in the block and its fences show. In plain-text mode code is not coloured. In the web app a language is downloaded the first time a block uses it, so that first time needs a connection; until then the block shows plain.
Lists, task lists and quotes nest by indentation, and wrapped lines stay indented under their item. An indented item is a list item wherever it is, including on a QuKi's first line or right under a paragraph. Nested numbered lists count independently of their parent.
What isn't rendered:
- Backslash escapes:
\*not italic\*shows the backslashes. - HTML is shown as literal text.
- A list inside a blockquote shows its raw markers.
- In a code block inside a blockquote, the lines between the fences show their
>markers as part of the code.
Images
Pasting an image (PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP) from the clipboard saves it as a new file in a media folder inside your QuKi folder, and inserts a link to it at the cursor, such as . The link is an ordinary relative path, so other markdown apps that open the same folder show the image too. If the clipboard holds both an image and text, the image wins.
Images linked with a relative path (like media/…) are read from your QuKi folder. Images from the web (https://…) are downloaded when the QuKi is shown. Many image hosts don't allow apps to download their images this way, and those show as a broken image.
Deleting a QuKi from Trash also deletes images that no other QuKi, active or trashed, still links to.
Pasting from a web page
Copy part of a web page (or a document, or an email) and paste it into a QuKi, and it arrives as markdown that keeps its structure: bulleted and numbered lists (nested lists are indented one tab per level), task checkboxes, headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, code, quotes, links and tables. Pictures on the page become image links to the picture on the web; they aren't downloaded.
Scripts, styles and other page clutter are left out. Links that aren't web or email addresses keep their text only.
Plain text, and markdown copied from another editor, paste exactly as they are.
To paste without the formatting, press Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac).
Pasting a link over text
Select some text and paste a web address, and QuKi Notes turns the selection into a link: [your text](https://…).
Task checkboxes
Tap a rendered checkbox to tick or untick it. Your cursor and scroll position don't move.
Deleting a QuKi
Tap the red Delete button on the far right of the top bar. There's no confirmation. The QuKi moves to Trash, you'll see "QuKi moved to Trash.", and the editor starts a new, blank QuKi. You can restore it from Trash (see QuKis List).
Android: share text into QuKi Notes
In any app with a share button, share text and choose QuKi Notes. The text is saved straight away as a new QuKi and opens in the editor, whether QuKi Notes was already running or not. Only text can be shared in; shared images and files aren't accepted.