Help

Finding, linking & moving your notes

A quick guide to the search window, the three ways to link notes, and how to move your library in and out of Weave.

Linking notes

Links are the whole point — so there are three ways to make one, for three different moments.

From the note panel

Open a note and click into + Link to another note… under Connections. Start typing — a ranked list of your notes appears as you type, using the same matching rules as search. ↑ ↓ to choose, Enter to link. The box stays focused afterwards, so you can add several links in a row.

While writing: type [[

In a note's text, type [[ followed by a few letters of the note you mean. Pick a match and Weave inserts a readable reference — like [[1a · In your own words]] — and creates the connection at the same time. Your hands never leave the keyboard, and the link happens at the moment the thought does.

No match? The last row offers + New branch note: it creates a fresh note as a branch of the one you're writing (a child address, like 1a1 under 1a), already titled with what you typed, linked, and referenced in your text.

On the canvas: hold ⇧ and drag

Hold Shift and drag from one dot to another. A dashed thread follows your pointer, the target lights up as you hover it, and releasing makes the link. Without Shift, dragging simply moves a note around — same gesture, two jobs.

Weave on your devices

Weave is a web app you can install — no app store, and it works offline.

Installing

  • iPhone & iPad: open weaveideas.app in Safari, tap the share button, then Add to Home Screen. Weave gets its own icon and opens full-screen, like any app.
  • Android: open weaveideas.app in Chrome and choose Install app from the menu (or tap the install prompt).
  • Mac & Windows: in Chrome or Edge, click the install icon at the right end of the address bar. Weave opens in its own window with a dock/taskbar icon.

Installing is optional — everything works the same in a regular browser tab.

Offline

After your first visit, Weave keeps a copy of itself on your device. No connection? The app still opens, and your notes are right there — they live on your device first, always.

  • Writing offline works fully. New notes, edits, links — everything is saved locally.
  • Signed in? The sync badge shows Offline until you're back on a connection; changes sync when it returns.

Tip: exporting a JSON backup now and then (see below) is still the sturdiest belt-and-braces habit, especially if you use Weave without signing in.

Plans & publishing

Weave is free. Paying is only ever for services on top — never for your own notes.

What's free, forever

The whole app: unlimited notes and notebooks on this device, search, linking, import, export, offline. If you never sign in, Weave never even talks to a server.

Weave Sync — $42/yr or $4.50/mo · Lifetime — $89 once

Signing in and syncing across devices is the paid part. Every new account starts with a 31-day free trial — no card needed — so syncing and publishing work right away. When the trial ends, upgrade from the account menu (your avatar, top right) to keep going. Every plan unlocks the same things; yearly simply costs less than monthly, and Lifetime pays once. Checkout and card handling run on Stripe, and you can cancel any time from Manage billing.

If a trial or subscription ever lapses, nothing is deleted. Your notes keep working on this device, your cloud copy waits untouched, and export always works — the header simply shows Local only until you subscribe, and syncing picks up right where it left off.

Publishing — included with any plan

Paying users can put any notebook on the web as a read-only page: the graph, the notes, the links — explorable by anyone with the link, editable by no one. Open the notebook menu and choose Publish notebook · public link. Republish after changes to update the page; Unpublish takes it down instantly (that always works, even if your plan lapses).

Exporting your notes

Your notes are yours. Take them with you any time — no lock-in, ever.

Open the notebook menu (click your notebook's name in the top bar). At the bottom you'll find three export choices:

  • Export notebook · Markdown — a readable .md file of the current notebook. Notes appear in address order (1, 1a, 1a1, 1b, 2…), each with its title, its text, and a line listing the notes it's linked to. Best for reading elsewhere or pasting into another app.
  • Export notebook · JSON — a complete backup of the current notebook: every note with its address, color, position on the canvas, and all of its links.
  • Export everything · JSON — all of your notebooks in a single file. This is the one to use for backups.

Files land wherever your browser saves downloads.

Markdown is one-way — made for reading in other tools. If you plan to bring notes back into Weave someday, export JSON.

Importing notes

Restore a backup or carry notes between devices and accounts.

Step by step

  1. Open the notebook menu — click your notebook's name in the top bar.
  2. Choose Import notes · JSON…
  3. Pick any file Weave exported — a single-notebook JSON or an "everything" backup.
  4. That's it. Weave adds the file's contents and switches you to the first imported notebook.

What import does — and never does

  • Import always creates new notebooks. It never merges into or overwrites the ones you have — restoring a backup can't destroy anything, even if you import the same file twice. (You'd simply get a duplicate notebook, which you can delete from the notebook menu.)
  • Links come along. Connections between notes in the file are kept exactly. A link that points at a note missing from the file is dropped quietly.
  • Colors, addresses, and canvas positions are preserved. Your web looks the way it did.
  • Signed in? Imported notebooks sync to your account like everything else, and appear on your other devices.

Back to your web

One idea per note, links between them — the method does the rest.

Open Weave