Organize notes with folders and tags in FUTO Notes

FUTO Notes has two ways to organize notes: folders, which are real folders on disk inside your notes folder, and tags, which are #words written in a note’s text. A note lives in exactly one folder but can have any number of tags.

Folders are real folders

A folder in the app is a directory in your notes folder, and a note inside it is a markdown file in that directory. Anything you do to folders in the app happens on disk, and folders you make in a file manager show up in the app. Folders can nest up to 10 levels deep.

In every list, folders come first, sorted by name, then notes, most recently modified first. Opening a note does not move it up; only changing its text or title does.

On desktop the sidebar shows the whole tree. On iOS and Android the top-level Notes screen shows your top-level folders and notes, and tapping a folder opens it. To see notes from every folder at once on mobile, use search.

Create a folder

Platform	How
Desktop	Click the folder button next to + New at the top of the sidebar. To create one inside another folder, right-click that folder and choose New Folder.
Android	Tap the New folder icon in the top bar.
iOS	Tap the New folder button in the navigation bar.

On mobile, the new folder goes inside the folder you are viewing.

Folder name rules

Folder names follow the same character and length rules as note titles, so they work on every operating system your notes might sync to:

Up to 200 characters.
None of these characters: < > : " / \ | ? *.
Can’t start or end with a dot.
Names Windows reserves, such as CON or NUL, aren’t allowed.
Must be unique among the folders next to it, ignoring case. Work and work can’t sit side by side.

The dialog tells you which rule a name breaks and won’t let you create it until you fix it.

Rename a folder

Desktop: double-click the folder in the sidebar, or select it and press F2, then type the new name. You can also right-click it and choose Rename.
iOS and Android: long-press the folder and choose Rename.

Renaming a folder changes the path of every note inside it, and FUTO Notes rewrites any wikilinks that point to those notes so they keep working. A / in the new name is rejected rather than treated as a path.

Move notes and folders

Desktop: drag a note or folder onto another folder, or onto the top level. Hovering over a collapsed folder while dragging opens it. You can also right-click and choose Move to folder, or use Move to folder in an open note’s menu.
iOS: long-press a note or folder and choose Move to Folder…, or swipe left on a note and tap Move.
Android: long-press a note or folder and choose Move to Folder….

A folder can’t be moved into itself or one of its own subfolders; the picker leaves those out. Moving a folder moves everything in it, and wikilinks to moved notes are rewritten. If the destination already has a folder with the same name, the moved one gets a -2 suffix (then -3, and so on) instead of merging or overwriting.

Delete a folder

Desktop: right-click the folder and choose Delete.
iOS: long-press the folder and choose Delete Folder…, or swipe left on it.
Android: long-press the folder and choose Delete folder.

Deleting a folder does not delete the notes in it. The confirmation reads “Notes inside it will be moved to the parent folder,” and that is what happens:

Every note in the folder moves up one level into the parent folder. Notes in subfolders keep their subfolders, one level higher. If a moved note has the same name as a note already there, it gets a -2 suffix.
Wikilinks to the moved notes are rewritten.
Only then is the folder itself removed.

If any note fails to move, nothing is deleted.

Warning: files in the folder that are not notes, such as images you put there, are deleted with the folder. On desktop they go to your system trash. When they can’t, as in a Flatpak sandbox, the confirmation adds “Anything else inside it is deleted for good.” On iOS and Android they are deleted permanently.

A folder is also removed on its own when you move or delete the last note out of it and nothing else is left inside. An empty folder you create stays until you delete it.

Tags

A tag is a # followed by a word, typed anywhere in a note’s text:

#recipes #weeknight

Lentil soup, the quick version.

There is no separate tag field. The tag is part of the note’s markdown, so it survives in any other editor and syncs with the note.

The rules for what counts as a tag:

It starts with a letter after the #: #2026 is not a tag.
It can contain ASCII letters, digits, _ and -, up to 50 characters after the #.
It has a space or the start of a line before it, so issue#4 is not a tag.
A tag inside inline code or a code block is ignored.
Case doesn’t matter. #Project and #project are the same tag.

Letters outside ASCII, such as accented or Chinese characters, are not part of a tag. On iOS and Android, tags are edited as text in the note.

The tag bar on desktop

On desktop, a tag bar between the title and the note shows the tags at the top of the note as chips.

Click + Tag and start typing. Suggestions come from tags already used in your notes. Press Enter or , to add one, or pick Create #name for a new tag. Spaces become underscores, and the name is lowercased.
Click the × on a chip to remove that tag.

The tag bar reads and writes the note’s header tags: the lines at the very start of the note that contain nothing but tags. Adding a tag creates that line if the note has none, and removing the last one removes it. Tags further down in the text still count as tags everywhere else, but they don’t appear as chips.

The top of the desktop sidebar switches between three views, and the app remembers the one you last used.

Notes view: the folder tree with your notes.
Tags view: every tag in your notes in alphabetical order, with the number of notes that use it. Click a tag to list its notes, and click a note to open it.
Images view: the images in your notes folder as thumbnails, newest first. Click one to see it full size with its name, size, and date. Its menu has Delete image. Deleting an image does not edit the notes that show it, so those notes will show a missing image.

To find tagged notes on iOS or Android, search for the tag name without the #. See search.

Next steps

Search: find notes by tag or text on any platform.
Wikilinks: how links follow notes you rename or move.
File format: what folders and notes look like on disk.