---
title: "Write Markdown notes in Keep | Keep"
description: "Write Markdown notes, link saved sources, use checklists, review revisions, and make your notes available to connected AI agents."
canonical: "https://keep.md/docs/notes"
language: "en"
---

# Write and manage notes

Write Markdown notes, link saved sources, use checklists, review revisions, and make your notes available to connected AI agents.

A note holds your own Markdown. Use notes for thoughts, decisions, plans, checklists, preferences, project knowledge, and handoffs. Connected agents can also read and update notes when you allow them.

A note is editable. An item contains captured source material such as an article, video, email, or file. You can link an item to a note without changing the captured item.

## Create a note

1.  Open **Capture** in Keep.
2.  Select **Write**.
3.  Enter a title.
4.  Write the note in Markdown.
5.  Select **Save note**.

You can leave the title empty. Keep uses the first non-empty line as the title.

You can also create a note with the [CLI](https://keep.md/docs/cli):

```
keep notes create --title "OAuth handoff" --body-file handoff.md
```

## Edit and save a note

Open **Notes** from the sidebar. Select a note to edit it. The sidebar also shows your five most recently edited notes for quick access.

Keep saves changes after 30 seconds. Select **Save changes** to save sooner. You can also press Command+S.

Keep stores a recoverable draft in your browser while you edit. A failed save does not remove that draft.

The editor supports common Markdown shortcuts:

-   Command+B makes text bold.
-   Command+I makes text italic.
-   Command+Shift+X adds a strikethrough.
-   Command+K adds a link.

Use Markdown checkboxes for work that should appear on the [Saved](https://keep.md/docs/feed). Keep recognises open, in-progress, complete, and cancelled task markers.

## Add properties

Open **Properties** above the editor. You can add these values:

-   **Kind** describes the type of note, such as `handoff` or `decision`.
-   **State** records a workflow state, such as `open` or `closed`.
-   **Tags** help you find related notes.
-   Custom properties store other structured values.

The token count is read-only. Keep calculates it from the note body with the `o200k_base` tokenizer. The editor also shows the line count and byte count.

## Link an item to a note

Create a linked note when you want to add your own thinking to captured source material.

1.  Open an item in Saved.
2.  Select **Add linked note**.
3.  Write the note in Markdown.
4.  Select **Create linked note**.

The new note stays connected to the item. The item remains unchanged. Agents can read the linked source, highlights, and recent note history when they need more context.

The [CLI](https://keep.md/docs/cli) can also attach an item or highlight. A link can describe the source as `source`, `evidence`, `example`, `inspiration`, or `annotation`.

## Find notes

The notes page has three views:

-   **All notes** shows every active note.
-   **Open notes** shows notes with the `open` state.
-   **Agent edits** shows notes last changed by a connected agent.

Use [Keep search](https://keep.md/docs/search) to search notes and items together. Use this CLI command to search notes only:

```
keep notes search "OAuth verification"
```

## Review changes

Every saved change creates a revision. A revision records who made the change, which client they used, when it happened, and the supplied change summary.

1.  Open a note.
2.  Select the revision count below **Properties**.
3.  Select a revision.
4.  Review the added and removed lines.

To restore an older version, select **Restore this version**. Keep creates a new revision from that version. It keeps the current version and the full history.

## Resolve an edit conflict

Keep checks the current revision before it saves a change. This check protects work when two clients edit the same note.

If another client saves first, Keep keeps your local draft and loads the latest saved revision. Select **Use latest** to discard the local changes. Select **Save my version** to save the local draft as a new revision.

CLI and API clients receive a revision conflict instead. Read the note again. Then retry the change with the new revision number.

## Archive a note

1.  Open the note.
2.  Open the note actions menu.
3.  Select **Archive note**.
4.  Confirm the action.

Select **Undo** in the confirmation message to restore the note at once. Archiving and restoring both create revisions.

## Export notes

Use the CLI to export all current and archived notes:

```
keep notes export --output ./keep-notes.zip
```

The ZIP contains one Markdown file for each note. The frontmatter contains the stable note ID, revision, timestamps, archive state, and custom properties.