Help

Appearance

Updates and advanced settings ​

Mostly, but not only, the desktop app

Use native titlebar, Zoom factor and Use custom DNS are desktop-only. The update controls, Release track, Proxy and the CORS proxy also appear in the web app, where an "update" means swapping the service worker rather than downloading an installer.

Keep the app updated automatically ​

When automatic updates are on, the desktop app downloads new versions in the background. Updates are never installed silently on quit — you always trigger the install yourself, which avoids a half-written install directory if your machine shuts down mid-update.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Customization → Behaviour.
  3. Under Desktop app, toggle Automatic updates.

Check for updates manually ​

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Other → About.
  3. The Version row shows the version you're running. Click Check for updates.
  4. If a new version is found the description changes to New version (vX.X.X) is available for download. and the button becomes Install update. Clicking it downloads the update; once the download finishes, the update button in the status bar installs it and restarts the app.

Flatpak, Snap and portable builds

These builds are updated by the system that installed them, so the Automatic updates toggle, Check for updates and Install update buttons don't appear. Only Copy (for the version number) is shown.

Switch between the Stable and Beta release track ​

The release track decides which builds you receive. Beta gets features earlier, with the usual caveat that they are less tested.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Other → About.
  3. Set Release track to Stable or Beta.

Switching from Beta back to Stable is allowed to downgrade you, but only if the build you are running is itself a prerelease. This setting is also hidden on Flatpak, Snap and portable builds.

Beta builds are still beta

Keep current backups before moving to the beta track.

Use your system's native titlebar ​

By default Notesnook draws its own titlebar. You can switch to the one your operating system draws instead.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Customization → Desktop integration.
  3. Toggle Use native titlebar.
  4. A toast appears reading Restart the app for changes to take effect. — click Restart now, or restart later yourself.

Change the zoom factor ​

Zoom scales the whole app, not only the editor text.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Customization → Appearance.
  3. Under General, set Zoom factor. It accepts 0.5 to 3.0 in steps of 0.1.

Use custom DNS ​

Notesnook can resolve its own hostnames over DNS-over-HTTPS instead of using your system resolver. This sometimes gets around ISP-level blocking of Notesnook traffic.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Privacy & security → Privacy.
  3. Under Advanced, toggle Use custom DNS.

When it is on, the app resolves through Cloudflare DNS (mozilla.cloudflare-dns.com) and Quad9 (dns.quad9.net). Turn it off to go back to your system's DNS settings.

Route the app through a proxy ​

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Privacy & security → Privacy.
  3. Under Advanced, type your rules into Proxy.

HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS proxies are supported, for example:

http://foobar:80
socks4://proxy.example.com
http://username:password@foobar:80

Change the CORS proxy ​

Remote content the editor has to fetch — images pasted by URL and YouTube embeds — is routed through a proxy so the browser's cross-origin rules don't block it. The default is https://cors.notesnook.com. You can point it at your own if you'd rather not use ours.

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Open Privacy & security → Privacy.
  3. Under Advanced, next to CORS bypass, click Change proxy.
  4. Enter the URL and confirm. Only the scheme and hostname are kept; an unparseable URL is rejected with Invalid CORS proxy url.

This setting exists in the web app too.