Templates

Reusable starting content for notes and journal entries.

Where Templates Live

Settings → Templates is the home for templates. The list groups:

• Built-in — memrynote-provided, locked
• My Templates — your custom templates

Each row shows the template's icon, name, and short description.

Clicking any row opens that template in its own editor tab and closes Settings, so the editor is in focus. Custom rows also have a ⋯ menu with Edit, Duplicate, and Delete; built-ins show a lock instead.

Built-in Templates

memrynote ships with starter templates for common patterns:

• Daily Reflection
• Weekly Review
• Meeting Notes
• Project Brief
• Standup
• Decision Log
• Reading Notes

Built-ins are read-only. Opening one shows it in the editor with every field locked and a Duplicate & Edit button in the top right — that makes an editable copy and opens it in a new tab.

Custom Templates

Three ways to create:

• From scratch — Settings → Templates → New
• Duplicate — a built-in's Duplicate & Edit button, or any custom row's ⋯ → Duplicate
• From an existing note, with Save as Template

Template Editor

A template is written on the same surface as a note. The tab holds a title, tags, properties, and the full editor body — the title is the template's name, and everything else behaves exactly as it does on a note page. The icon next to the title opens the emoji/icon picker.

The body is what new notes start from, so {{title}} and the other variables below belong here.

Tasks in a Template

A checkbox in a template stays a plain checkbox. The template editor never turns it into a task, so writing a template adds nothing to your task list.

A note made from the template gets its own copy of each checkbox. The note turns them into tasks of its own once you start editing it, so ticking or deleting a task in one note never touches another note made from the same template.

Templates that an older version saved with task links, on this device or synced from another, are read as plain checkboxes too. The original tasks stay where they were.

Saving

A brand-new template is a draft: nothing is written until you press Create Template in the top right. The button stays disabled until the name is filled in.

Once created, the button becomes Update and saving turns continuous — edits are written about a second after you stop typing, with no prompt and no toast. Update is there when you want to flush immediately; it greys out when there is nothing pending.

Switching to another tab writes pending edits right away rather than waiting out that delay. If the write fails you get an error toast, and the edits come back the next time you open the template in this session, then save again.

While a draft has unsaved work, its tab shows the unsaved dot. Closing that tab — by the tab's ✕, middle-click, the tab menu, or ⌘/Ctrl+W — asks whether to Save, Don't Save, or Cancel. Quitting the app does not ask, so a draft you never created is lost on quit.

Other actions

The ⋯ menu beside the button holds Duplicate and Delete Template.

A template's short description is shown in the Settings list but is not edited here; existing descriptions are preserved untouched.

Template Variables

Templates can include placeholders that resolve when applied:

• {{date}} — full date in your locale
• {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} — formatted date
• {{time}} — time
• {{title}} — title of the new note
• {{day-of-week}} — long form (e.g. "Monday")

Variables are filled at apply time, not stored as text. Editing the resulting note doesn't mutate the template.

Default Journal Template

Settings → Journal → Default Template picks a template that seeds new journal entries.

If you change the default mid-month, existing entries don't change — only new ones use the new template.

A journal template can carry a view, so every day opens with the same live list — for example, notes tagged inbox-thought created since that day. See Views in templates.

Using a Template

When creating a note, the create dialog has a template picker. Choose a template; the note is seeded with its content. Variables resolve at that moment.

The new note also takes the template's icon, so notes made from the same template share an icon and are easy to tell apart in the sidebar and in lists. Give a Meeting Note template one icon and a General Note template another, and every note you create shows which kind it is at a glance. Change the note's icon at any time — that only affects the note, not the template. A template with no icon leaves the note without one.

Applying a Template to an Existing Note

Templates aren't just for new notes — you can apply one to a note you already have.

Applying replaces the note's body, and can write the template's tags and properties too. To drop a template into a note without touching what's already there, use Inserting a Template at the Cursor instead.

Open the picker from either:

• The sidebar tree, right-click a note and choose Apply Template
• The note page's ⋯ menu, Apply Template

Pick a template and confirm with Apply Template. The ⋯ menu also has Insert template content…, which adds only the body at the cursor.

• If the note is empty, the template's content is applied right away.
• If the note already has content, you're warned that applying will replace it, with two choices:
  • Replace content & add template details — replaces the body and merges in the template's tags and properties. Your existing tags and properties are kept; the template's are added on top. If a property key exists on both, the note's current value wins.
  • Replace content only — replaces the body and leaves your existing tags and properties untouched.

Replace content & add template details also gives the note the template's icon, but only when the note has no icon of its own — an icon you already set is never overwritten. Replace content only leaves the icon alone.

resolves to the note's current title. If the note is open in the editor, the update shows up live.

Inserting a Template at the Cursor

In a note you are writing, type / and pick Insert template content…, or use the note page's ⋯ menu → Insert template content…. Either opens the same picker; choose a template and its body is inserted where the cursor was. There is no overwrite prompt — a template from these surfaces is always added, never a replacement.

Type a query after the slash and matching templates also appear as their own rows under Templates, so /meeting then Enter inserts Meeting Notes directly. Those rows show up only once you have typed a query.

Inserting never replaces anything. Everything before and after the cursor stays exactly as it was. If the cursor sits on an empty paragraph, the template takes that paragraph's place, so no blank line is left behind. A single undo removes the whole insertion.

Only the template's body is inserted. Its tags and properties are not applied to the note — use Apply Template above if you want those.

There is a second way in, for when you would rather point at a block than move the cursor. Hover any block, click its ⋮⋮ drag handle, and pick Insert template…. The template lands directly below the block you hovered, and that block is left alone even when it is empty.

resolves to the note's title. The slash row is hidden while the cursor is inside a table cell.

Saving a Note as a Template

A note you already wrote can become a custom template.

Open the action from either:

• The sidebar tree, right-click a note and choose Save as Template
• The note page's ⋯ menu, Save as Template

In the sidebar it sits directly under Apply Template; in the ⋯ menu, under Insert template content….

The dialog has a single field, the template name. It arrives pre-filled with the note's title and already selected, so you can type over it or press Enter to save at once. Under the field is a one-line summary of how many tags and properties the template will carry.

What gets copied:

• The note's body, exactly as it is written, except that tasks become plain checkboxes (see Tasks in a Template)
• The note's tags
• The note's properties, with the two exceptions below

Relation properties cannot be stored in a template, so they are dropped. Status properties are saved as Select. The summary counts only what is actually saved, so a dropped relation property shows up as a smaller count instead of disappearing quietly.

Nothing in the body is turned into a placeholder. The note's title does not become {{title}}, and no heading is added. To use template variables, add them yourself in the template editor afterwards.

Saving does not navigate away, so you stay on the note. A toast confirms the save and offers Edit template, which opens the new template in the template editor.

The result is an ordinary custom template. It appears in Settings → Templates under My Templates, in the create dialog's template picker, and in Apply Template.

Deleting a Template

Custom templates can be deleted from the Settings list's ⋯ menu, or from the editor's ⋯ menu while the template is open. Deleting from the editor closes its tab.

Sync

Custom templates sync as standard sync items, end-to-end encrypted like the rest of your vault. Create or edit a template on one device and it appears on the others after the next sync. When the same template is edited on two devices at once, the most recent edit wins for the whole template — templates are not merged field by field.

Built-in templates are baked into the app version and not synced; they're identical across all your devices automatically, so they never appear twice.

Upgrading from an older version

Earlier versions stored custom templates as markdown files in .memry/templates/ inside the vault, and those files never synced. The first time you open a vault with this version, each custom template is imported into the vault database and queued for sync — ids are preserved, so a vault you copied between machines converges instead of duplicating.

The original files are left on disk. They're no longer read after the import, but they stay as a safety net if you ever roll back to an older build. The one exception is deletion: deleting a template also removes its original file, so it cannot come back if the vault database is ever rebuilt.

See Also

• Journal Templates & Settings
• Inbox — convert inbox items into notes using a template