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TutorialSaving a document to your computer
Autosave protects you against a closed tab. It does not protect you against clearing your browser data or switching machines. For that, download the file.
Download the current note
- Open the notepad and make sure the right tab is selected.
- Press Ctrl + S (Cmd + S on a Mac), or tap the Save button in the toolbar.
- Your browser downloads a plain
.txtfile named after the document.
The file contains exactly the characters in the editor — no metadata, no markup, no proprietary wrapper. It opens in any text editor on any operating system.
Downloading every note at once
If you keep several notes open in tabs, you do not have to save them one by one. Open the ⋯ menu in the top bar and choose one of:
- Download all notes (.zip) — every tab becomes its own
.txtfile inside a single archive namedinkpad-notes-YYYY-MM-DD.zip. Duplicate names are disambiguated automatically. - Download all as one .txt — all notes concatenated into a single file, each preceded by a
===== note name =====header line.
Both options write the current, unsaved-yet-in-the-editor state, so you never lose the last few keystrokes. This is the quickest way to migrate your notes to another device.
Choosing the file name
The download is named after the tab. Rename a tab by double-clicking it on desktop, or by
using ⋯ → Rename on mobile. If the name has no extension, .txt
is appended automatically.
On a phone or tablet
The download goes wherever your device puts downloads — usually the Files app on iOS or the Downloads folder on Android. If nothing appears to happen, check your browser's downloads list; some mobile browsers show a notification instead of opening anything.
Autosave versus saving a file
| Autosave | Save file | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it goes | Your browser's local storage | Your device's file system |
| How often | About once a second | When you ask for it |
| Survives a closed tab | Yes | Yes |
| Survives clearing site data | No | Yes |
| Movable to another device | No | Yes |
Habit worth building: if a note contains anything you would miss, press Ctrl + S before you close the tab. It takes a second and it is the only copy that lives outside the browser.