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Properties

Properties are custom metadata fields you can add to any note. They live in the note's front matter and let you organise notes beyond tags and folders — tracking status, priority, categories, deadlines, or anything else your workflow needs.

Adding Properties

Open the Inspector (Cmd+Option+I) and switch to the Properties tab. Click + to see two options:

  • Add Existing — Choose from properties already defined in your collection
  • Create New — Define a new property by choosing a type and name

Once added to a note, properties appear in the Inspector with an editor control matching their type.

Property Types

Type Example Value Editor Control
Text meeting notes Text field
Number 5000 Number field
Date 2026-05-15 Date picker
Date + Time 2026-05-15T14:30 Date and time picker
Checkbox true Toggle switch
Single Select draft Dropdown menu
Multi Select swift, ios Multi-select dropdown
URL https://example.com Text field (clickable)

Select Properties

Single Select and Multi Select properties have a defined set of options shared across your collection. To manage options, right-click the property in the Inspector and choose Edit Options.

How Properties Are Stored

Properties are stored as YAML key-value pairs in the note's front matter:

---
id: 8A3F2B1C-...
created: 2026-04-03T10:30:00Z
title: Project Plan
status: in-progress
priority: high
budget: 12000
deadline: 2026-06-01
reviewed: true
---

Because properties are plain YAML, they're readable by any tool that understands Markdown front matter — your data is never locked in.

Use Cases

Content Status

Track where each note is in your writing process:

  • Property: status (Single Select)
  • Options: draft, in-progress, review, published
  • Workflow: Create a Database View filtered to status = draft to see everything that needs work.

Project Management

Organise project-related notes:

  • priority (Single Select) — high, medium, low
  • category (Single Select) — design, engineering, marketing
  • deadline (Date) — When the work is due

Reading List

Track articles, books, or references:

  • source (URL) — Link to the original
  • read (Checkbox) — Whether you've finished it
  • rating (Number) — Your score out of 10

Meeting Notes

  • attendees (Text) — Who was there
  • meeting-date (Date) — When it happened
  • action-items (Checkbox) — Whether follow-ups are complete

Properties in Database Views

Properties become powerful when combined with Database Views. You can:

  • Filter notes by property values (e.g. show only notes where status is draft)
  • Sort by property (e.g. sort by deadline ascending)
  • Display properties as columns in the table view

To add a property column to a Database View, use the column configuration menu.

Properties via the CLI

The fn command-line tool can read and write properties:

# View a note's properties
fn show "Project Plan" --properties

# Set a property
fn edit "Project Plan" --set-property "status:in-progress"

# Remove a property
fn edit "Project Plan" --remove-property "status"

# List notes filtered by property
fn list --property "status=draft"

See the Command Reference for full details.

Managing Properties

Right-click a property in the Inspector for options:

  • Edit Options — Manage the option list for Select properties
  • Remove from Note — Remove the property from the current note (the property definition remains available in your collection)

Good to Know

  • Collection-wide schema — Property definitions are shared across all notes. If you create a status property, it's available on every note.
  • Portable — Properties are standard YAML. Other Markdown tools can read them.
  • System fields are protected — FoldNotes reserves fields prefixed with fn- for internal use. Your custom properties cannot collide with these.