CodaMail Notebook

Open Notebook from the icon in the webmail sidebar, below Notes. The first time you visit, you will be invited to Start a notebook set.

1. Click Create notebooks.
2. Name your first notebook. The default is Notes, and you can rename it or add more later.
3. Decide about encryption using the Encrypt these notes end to end checkbox. It is on by default, and we recommend leaving it on.
4. If you keep encryption on, choose a master password and confirm it. It must be at least 8 characters.
5. Click Create notebooks to finish.

You can also start from the other direction: set up the Joplin app first, point it at your CodaMail account, and let it create everything. See the syncing section for that route.

Click New note above the note list to create one in the currently selected notebook. Give it a title, write the body, and click Save. Cancel discards your changes and leaves the stored note untouched.

Notes are written in Markdown. You type plain text with light punctuation for formatting, and it renders when you save. The editor has a toolbar for the common marks (bold, italic, headings, lists, links, code) plus two buttons specific to Notebook: one inserts a mathematics block, and one inserts a working diagram block you can edit. The full list of what renders is in the Markdown reference below.

Notes created in the Joplin app from a web clipping may be stored as HTML rather than Markdown. Those display correctly here, and the Details panel tells you which format a note uses.

If the same note was changed somewhere else while you had it open, saving will tell you so rather than overwrite the other change. Reopen the note to get the current text, then make your edit again. Nothing you typed is thrown away without telling you.

Two editor preferences are in Settings: the Editor font size, and a Maximum note width that keeps long lines readable on wide screens. Setting the width to zero uses the whole pane.

Any note can become a to-do, which gives it a checkbox and an optional due date. Use Make this a to-do on an existing note, or tick Make this a to-do while creating one. The same control cycles a to-do through done and back to an ordinary note.

Set a Due date on a to-do and the note list shows when it is due, marking it as overdue once the date has passed. Clear due date removes it.

Two settings change how to-dos appear in lists. Uncompleted to-dos on top floats unfinished work above everything else regardless of the sort you have chosen, and Show completed to-dos controls whether finished items stay visible. Completed to-dos are always findable by search even when hidden from the list.

Markdown checkbox lists inside a note body are separate from this, and they are interactive: ticking a box in a rendered note updates the note text.

While editing a note, use Attach file to add a file. A reference to it is inserted at your cursor, and images display inline when the note is rendered. Every note that has attachments shows an Attachments panel underneath it with a Download link for each file, and a Delete option while editing.

The maximum size of a single attachment depends on your plan, and attachments count towards your account storage like everything else. If a file is too large, you are told before anything is uploaded.

Large images can be scaled down as they are attached, which saves a great deal of space over time. The Resize large images when attaching setting offers three behaviors: ask each time, always resize, or always keep the original. When it asks, it tells you the image dimensions so you can decide.

In an encrypted notebook set, attachments are encrypted too. They are decrypted in your browser when you view or download them, and are stored on our servers in a form we cannot read.

The Sort control above the note list orders your notes by Last updated, Title, Due date, Created date, or Custom order. Each can be reversed.

Custom order is the manual one. Choose it and you can drag notes into whatever sequence you want inside a notebook, which suits things like a reading order or a set of steps. The order you set is saved and travels with your notes, so it is the same in the Joplin app.

Notebooks in the sidebar sort separately, either by Title or by Last updated note, and can also be reversed. Both preferences are in Settings.

Deleting a note moves it to the Trash, where it stays until you remove it deliberately or until it expires. Nothing is destroyed at that point, and the same is true when you delete a whole notebook.

• Restore puts a note back where it came from.
• Delete forever removes a single note permanently. It disappears from the Trash here and from every synced device on its next sync.
• Empty trash permanently removes everything in the Trash at once.

Trash can also clear itself. The Automatically delete notes in the trash after a number of days setting turns that on, and Keep notes in the trash for sets the number of days.

The Details panel shows what is known about the note you are reading:

• Which notebook it is in
• Its format, Markdown or HTML
• When it was created and last updated
• Its source URL, if it came from a web clipping
• Its size
• Whether it is encrypted
• Its identifier, which is what internal links point at

Encryption in CodaMail Notebook happens in your browser, on your device, before anything reaches us. Your master password is turned into a key locally, and that key never leaves the machine you are sitting at. What we store is unreadable to us: not just the body of each note, but its title, your notebook names, your tag names, and your attachments.

The practical consequence, which is worth being clear about, is that we cannot help you recover encrypted notes. There is no administrative override, no support process, and no key escrow. That is what makes the guarantee real.

Unlocking

When you open an encrypted notebook set, you are asked for your master password. Enter it and your notes are decrypted locally for the rest of the session. If some notes are readable and others are not, you will see a note saying how many are still encrypted, with a prompt to unlock them.

Encryption requires a current browser using HTTPS. If yours cannot do the necessary cryptography, Notebook tells you rather than failing quietly.

Staying unlocked for a while

By default you are asked for your master password again every time you reload or reopen the page. That is the safest behavior and it is what you get unless you change it.

If retyping it is getting in your way, Settings → Unlocking offers Stay unlocked in this tab for, with a choice of 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or as long as the tab stays open. Your notes then stay readable in that tab without asking again until the time runs out.

The setting is remembered on this device only and never syncs, so turning it on for your own computer cannot switch it on for a machine you borrow. Closing the tab always ends it, and Lock notes now in the notebook menu ends it immediately whenever you want.

Encrypting a set you already have

If you created your notebooks without encryption, you can turn it on afterwards with Encrypt these notes. This rewrites every note and attachment, so on a large set it takes a while and shows progress as it goes. It is safe to interrupt: whatever has been converted stays readable, and running it again finishes the rest.

Changing your master password

Use Change master password and supply your current one. This is quick even on a large set, because it re-locks your notes rather than re-encrypting each one. If you also use the Joplin app, use the new password there as well.

If you forget your master password

There is no way to recover the notes. What you can do is start over, using Delete all CodaMail Notebook data, reachable from the unlock screen through the Forgot your master password? link. It removes every notebook, note, tag, and attachment stored here, and it cannot be undone.

To confirm, you must enter your account password (not the master password you have lost) and type DELETE. Copies inside the Joplin app on your own devices are not touched by this, and the app will refuse to wipe them the next time it syncs, so if you still have the app installed on any device, check there before deleting anything.

What we can and cannot see

With encryption on, we cannot read the contents, titles, notebook names, tag names, or attachments. We necessarily know how much data you store, since it counts towards your plan, and we know when items change, since that is how a device knows what to sync. We do not know what any of it says.

Without encryption, your notes are stored as ordinary data in your account, protected like the rest of your mail but readable by our systems. This is why encryption is on by default.

Standard Markdown works as you would expect: headings, bold, italic, lists, links, images, blockquotes, horizontal rules, inline code, and fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting. Beyond that, these extensions can each be turned on or off in Settings:

• Math expressions render LaTeX. Wrap an expression in single dollar signs for inline maths, or use a pair of double dollar signs on their own lines for a displayed equation. The editor toolbar has a button that inserts the block form.
• Mermaid diagrams turn a fenced mermaid code block into a flowchart, sequence diagram, or similar. The toolbar button inserts a working example you can edit.
• Mark highlights text written as ==like this==.
• Footnotes let you write a reference in the text and its content further down, rendered as a numbered note.
• Table of contents replaces [[toc]] with a generated list of the note's headings.
• Linkify turns bare web addresses into clickable links without you writing link markup.
• Soft breaks controls whether a single newline in your text becomes a line break in the rendered note.
• Typographer converts straight quotes to curly ones and similar niceties.
• Sub and sup render ~subscript~ and ^superscript^.
• Insert renders ++inserted text++ as underlined.
• Deflist renders definition lists, a term followed by its indented definition.
• Abbreviations let you define an abbreviation once and have it explained on hover throughout the note.
• Emoji converts shortcodes such as :smile: into the emoji character.
• MultiMarkdown tables add spanning cells, multi-line cells, and headerless tables to standard Markdown tables.
• ABC musical notation renders a fenced abc block as printed sheet music.
• Fountain renders a fenced fountain block as a formatted screenplay.

Interactive checkboxes are always available: write - [ ] task for an unticked box and - [x] task for a ticked one, then tick and untick them directly in the rendered note.

Your notes, their previous versions, and their attachments count towards the storage included with your plan, in the same way as your mail. Notes sitting in the Trash count too, until they are permanently deleted.

The largest single attachment you can add is also set by your plan. If a file exceeds it, you are told before anything uploads, and if a save would take you past your storage limit, you are told rather than silently losing the note. See your account page for what your plan includes and how to change it.