poznote

Install and start Docker Desktop

Create a new directory:

mkdir poznote

Navigate to the Poznote directory:

cd poznote

Create the environment file:

curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/.env.template

Edit the .env file:

notepad .env

Download the Docker Compose configuration file:

curl -o docker-compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/docker-compose.yml

Download the latest Poznote Webserver and Poznote MCP images :

docker compose pull

Start Poznote containers:

docker compose up -d

1. Install Docker engine
2. Install Docker Compose

Create a new directory:

mkdir poznote

Navigate to the Poznote directory:

cd poznote

Create the environment file:

curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/.env.template

Edit the .env file:

vi .env

Download the Docker Compose configuration file:

curl -o docker-compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/docker-compose.yml

Download the latest Poznote Webserver and Poznote MCP images:

docker compose pull

Start Poznote containers:

docker compose up -d

Install and start Docker Desktop

Create a new directory:

mkdir poznote

Navigate to the Poznote directory:

cd poznote

Download the environment file:

curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/.env.template

Edit the .env file:

vi .env

Download the Docker Compose configuration file:

curl -o docker-compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/docker-compose.yml

Download the latest Poznote Webserver and Poznote MCP images:

docker compose pull

Start Poznote containers:

docker compose up -d

Don't want to manage a server? A hosting company can run Poznote for you and keep it online. See the available hosts and how to choose between them here.

On a Proxmox VE host, the Proxmox VE Community Scripts project installs Poznote in its own container with a single command, no Docker involved: it creates an unprivileged Debian 13 LXC (1 vCPU, 512 MB of RAM and a 4 GB disk by default) and serves Poznote from nginx and PHP inside it.

Run this from the Proxmox host shell:

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVE/main/ct/poznote.sh)"

Poznote then answers at http://<container-ip>:8040, with the same default credentials as any other install. To update it later, run update in the container console.

This script is written and maintained by the community, not by Poznote. See the Poznote script page for its options and notes.

Install Helm and make sure your Kubernetes context points to the cluster where you want to deploy Poznote.

Add the HelmForge chart repository:

helm repo add helmforge https://repo.helmforge.dev

Update your local chart index:

helm repo update

Install Poznote:

helm install poznote helmforge/poznote --namespace poznote --create-namespace

The Poznote Helm chart is maintained by the HelmForge community as a Kubernetes-native installation option. See the HelmForge Poznote chart documentation for values, persistence, service exposure, probes, security contexts, and other production-oriented settings.

Poznote also ships a rootless image variant that runs entirely as an unprivileged user (uid/gid 1000) instead of root — for environments that forbid root inside containers (Kubernetes restricted PodSecurityStandard, rootless Podman, docker run --user, etc). It works exactly like the default image; the only differences are that it listens internally on port 8080 and cannot fix the ownership of your data directory at startup.

1. Install Docker engine
2. Install Docker Compose

Create a new directory:

mkdir poznote

Navigate to the Poznote directory:

cd poznote

Create the data directory and make it owned by uid/gid 1000 (required: unlike the default image, the rootless container cannot fix this ownership itself at startup):

mkdir -p data
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 data

sudo is often not needed here: if your user already has uid 1000 the chown can be skipped, and on rootless Podman/Docker it can run without root, see Running rootless.

Create the environment file:

curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/.env.template

Edit the .env file:

vi .env

Download the rootless Docker Compose configuration file:

curl -o docker-compose.rootless.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/timothepoznanski/poznote/main/docker-compose.rootless.yml

Download the latest Poznote rootless Webserver and Poznote MCP images:

docker compose -f docker-compose.rootless.yml pull

Start Poznote containers:

docker compose -f docker-compose.rootless.yml up -d

To migrate an existing Poznote instance to the rootless variant, or for more details, see Running rootless in the Troubleshooting Guide.

• HTTP_WEB_PORT
• POZNOTE_OIDC_CLIENT_ID
• POZNOTE_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET
• POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN
• Optional runtime overrides such as POZNOTE_MCP_PORT and POZNOTE_DEBUG
• POZNOTE_PHP_FPM_MAX_CHILDREN to change the number of simultaneous PHP requests (default 10) on a busy instance, see the Troubleshooting Guide
• POZNOTE_PHP_MEMORY_LIMIT to change the PHP memory limit per request, in MB (default 512), see the Troubleshooting Guide
• POZNOTE_LISTEN_PORT to change the port the web server listens on inside the container (default 80), only needed with network_mode: host, see the Troubleshooting Guide
• POZNOTE_SETTINGS_PASSWORD to ask for an extra password before the Settings page opens, left empty by default
• POZNOTE_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN to require a bearer token from MCP clients, see MCP Server

• Admin/global settings such as OIDC provider settings, Git Sync enablement, import limits, and custom CSS upload
• User/profile settings such as local account passwords, theme, font sizes, note sorting, workspace background, and hidden UI elements

Poznote authenticates users against their profile using a username or email address and a password.

On a fresh installation, Poznote creates one active administrator profile:

• Username: admin_change_me
• Password: admin

Change the default password and rename the account after the first login.

Passwords are managed through the Poznote web interface, not through .env:

• Users can change their own password from Settings > Change Password.
• Administrators can set a custom password for any user or reset it to the default from Settings > Admin Tools > User Management.
• The Remember me option keeps the session for 30 days.
• Changing a password invalidates existing remember-me cookies for that user.

Each user can turn on two-factor authentication (TOTP) from Settings > Two-factor authentication. After the password, the login form then asks for a 6-digit code from an authenticator app (Aegis, Google Authenticator, 1Password, Bitwarden...).

• Setup shows a QR code, drawn in the browser, and ten single-use recovery codes to keep in case the phone is lost.
• It protects password sign-in. An SSO login is left to the identity provider and its own second factor.
• While it is on, the REST API no longer accepts the account password on its own: give clients an app password, or send the current code in the X-Poznote-OTP header.
• An administrator can turn it off for a user who lost both their device and their recovery codes, from Settings > Admin Tools > User Management (password dialog).
• Turning it on or off invalidates existing remember-me cookies for that user.

• Administrator accounts: admin
• Standard user accounts: user

When a user has not yet changed their password, the default value above is used. Once a password is changed through the interface, a secure bcrypt hash is stored in the database and takes priority.

Poznote supports OpenID Connect (authorization code + PKCE) for single sign-on integration. This allows users to log in using external identity providers such as Auth0, Keycloak, Azure AD, or Google Identity.

1. The login page displays a Continue with [Provider Name] button when OIDC is enabled.
2. Users authenticate with the OIDC authorization code flow secured by PKCE.
3. Access can be restricted with allowed groups and, if needed, a legacy allowed users list.
4. After authentication, Poznote links the identity in this order: sub (oidc_subject), then preferred_username, then email.
5. If auto-create users is enabled and no profile matches, Poznote creates one automatically. Such a profile has no password at all: it never went through the initial-credential handover an admin does when creating an account, so it does not answer to the default password. Sign-in goes through the provider, or an admin sets an explicit password from Settings > Admin Tools > User Management.
6. If POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN=true, the username/password form is hidden and the login page becomes SSO-only.
7. REST API clients can authenticate with Authorization: Bearer <OIDC JWT> when OIDC is enabled; Poznote validates the provider JWKS, issuer, expiration, audience, and configured access controls.
8. Clients that cannot perform an OIDC flow at all (browser extension, mobile app, scripts) use an app password instead, which each user creates from their own settings.
9. Two-factor authentication only covers the password form: an SSO login never asks for the Poznote code. Require a second factor in the identity provider instead. A user who has both a password and an SSO identity keeps both ways in, and the SSO one is only as strong as the provider's policy.

OIDC is configured from the admin UI: go to Settings > Admin Tools > OIDC / SSO.

Most settings (enabled, issuer, provider name, scopes, access control, allowed groups/users, auto-create users, HTTP Basic Auth behavior, etc.) are managed from this page and stored in the database.

For REST API Bearer JWT authentication, configure API JWT audience if your provider issues access tokens for a dedicated API audience. When it is empty, Poznote accepts the configured OIDC Client ID as the JWT audience.

The following settings remain in the .env file:

POZNOTE_OIDC_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
POZNOTE_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret
POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN=false

Use POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN=true if you want to hide the local username/password form and force SSO-only login. This is the only switch that blocks password authentication: it removes the form, rejects password POSTs server-side, and hides the "Change Password" setting.

Recovering from an identity provider outage. SSO-only means exactly that: while POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN=true, nobody can sign in with a password, admins included, so there is no in-browser escape hatch. This is deliberate, since an attacker who compromised an admin account cannot re-enable password login to give themselves a persistent way in. Recovery needs server access: set POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN=false in .env, restart the container, and sign in with a local password. Before enabling SSO-only, make sure at least one admin account has an explicit password set (Settings > Admin Tools > User Management), otherwise flipping the flag back will not help. Note that an admin profile auto-provisioned by OIDC has no password until one is set.

Breaking change: previous OIDC settings in .env are no longer read, except POZNOTE_OIDC_CLIENT_ID, POZNOTE_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET, and POZNOTE_OIDC_DISABLE_NORMAL_LOGIN. After upgrading, re-enter the other OIDC settings from the admin page.

When you create the application (client) in your identity provider, register the first URL below as the redirect URI (also called callback URL), and the second one as the post-logout redirect URI if your provider asks for it:

https://YOUR_SERVER/oidc_callback.php
https://YOUR_SERVER/login.php

Poznote builds both from the host name the request arrives on, always with https://. If your provider needs something else, set Redirect URI or Post-logout redirect URI in the Advanced section of the OIDC admin page, and register that exact value.

The discovery URL does not usually need to be filled in: Poznote appends /.well-known/openid-configuration to the Issuer URL. With Authentik, for example, the issuer is https://AUTHENTIK_HOST/application/o/APPLICATION_SLUG/. Set Discovery URL only if your provider publishes that document somewhere else.

From the OIDC admin page, configure:

• Groups claim: groups
• Allowed groups: poznote
• Auto-create users: enabled

If auto-provisioning is enabled, Poznote generates a username from the OIDC claims (preferred_username, nickname, email local part, name, then sub) and stores the OIDC subject on the created profile.

• Editor: Direct WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing.
• Storage: Saved as .html files in the user data directory. Since they are standard HTML, they can be opened directly in any web browser.
• Exclusive Features:
  • Rich Formatting: Native support for text colors, highlighting, and standard HTML elements.
  • Interactive UI: Direct manipulation of elements in the editor.

• Editor: Markdown syntax editor with real-time preview.
• Storage: Saved as .md files in the user data directory.
• Exclusive Features:
  • Mermaid Diagrams: Native support for generating diagrams (flowcharts, sequence, etc.) via ```mermaid code blocks.
  • Math Equations: Robust LaTeX support for mathematical formulas using $ inline $ and $$ block $$ syntax.
  • Portability: Standard Markdown format compatible with any external editor or static site generator.

• Usage: Manage tasks and projects with interactive checklists.
• Workflow: Track progress with checkboxes that can be toggled directly in the editor or the notes list. A progress bar shows the completion of each list.
• Task Options: Each task can have a due date with an optional time, a reminder notification that fires at the due time, and an important flag, and can be moved to another list.
• Tasks Page: A dedicated Tasks page, opened from the left icon rail, gathers in one place every task of your task lists and, optionally, the checkboxes sitting inside ordinary notes. It offers status filters (to do, important, overdue, with due date, completed), a text filter, and a calendar view of the tasks that carry a due date. A task list, or the checkboxes of a note, can be hidden from the page with the eye button of its header and brought back with Show hidden lists. The choice is saved in your account, so it follows you from one device to the next.
• Public Collaboration: Task lists can be shared via a public URL. If edit permissions are granted, external collaborators can check items off the list without needing a Poznote account.

• Functionality: Create a reference to an existing note in another location.
• Use Case: Allows a note to be referenced in two different places simultaneously. For example, a note can live in a classification folder while its shortcut appears on a Kanban board for active tracking.

• Functionality: Reuse pre-written content to standardize your documentation, from a full note to a short snippet.
• Setup: Put the notes you want to reuse in a folder named Templates (sub-folders are fine). A workspace named Templates works too and is offered from every workspace. The name is also recognized in the language of the interface (Modèles, Vorlagen, Plantillas, Modelos, Шаблоны, 模板).
• Insert into a note: Type /template (or / followed by the template's title) in a rich text or Markdown note and pick a template: its content is pasted at the cursor, converted if the template and the note are not of the same type.
• New note from a template: Duplicate the template note, or duplicate a whole Templates folder to start a project with a ready-made folder structure.

• Usage: Write one note per day, journal-style, from a dedicated Diary board.
• Workflow: The "Create today's entry" button creates today's note (it reads "Go to today's entry" once the note exists), titled with the current date and stored automatically in a Diary/YYYY/MM folder structure.
• Board View: Entries are displayed as cards grouped by month, newest first, with a filter to quickly find past entries.
• Journal View: The scroll button next to the view controls switches to one reading column: every entry with its full content, newest first, loaded as you scroll. The filter works there too. Click an entry, or its pencil, to edit it right there; changes are saved as you type. The tag button next to the pencil turns the entry's tags into an editor: add or remove tags without opening the note.
• Format: New entries are created as rich text or Markdown notes, depending on the "Diary entry format" setting under Settings > Behavior.

• History: the left column lists the note's revisions grouped by day, each one labeled Automatic, Manual, Before AI edit or Before MCP edit. A "Current" badge marks the revisions identical to the current note, and "No change" those identical to the revision before them. Both badges also require the same title and tags.
• Content: the page opens on this tab, which shows the selected revision itself, rendered. For Markdown notes, a Preview/Source switch sits next to the tabs.
• Changes: the second tab shows a line-by-line diff, with the changed words highlighted, against the current version, the previous revision or any other revision. The diff is shown Unified or Side by side, unchanged lines are folded (click to expand them), the previous and next change buttons jump from one change to the next, and the added and removed lines are counted. Markdown notes are compared on their source. Rich-text notes are compared on their text, so a change of formatting alone does not show. Above the diff, the tab shows the title change (old → new) and the tags added or removed between the two compared versions.
• Actions: the "Actions" menu holds "Restore this revision", "Save a revision", "Copy content" and "Delete this revision". "Save a revision" saves the current content right away, the other entries act on the selected revision.
• Restoring: a restore gives the note back the content, the title and the tags of the revision. The state it replaces is not saved: if it matters, save a revision first ("Save a revision" in the Actions menu, or Ctrl + Alt + S). A restored title follows the rename rules: if another note of the same folder already has that title, a suffix such as "(1)" is added. A revision saved before tags were recorded has no tags and leaves the note's tags untouched.

• Automatic: Poznote saves a revision when a note is modified, not when it is opened. Each time a change to the note's content, title or tags is saved (the editor's autosave, a task ticked, a drawing saved, the REST API, an edit from a public share link), Poznote first keeps the note as it was just before that change, unless a revision of that note was already taken in the last 10 minutes. A revision therefore always holds the state before a change, and an editing session produces at most one automatic revision every 10 minutes. Opening or reading a note never creates a revision. Nothing is saved for an empty note, nor when the newest revision already holds exactly the current content, title and tags, so the history has no duplicates. These revisions are labeled "Automatic" in the history, and so are the revisions that older versions of Poznote took when a note was opened: they follow the same rules.
• Example: you edit a note from 9:00 to 9:35. The history gets revisions at about 9:00 (the note before you touched it), 9:10, 9:20 and 9:30. You come back at 14:00 and change one word: a 14:00 revision keeps the note as you left it at 9:35.
• What you can go back to: the state you leave a note in at the end of a session is not saved as a revision at that moment, because it is the note itself. It is captured by the first change of the next session, however much later that is. So you can always return to how the note was before you started editing today, and, within a long session, to states at most about 10 minutes apart. The latest state is always the note itself: compare any revision with "Current version" to see what has changed since.
• How long automatic revisions are kept: every automatic revision of the last 24 hours is kept. Beyond 24 hours, only the most recent automatic revision of each day is kept, for 30 days by default. This number of days can be changed under Settings > Revisions (1 to 30). If you had already changed this setting in an older version, where it counted revisions, your value is kept and now counts days.
• Manual: "Save a revision" adds a revision at any time, and so does Ctrl + Alt + S (Cmd + Alt + S on Mac) while a note is open. Manual revisions are unlimited and never thinned out: they only go away when they expire, after 30 days.
• Before an AI edit: a revision is saved automatically right before the AI assistant or the MCP server changes the content of a note, even when an automatic revision was taken less than 10 minutes earlier, so a rewrite that goes wrong is one click away from being undone. These revisions are labeled "Before AI edit" or "Before MCP edit" in the history and are skipped when the latest revision already holds the same content, title and tags.
• Safety revisions: the "Before AI edit" and "Before MCP edit" revisions share one limit: the 20 most recent are kept per note, a number you can change in Settings → Revisions (1 to 200) if your instance edits a lot of notes through AI or MCP.
• Expiry: every revision, whatever its kind, is deleted 30 days after it was saved. A revision can also be deleted by hand from the Revisions page.
• Attachments and images: revisions store the note's text, title and tags, never its files. Attachments are never copied, so a file referenced by several revisions exists once on disk. A file removed from a note stays on disk, hidden from the note, as long as a revision still contains it, so restoring that revision brings it back. It is deleted for good once the last revision containing it expires or is deleted, or when the note is permanently deleted. Keeping more revisions therefore never duplicates files. It only keeps removed files around for longer, 30 days at most.
• API and MCP: the REST API and the MCP server tools still call revisions "snapshots" (/notes/{id}/snapshots, list_snapshots, get_snapshot, restore_snapshot).

Under Settings > Display, you can configure:

• App font: pick the typeface used across the interface
• Font size: adjust text size for notes, sidebar, code blocks, and the settings page
• Note colors: choose the palette offered when colouring a note
• Icons by note type: give task lists and Markdown notes their own icon in the notes list
• Index icon scaling: resize icons in the note index
• Icon sidebar order: reorder the buttons of the left icon rail and change their colors (a right-click on a button of the rail also opens the color picker)
• Note content width: control the max width of the note editor area
• Attachment previews: show attachments as previews inside the note
• Default image border: frame inserted images without adding padding
• Highlight current folder tree: dim the notes and folders outside the folder hierarchy you are working in
• Login page title: change the title shown on the login page
• Element visibility: hide the interface elements you do not use, see below

Under Settings > Behavior, you can configure:

• Note sorting: choose how notes are ordered in the list
• Note age filter: only list the notes updated within the chosen number of days
• Revisions: for how many days automatic revisions are kept (one per day beyond the last 24 hours) and how many safety revisions are kept per note
• Task list insert order: control where new tasks are inserted
• Show notes after folders: list notes without folders below the folder list
• Code block word wrap: enable or disable word wrap in code blocks
• Diary entry format: create diary entries as rich text or Markdown notes
• Interface language, timezone and date format, attachments and backlinks at the bottom of a note, spell check, and the keyboard shortcuts

Under Settings > Markdown, you can configure the default view mode, the editor font, framed and coloured Markdown, and code block line numbers.

The theme is not a card here: the button at the bottom of the left icon rail walks through the themes, and an administrator chooses which ones it offers in Settings > Admin Tools > Theme list.

You can set a background image per workspace: open Settings > Workspaces and use the Background action of the workspace to upload an image and adjust its opacity, so each workspace gets its own visual identity.

Poznote allows you to declutter the interface by hiding elements you don't use.

Configure it in Settings > Display > Element visibility.

• Granular Control: Toggle visibility for home cards, toolbar actions, slash menu items, and more. The creation date badge on notes (Show creation date) and the note count next to each folder (Show folder note counts) are turned on and off here too.
• Per-User: Each user can have their own unique interface layout.
• Administrators: The same modal shows a second "Users" column next to the administrator's own "Me" column, to hide elements for every user of the instance (administrators excepted).
• Searchable: Easily find the element you want to hide using the filter in the configuration modal.

Poznote ships with Inter and can use the fonts installed on your device. To use any other font, for instance a family from Google Fonts, an administrator uploads its files once and every user can then pick it.

Upload them in Settings > Admin Tools > Custom fonts, then choose the font in Settings > Display > App font or Settings > Markdown > Markdown editor font.

Notes:

• Accepted formats are WOFF2, WOFF, TTF and OTF, up to 10 MB per file.
• A family is several files (regular, bold, italic...) or a single variable font file. Select all the files of a family in one upload, they are grouped under the family name.
• The fonts are served by your own instance, nothing is loaded from Google or any other third party. Download the family first, from Google Fonts (Get font > Download all) or google-webfonts-helper.
• A family without a bold file keeps the default font for bold text and headings, so upload the bold file too.
• The files are stored in data/fonts/ (your Docker volume), so they survive image updates. Files copied there by hand are picked up when the Custom fonts dialog is opened.
• Each user chooses their own font. Deleting a family sends the users who had picked it back to the default font.
• Only administrators can upload or delete fonts.

If you want to adjust fonts, spacing, or other visual details beyond the built-in options, you can upload extra stylesheets that are applied to every HTML page for all users.

Configure them in Settings > Admin Tools > Custom CSS path.

Notes:

• Click Upload CSS file to select a .css file from your computer.
• Every uploaded file is kept, so you can store several themes and switch between them without uploading again.
• The modal lists what is stored: pick the one to apply to every user, or No custom CSS to go back to the built-in appearance, then click Save.
• Uploading a file that has the name of a stored one replaces that theme.
• The files are stored in data/css/ (your Docker volume), so they survive image updates.
• Click the bin icon next to a theme to delete that file from your volume.
• Poznote appends a cache-busting v= parameter automatically.
• The stylesheet is injected near the end of <head>, so it can override the default application styles.
• Only administrators can upload, apply or delete a custom CSS file.

Settings > Admin Tools > Theme list says what the theme button at the bottom of the icon rail walks through: one theme per click, in the order shown.

• Tick the built-in themes you want to keep, and leave out the ones nobody uses.
• Tick a stored CSS file to offer it as a theme of its own. It gets a palette icon and the name of the file.
• Use the arrows to set the order the button walks through.
• A custom theme paints over a light or a dark base, which the file cannot say on its own: choose it next to the file. That is what data-theme is set to, so a stylesheet written for the dark mode needs Dark here.
• The list is a global setting, so everyone walks through the same themes; which one is applied stays each user's own choice.
• Whoever is on a theme you take out of the list gets the first theme of the list right away.
• Picking a custom theme loads that file for that user only, in place of the stylesheet applied instance-wide.
• Deleting a CSS file removes it from the list too.
• With a single theme in the list there is nothing to walk to, so the button opens this list for an administrator, and does nothing for everyone else.

Before writing any CSS, check whether a built-in theme already does what you want: the theme button at the bottom of the icon rail walks through Light, Dark, Black, Lavender, Sepia and Terminal.

Colours, spacing, radii and font weights are design tokens, so most changes are a short list of variable overrides rather than a fight with selectors. The full list is in src/public/css/tokens.css.

Change the accent colour

:root {
    --pz-accent: #d6336c;
    --pz-accent-hover: #a61e4d;
    --pz-accent-rgb: 214, 51, 108;   /* same colour, channels only, used for tints */
}
html[data-theme='dark'] {
    --pz-accent-text: #f783ac;       /* lighter, because it sits on a dark ground */
}

Two tokens rather than one because a fill and a label cannot be the same colour: --pz-accent fills buttons, --pz-accent-text is the accent as text, icons and outlines. In a light theme it follows --pz-accent by itself; a dark ground needs a lighter value. Every token keeps the same --pz-* name in every theme, only its value changes. The --dm-* names of older stylesheets keep working.

Recolour the note toolbar icons

.note-edit-toolbar .toolbar-btn i,
.note-edit-toolbar .toolbar-btn [class*="lucide-"],
.note-edit-toolbar .toolbar-btn:hover i,
.note-edit-toolbar .toolbar-btn:hover [class*="lucide-"] {
    color: #e5322d !important;
}

Icons are CSS masks painted with background-color: currentColor, so color is all you need. !important is needed here because a few of those icons already carry a colour of their own (the star when a note is a favourite, the share icon when it is published, the paperclip when it has attachments).

No CSS needed to colour a single icon: right-click it in the note toolbar or in the icon rail and pick a colour. Those colours are saved per user and leave the state colours above alone.

Warm up the whole interface

:root {
    --pz-bg: #f6ecd8;          /* page and note background */
    --pz-surface: #efe0c4;     /* panels, cards, menus */
    --pz-text: #3b2c1a;
    --pz-border: #d4bd94;
}

Write a full theme

Override the tokens on :root for light and on :root[data-theme='dark'] for dark, and nothing else. src/public/css/README.md documents every token and shows a complete example; the built-in Lavender, Sepia and Terminal themes in src/public/css/tokens.css are the same thing, written the same way.

Poznote uses a master database (data/master.db) for shared coordination data, and separate per-user databases and files for actual note content.

data/
├── master.db                    # Profiles, global settings, shared links, account access, edit locks
├── css/                         # Custom CSS files uploaded by an administrator
├── fonts/                       # Custom fonts uploaded by an administrator
├── backups/                     # Scheduled local backups, one folder per user ID
└── users/
    ├── 1/                       # User ID 1 (default admin)
    │   ├── database/poznote.db  # User's notes database
    │   ├── entries/             # User's note files (HTML/MD)
    │   ├── attachments/         # User's attachments
    │   ├── snapshots/           # Earlier versions of the user's notes (revisions)
    │   ├── backgrounds/         # Workspace background images
    │   └── backups/             # Backup archives prepared for download
    ├── 2/                       # User ID 2
    └── ...

Step 1 — Enable the feature (admin, in Settings > Admin Tools)

Toggle Git Sync to enabled in the Admin Tools section of the Settings page. This enables Git Sync globally and makes the user-level Git Sync card/configuration available from Settings.

Step 2 — Each user configures their own repo (Settings > Git Sync)

🔒 Access tokens are encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM. An encryption key is automatically generated and stored in data/.app_secret.

Automatic sync

When enabled by the user, Poznote will automatically:

• Pull on login
• Push on every note create, update, or delete

Manual push/pull is also available from the Push and Pull buttons of the left icon rail.

Synced workspaces

By default every workspace is synced. In Settings > Git Sync, each user can instead restrict Git Sync to selected workspaces:

• Only notes and attachments from the selected workspaces are pushed and pulled.
• A pull never touches notes in the other workspaces.
• A push removes repository files that fall outside the selected workspaces, so the repository always mirrors exactly the synced set.
• The Push and Pull sidebar buttons, automatic push, and the pull prompt only appear while viewing a synced workspace.

Configure it in Settings > S3 Attachments (administrators only).

• Configuration: Endpoint URL, region, bucket, access key, secret key, and path-style addressing, with a built-in connection test.
• Migration: Move existing attachment files between the local disk and the bucket, in both directions and for every user. Migration runs in batches and can be safely interrupted and resumed.
• Privacy: Attachments are stored under attachments/{user id}/ in the bucket and are always served through Poznote, so the bucket can stay private.
• Quotas: A per-user S3 storage quota can be set, and S3 usage appears in the admin storage statistics.
• Backups: Zip exports include S3 attachments by default (fetched from the bucket on the fly), whether they are made from the Backup window, through the REST API or by the automatic S3 backups. An option in the Backup window lets you leave them out for a lighter archive. If the bucket cannot be read while an archive is being built, the export fails with an error instead of producing an archive with missing files.

Restoring a backup that is missing some of the attachment files it references is refused while S3 storage is enabled, because a full restore replaces the bucket content and the missing files would be lost. Two ways to restore such a backup:

• Easiest: turn off the "Store attachments in S3" switch (keep the credentials), restore the backup, then turn the switch back on. A restore in local mode never touches the bucket, and the attachments still stored there keep being served. This is also the right path on a fresh server when the bucket is intact, since the attachments export of the other option needs an instance that still knows the notes.
• Rebuild a complete archive:
  1. Download the Attachments Export from the Backup window: it contains every attachment of your account in a files/ folder.
  2. Unzip the backup, copy the files from files/ into the backup's attachments/ folder, and zip it again. Careful when re-zipping: select the backup's contents (database/, entries/, attachments/, ...) and compress that selection, not the folder containing them. The folders must sit at the root of the zip, otherwise the restore reports that database/poznote_backup.sql is missing.
  3. Restore the rebuilt zip normally.

Git Sync ignores attachments while S3 storage is enabled.

Single ZIP containing database, all notes, and attachments for all workspaces:

• Includes an index.html at the root for offline browsing
• Notes are organized by workspace and folder
• Attachments are accessible via clickable links

The archive is built in the background by a worker process, not during the request that starts it, so a large account cannot hit a browser or reverse proxy timeout. The page follows the progress of the job, and the download starts on its own once the file is ready. You can leave the page and come back, the preparation continues. A prepared archive stays available for 24 hours, and a button lets you delete it right away.

All the methods above produce per-user backups: an archive contains only the data belonging to one account (its database, notes and attachments). Every user can back up and restore their own account, administrators can pick any account.

A complete system backup, including the master configuration (accounts, global settings, shared links) and every user at once, is made by copying the entire /data directory:

# Complete system backup via CLI
tar -czvf poznote-full-backup.tar.gz data/

Administrators can have complete backup archives (one ZIP per user, identical to the Complete Backup download) saved into a folder of the server, manually or automatically on a schedule, with only the most recent ones kept. It needs nothing outside Poznote: no bucket, no cron job, no script.

Configure it in Settings > Local Backups (administrators only).

• Backup folder: An absolute path on the server (inside the container with Docker). Left empty, the archives go to data/backups, which is already part of the data volume. The folder is created if needed and must be writable by the web server user.
• User selection: Checkboxes choose which users are covered by the backups. Everyone is checked by default, and while everyone is checked, new accounts are included automatically.
• Manual backups: A "Back up now" button saves a fresh archive for each selected user, one user at a time, with per-user progress. It works even when automatic backups are off.
• Automatic backups: When enabled, a background worker backs up the selected users on the chosen frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly). The first run happens within a few minutes of enabling, the next ones after the chosen interval. The page shows the result of the last run and the date of the next one.
• Retention: Only the most recent N archives are kept per user, older ones are deleted from the folder after each backup (0 keeps everything).
• Browsing: The page lists the archives currently in the folder, with download and delete actions.
• Restore: Archives are stored under {user id}/ in the backup folder and can be restored with the standard Restore / Import page.
• Account deletion: Deleting an account also deletes its archives from the backup folder.

To keep the backups on another disk or on a network share, mount it in the container and enter the container path (/backups in this example) as the backup folder:

services:
  webserver:
    volumes:
      - "./data:/var/www/html/data"
      - "/mnt/nas/poznote-backups:/backups"

A folder inside the application itself is refused, apart from data/backups. When attachments are stored in S3 (S3 Attachment Storage), they are included in the archives, fetched from the bucket on the fly.

Administrators can send complete backup archives (one ZIP per user, identical to the Complete Backup download) to an S3-compatible bucket, manually or automatically on a schedule. The configuration is independent from the S3 Attachment Storage one, so backups can target a different bucket or provider.

Configure it in Settings > S3 Backups (administrators only).

• Master switch: A toggle at the top of the page enables or disables the whole feature. When disabled, automatic backups stop and the S3 backup and restore sections disappear for every user (the self-service actions are refused server-side too).
• Configuration: Endpoint URL, region, bucket, access key, secret key, and path-style addressing, with a built-in connection test.
• User selection: Checkboxes choose which users are covered by the backups. Everyone is checked by default, and while everyone is checked, new accounts are included automatically.
• Manual backups: A "Back up now" button uploads a fresh archive for each selected user, one user at a time, with per-user progress. It works as soon as the connection is configured, even when automatic backups are off.
• Automatic backups: When enabled, a background worker backs up the selected users on the chosen frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly). The first run happens within a few minutes of enabling, the next ones after the chosen interval.
• Retention: Only the most recent N archives are kept per user, older ones are deleted from the bucket after each backup (0 keeps everything).
• Browsing: The page lists the archives currently in the bucket, with download and delete actions.
• Restore: Archives are stored under backups/{user id}/ in the bucket and can be restored with the standard Restore / Import page.
• Self-service: Once the bucket is configured, every user gets an "S3 Backups" section on their Backup / Export page to upload a fresh archive of their own account, and to download or delete their existing archives. A "Restore from S3" section on the Restore / Import page restores their account directly from one of those archives.
• Tenant isolation: Two options ("S3 backups on the Backup page" and "S3 restore on the Restore page") disable these self-service sections for non-admin users. They are enforced server-side, so the blocked actions are refused even when called directly.

When attachments are stored in S3 (S3 Attachment Storage), they are included in the archives by default, fetched from the bucket on the fly. An option lets you leave them out of the backups for lighter archives and faster runs.

For automated scheduled backups via API, you can use the included backup-poznote.sh script.

IMPORTANT: Only administrators can create backups via the API. Use the current password of the admin profile you authenticate with. On a fresh installation, that is the default admin password (admin) until it is changed in Poznote. Once a custom password is set, that custom password is required for API calls.

Script location: backup-poznote.sh in the tools folder of the Poznote repository

Administrator Usage:

Admins can backup any user profile - no need to know user IDs, just the username:

# Backup your own profile
bash backup-poznote.sh 'https://poznote.example.com' 'admin' 'admin_password' 'admin' '/backups' '30'

# Backup another user's profile (Nina)
bash backup-poznote.sh 'https://poznote.example.com' 'admin' 'admin_password' 'Nina' '/backups' '30'

Usage:

bash backup-poznote.sh '<poznote_url>' '<admin_username>' '<admin_password>' '<target_username>' '<backup_directory>' '<retention_count>'

Example with crontab (admin backing up Nina):

# Add to crontab for automated backups twice daily
0 0,12 * * * bash /root/backup-poznote.sh 'https://poznote.example.com' 'admin' 'admin_password' 'Nina' '/root/backups' '30'

Parameters explained:

• 'https://poznote.example.com' - Your Poznote instance URL
• 'admin' - Admin username for authentication (must be an admin)
• 'admin_password' - Current admin password for the API profile (default admin until changed, then the custom password)
• 'Nina' - Target username to backup
• '/root/backups' - Parent directory where backups will be stored (creates backups-poznote-<username> folder)
• '30' - Number of backups to keep (older ones are automatically deleted)

How the backup process works:

1. The script authenticates with admin credentials
2. Automatically looks up the user ID from the username
3. Creates a backup via the API
4. Calls the Poznote REST API v1 (POST /api/v1/backups with X-User-ID header)
5. Downloads the backup ZIP locally to backups-poznote-<username>/
6. Automatically manages retention (keeps only the specified number of recent backups)

Note: Each user's backups are stored in separate folders (backups-poznote-Nina, backups-poznote-Tim, etc.)

Export individual notes using the Export button in the note toolbar:

• Rich text notes: Export to HTML, or to a single HTML file with the images embedded
• Markdown notes: Export to Markdown, to HTML, or to a single HTML file with the images embedded
• Task lists: the same options, plus a raw JSON export of the list

Upload the complete backup ZIP to restore everything:

• Replaces database, restores all notes, and attachments
• Works for all workspaces at once

There is no practical size limit. The archive is uploaded in slices (a slice that fails is retried instead of losing the whole upload), reassembled on the server, then extracted and restored by a background worker, so neither the browser nor a reverse proxy in front of the instance can time the restore out. A progress bar covers the whole pipeline: upload, extraction, database, notes, then attachments. When the restore finishes, Poznote asks which workspace you want to open.

Restoring from an S3 bucket (see S3 Backups) runs as the same background job, so fetching a large archive from the bucket and restoring it does not depend on a request staying alive either.

If the upload is not possible at all, the Restore / Import page also offers a direct copy fallback: copy the archive into the Poznote container at exactly /tmp/backup_restore.zip over SSH, reload the page, and restore from there.

Import one or more HTML, Markdown or text notes directly:

• Supports .html, .md, .markdown, .txt and .json file types
• Up to 50 files can be selected at once, configurable in Settings > Admin Tools > Import Limits

Import a ZIP archive containing multiple notes:

• Supports .html, .md, .markdown or .txt file types
• ZIP archives can contain up to 300 files, configurable in Settings > Admin Tools > Import Limits
• When importing a ZIP archive, Poznote automatically detects and recreates the folder structure

There is no practical size limit on the archive. Like a complete restore, it is uploaded in slices (a slice that fails is retried instead of losing the whole upload), reassembled on the server, then processed by a background worker, so neither the browser nor a reverse proxy in front of the instance can time the import out. A progress bar covers the whole pipeline: upload, images and attachments, then notes.

An Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown files, so it can be imported as it is, in a single ZIP archive.

Steps

1. Compress your vault folder into a ZIP file. There is nothing to clean up first: hidden folders such as .obsidian or .trash are ignored.
2. In Poznote, open Settings > Restore/Import and go to the section that imports files and ZIP archives. Pick the destination workspace (a new, empty workspace makes the result easy to check), select the ZIP and start the import. Dropping the ZIP onto the notes list of the main page does the same thing.
3. Read the summary shown at the end: it gives the number of notes, folders, images and PDF files imported, and names the files that could not be.

A ZIP can hold up to 300 notes (images and PDF files do not count), a limit an administrator can raise in Settings > Admin Tools > Import Limits. The size of the archive is not limited, see Import ZIP file.

What is carried over

• Notes: every .md file becomes a Markdown note named after the file, or after the title key of its front matter.
• Folders: the folder tree of the vault is recreated, subfolders included. When the whole vault sits in a single top-level folder of the ZIP, that folder is skipped.
• Tags: the tags key of the front matter, and a line of #tags at the very top of a note. Spaces in a tag become underscores.
• Front matter: title, folder, tags, favorite, created and updated are read, see Markdown Front Matter Support.
• Links between notes: [[Note title]] works as it is. Poznote resolves it by title, shows it as an internal link and counts it in the backlinks and in the graph.
• Images: ![[image.png]], ![[image.png|caption]] and ![caption](image.png) become attachments of the note and are displayed in place, wherever the image is stored in the vault (next to the notes, in a subfolder or in an attachments folder).
• PDF files: a PDF linked from a note (![[file.pdf]], [[file.pdf]] or a Markdown link) is attached to that note, and the link points to the attachment. Any other PDF, next to the notes or in an attachments folder, becomes a note named after the file, with the PDF as its attachment, in the folder matching its place in the vault.

What is not

• Links with an alias or a heading ([[Note|alias]], [[Note#Heading]]) stay in the text but do not resolve to a note.
• Note embeds (![[Other note]]) and plugin content: Dataview queries, .canvas files, drawings made with the Obsidian Excalidraw plugin.
• Tags written in the middle of a note stay as plain text.
• Files of other types lying next to the notes (audio, video, Office documents) are ignored. Attach them to the relevant note afterwards.

Images and PDF files are matched by file name, not by path. If two files of the vault share the same name, rename one of them before the import.

Markdown files can include YAML front matter to specify note metadata. The following keys are supported:

• title — Override the note title (default: filename without extension)
• folder — Override the target folder. A plain name must match a folder that already exists in the workspace; a path such as Projects/2026 creates the folders it needs.
• tags — Array of tags to apply to the note. Supports both inline [tag1, tag2] and multi-line syntax
• favorite — Mark note as favorite (true or false)
• created — Set custom creation date (format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
• updated — Set custom update date (format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)

Example with inline array syntax:

---
title: My Important Note
folder: Projects
tags: [important, work]
favorite: true
created: 2024-01-15 10:30:00
updated: 2024-01-20 15:45:00
---

Example with multi-line syntax:

---
title: My Important Note
folder: Projects
tags:
  - important
  - work
favorite: true
created: 2024-01-15 10:30:00
updated: 2024-01-20 15:45:00
---

The notes you modified in the last 5 days are kept in each browser where you use Poznote, and this copy is refreshed after every save. In a classroom, on a train or anywhere without Wi-Fi, open the usual Poznote address: the browser shows the offline version of Poznote, with the same sidebar, editors, toolbar, search and tabs (a double-click or a middle-click opens a note in a new tab, and the tabs open online come back), listing only the notes kept offline.

• Signing in: type the password you last signed in with in this browser, it is checked without the server. If you never typed your password in this browser (SSO, automatic sign-in), the last account used there opens with a Continue as button.
• Reading and editing: Rich text notes, Markdown notes and task lists open in their usual editor, and new notes can be created. The / menu and the right-click menu work too, without the commands that need the server (pictures and files to upload, templates, drawings, links to other notes). Other note types, such as drawings, stay online only. Changes are kept in the browser until they are sent.
• Keep offline: favorites are always kept, and Keep offline in the menu of a note or of a folder (subfolders included) keeps it whatever its date, with all its attachments (PDF, audio, files) up to 25 MB each. The same menu of a note says whether it is available offline in this browser, and the Notes and Folders pages mark the notes and folders available offline in this browser. The Notes page can also keep several notes offline at once (or stop), from its bulk actions, and the Folders page has Keep offline in the menu of each folder.
• Offline page: the Offline button of the icon sidebar lists the notes and folders kept offline, like the Shares page: folders as a tree with their notes, why each note is kept (kept offline, in a folder kept offline, favorite, modified recently), a filter, and a button to keep a note offline or stop. A warning icon marks a note this browser does not hold yet.
• Back online: the changes are sent automatically. If a note was also changed on the server in the meantime, both versions are merged when possible, otherwise your offline version is kept as a separate note named "... (offline copy)". A note deleted on the server in the meantime is created again.
• Settings: Settings > Sync & history > Offline notes sets how many days of notes are kept (5 by default, up to 30, 0 turns offline notes off) and shows what the current browser holds.
• Limits: at most 300 notes and 50 MB of text, the most recently modified first. Files are kept too: the pictures shown in these notes, and every attachment (PDF, audio, files) of the favorites and the notes kept with Keep offline, up to 25 MB each, 400 files and 200 MB in total, and never more than half the free space of the browser. A larger file stays online only, and the note says so when it is opened offline.
• Requirements: Poznote must be served over HTTPS (browsers keep pages offline only on a secure connection, http://localhost also works) and opened once online in the browser, after signing in, for the copy to be made.
• Privacy: only the notes of your own account are kept, not those of an account or a workspace shared with you. They are stored unencrypted in the browser. Signing out removes them from the browser (changes not sent yet too, after a warning that lists them): on a shared computer, sign out when you leave. Signing out also works without a network, from the offline page: the notes are removed at once, and the session on the server ends the next time Poznote opens online.

The 📦 Complete Backup creates a standalone offline version of your notes. Simply extract the ZIP and open index.html in any web browser. This allows you to read your notes offline, but without the full Poznote functionality, it's a read-only export.

• PHP 8.x - Server-side scripting language
• SQLite 3 - Lightweight, file-based relational database

• HTML5 - Markup and structure
• CSS3 - Styling and responsive design
• JavaScript (Vanilla) - Interactive features and dynamic content
• React + Vite - Build toolchain for Excalidraw component (bundled as IIFE)
• AJAX - Asynchronous data loading

• CodeMirror 6 - Extensible code and text editor for the Markdown editing experience
• Excalidraw - Virtual whiteboard for sketching diagrams and drawings
• Mermaid - Client-side JavaScript library for diagram and flowchart generation from text
• KaTeX - Client-side JavaScript library for fast math typesetting and rendering mathematical equations
• Sortable.js - JavaScript library for drag-and-drop sorting
• highlight.js - Syntax highlighting for code blocks
• Swagger UI - Interactive API documentation and testing interface

• HTML/Markdown files - Notes are stored as plain HTML or Markdown files in the filesystem
• SQLite database - Metadata, tags, relationships, and user data
• File attachments - Stored on the local filesystem, or optionally in an S3-compatible object storage

• Nginx + PHP-FPM - High-performance web server with FastCGI Process Manager
• Alpine Linux - Secure, lightweight base image
• Docker - Containerization for easy deployment and portability
• Python 3.12 (Alpine) - MCP server runtime with the httpx, uvicorn and fastmcp libraries for AI assistant integration