open-webui-docs/docs/features/ai-knowledge/notes.md

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sidebar_position: 1300
title: "Notes"
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The **Notes** feature in Open WebUI provides a dedicated workspace for content creation and knowledge management. While normal chats within Open WebUI preserves your linear conversations, **Notes** allow you to curate specific content, such as long-form drafts or coding cheatsheets that exists independently of any single conversation. These notes can be written and enhanced using your LLMs and seamlessly injected into new chats as context.

## The Note Editor

The Notes interface is a full-featured writing environment that supports Markdown and Rich Text.

### Floating Formatting Toolbar

Notes utilizes a context-aware **Floating Toolbar** for formatting, rather than a static bar at the top of the screen.

* **Click on empty space:** The toolbar will appear at your cursor location, allowing you to start new elements like Headers or Lists.
* **Double-click text:** Highlighting or double-clicking existing text summons the toolbar to apply styling options.

**Toolbar Options:**

* **Headers:** `H1`, `H2`, `H3` for document structure.
* **Lists:** Bullet points (`·`) and Numbered lists (`1.`).
* **Task Lists:** Interactive checkboxes (`☑`) for to-do lists.
* **Styling:** **Bold**, *Italic*, Underline, and ~~Strikethrough~~.
* **Code:** Inline code formatting `</>`.

### Drag-and-Drop List Reordering

List items can be reordered by dragging. Visual drag handles appear when hovering over list items, making it easy to reorganize content.

While this toolbar is native to the Notes workspace, it can also be enabled for standard Chats.

:::info  To see this toolbar in your main chat input:

1. Go to **Settings > Interface**.
2. Toggle **Rich Text Input for Chat** to ON.
3. Toggle **Show Formatting Toolbar** to ON.

:::

### Input Tools & Metrics

* **Metrics:** The top header displays real-time **Word** and **Character** counts, useful for drafting content with length constraints.
* **Voice Dictation:** Click the **Microphone** icon (bottom left) to dictate text directly into the note using speech-to-text.

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## AI Integration

LLMs are directly integrated with your notes, turning the editor into an AI-assisted workspace. Click the **AI (Sparkle/Star)** button at the bottom right of the screen to access these features.

### 1. Enhance

The **Enhance** feature allows you to use AI as an in-place editor.

1. Highlight a specific section of text (or select nothing to target the whole note).
2. Click **Enhance**.
3. The LLM (selected in the Note's Controls) will rewrite your text directly in the editor with enhancement in mind.

:::info Custom Control
If you need a specific style or tone (e.g., "Rewrite this to be more professional"), use the **Chat** sidebar instead:

1. Select your text.
2. Click the **Chat** button.
3. Enable the **Edit** toggle if you need to modify the context manually.
4. Instruct the AI to rewrite the selection according to your specific needs.
:::

### 2. Chat (Sidebar)

The **Chat** button opens a dedicated sidebar conversation focused specifically on the note's content. This is a "Chat with Data" mode.

* You can ask the AI to summarize the note, extract specific data, or critique your writing.
* **Edit Toggle:** Inside the chat sidebar, there is an **Edit** toggle. This allows you to manually modify the highlighted context sent to the LLM *before* you press send, giving you granular control over the query.

### Undo / Redo

The **Undo/Redo** arrows (top right) track all changes. Crucially, this includes changes made by the AI. If the `Enhance` feature produces a result you dislike, you can simply click Undo to revert to your original text.

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## Using Notes in Chat

You can inject the content of your Notes into standard chat sessions to provide context to the AI.

### How to Attach a Note

1. Go to the main **Chat Input** bar.
2. Click the **`+` (More)** button.
3. Select **Attach Notes**.
4. Choose the desired note(s) from the list.

The full content of the note will be loaded into the context window for that conversation.

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## Management & Sharing

Open WebUI provides several ways to export and manage your notes via the **More (`...`)** menu in the top right corner.

:::info Admin Visibility
Notes are considered **workspace items**, just like models, knowledge, prompts, and tools. By default (`BYPASS_ADMIN_ACCESS_CONTROL=True`), administrators can see **all users' notes** under the "All" and "Shared with you" filters.

To prevent admins from seeing notes they were not explicitly shared with, set `BYPASS_ADMIN_ACCESS_CONTROL` to `False`. This also restricts admin access to other workspace items (models, knowledge, prompts, tools). See the [Environment Configuration](/reference/env-configuration#bypass_admin_access_control) for details.
:::

### Download

You can export your notes in standard formats:

* **Plain text (.txt):** The raw text content.
* **Plain text (.md):** Preserves Markdown structure (headers, code blocks, etc.).
* **PDF document (.pdf):** A rendered document with visual formatting applied. Dark mode styling is automatically detected and applied.

### Sharing

* **Copy Link:** Copies the direct URL of the specific Note to your clipboard (useful for returning to the note later).
* **Copy to Clipboard:** Copies the entire *contents* (text) of the note to your clipboard for pasting into other applications.

### Delete

You can delete notes permanently from two locations:

1. **From the Notes Dashboard:** Click the **More (`...`)** button on the individual note card in the list view and select **Delete**.
2. **From the Editor:** While inside an open note, click the **More (`...`)** button in the top right corner of the screen and select **Delete**.


### Quick Note Creation via URL

Notes can be created directly by navigating to `/notes/new` with optional query parameters:

* `/notes/new` — Opens a blank note
* `/notes/new?title=My%20Title&content=Initial%20text` — Pre-populates title and content

This enables bookmarks and shortcuts for fast note creation.

### Creating Notes from Search

You can also create notes directly from the global search bar:

1. Open the search using the keyboard shortcut (`Cmd+K` / `Ctrl+K`) or by clicking the search icon.
2. Type your initial note content.
3. Select **"Create a new note"** from the actions list.
4. This will immediately open a new note with your search text as the content.

### Importing Notes

You can import existing Markdown (`.md`) files into your Notes workspace:

* **Drag and Drop:** Simply drag `.md` files directly onto the Notes list view to import them.

### View Options

The Notes dashboard offers different ways to organize your content:

* **Filter:** Toggle between **Created by you** (your private/shared notes) and **Shared with you** (notes others have shared).
* **Layout:** Switch between **List** and **Grid** views for visual preference.

### Sharing Permissions

Administrators can control sharing capabilities via environment variables or the Admin Panel:

* **Internal Sharing:** `USER_PERMISSIONS_NOTES_ALLOW_SHARING` (Controls sharing with other users/groups on the server).
* **Public Sharing:** `USER_PERMISSIONS_NOTES_ALLOW_PUBLIC_SHARING` (Controls generating public external links).

These can also be configured in **Admin Panel > Settings > Users > Default Permissions**.

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## Native Note Management (Agentic)

If you are using a model with **Native Function Calling** enabled (see the [**Central Tool Calling Guide**](/features/extensibility/plugin/tools#tool-calling-modes-default-vs-native)), the AI can interact with your Notes workspace autonomously using built-in system tools.

### Available Note Tools:
- **`search_notes`**: The model can search your entire library of notes by title and content.
- **`view_note`**: After finding a note, the model can "read" its full markdown content.
- **`write_note`**: The model can proactively create new notes for you (e.g., "I'll save this summary as a new note for you").
- **`replace_note_content`**: The model can update existing notes (e.g., adding a new item to a todo list note).

### Why use native tool calling for Notes?
This transforms Notes from a static reference into a dynamic **Long-Term Memory** and **Task Management** system. Instead of manually copying and pasting, you can simply tell the model: *"Search my 'Project X' notes and find the database schema,"* or *"Add a new task to my 'Weekly Todo' note to review the PR."*

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## Use Cases

While Open WebUI has dedicated **Prompts** (for slash commands) and **Documents** (for RAG), **Notes** serves a unique middle ground for iterative work and precise control.

### 1. The "Living" Draft (Iterative Writing)

Unlike a static prompt or an uploaded document, a Note is a workspace.

* **Scenario:** You are writing a blog post or documentation. You draft the outline, use the **Enhance** tool to expand bullet points into paragraphs, and use the **Chat** sidebar to brainstorm titles. The Note becomes the final product, rather than just a reference.

### 2. High-Fidelity Code Staging

RAG (Documents) uses vector search, which is probabilistic—it might miss a crucial line of code in a large file.

* **Scenario:** You have three specific functions from different files that you need to refactor together. Copy/pasting them into the chat is messy. Instead, paste them into a Note. When you attach the Note, you guarantee the LLM sees **100%** of that code exactly as you arranged it, without the "fuzzy" guessing of RAG.

### 3. Transient Data Sanitization

Sometimes you need to analyze data (like error logs) but need to clean it first.

* **Scenario:** You have a server error log containing sensitive API keys. Paste the log into a Note, manually delete the keys or use **Enhance** to "Anonymize this text", and *then* attach the sanitized Note to a chat to ask the AI for a solution. This prevents leaking sensitive data into your main chat history or embeddings.

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## Limitations

It is important to understand how Notes function technically compared to other features like "Documents".

### Context Injection vs. Vector Search

* **Documents (RAG):** When you upload a file to "Documents". the system uses vector search to find relevant *chunks* of the file based on your query. It is probabilistic.
* **Notes (Deterministic):** When you attach a Note, you are performing **manual context injection**. The system does not guess; it forces the LLM to read the *entire* note. This guarantees the model sees the information, but it requires you to select the correct note manually.

### Context Window Usage

Because attaching a Note injects the full text into the chat:

* If you have a very large note (e.g., 10,000 words) and attach it to a model with a small context window (e.g., 8k tokens), the model may run out of memory or "forget" the beginning of your conversation.

### Write Support (Native Mode)

By default, when you manually attach a Note to a chat, it is **read-only**. However, in **Native Mode**, if the model has permission to use the `replace_note_content` tool, it can **actively modify** your notes.

* **Security Note**: This means a model could potentially overwrite content in your notes if instructed (or if it decides it's necessary for the task). Always review changes and utilize the **Undo/Redo** arrows in the Note editor if an AI makes an unwanted modification.