# Getting started

Fennick is not open yet. [Join the waitlist](https://getfennick.com/#waitlist) and we will email you when your invite is ready. Once you are in, Fennick opens on today's page. Start typing.

Opened in a browser without signing in, fennick.app is a demo. A bar at the top says so, and nothing you type is kept.

![A day page in Fennick: the sidebar on the left with Search, Today, Tasks, Library and Tags, the recent pages and a month calendar; Thursday, October 15 with prose, a heading, an outline with tasks, and tagged entities](img/day.webp)
*Today's page. The sidebar holds search, recent pages and the calendar.*

> **Fennick is alpha, and you may lose data.** Keep a copy of anything important somewhere else.

## Join the waitlist

We invite people in small groups, free. Leave your email on the [waitlist](https://getfennick.com/#waitlist) and we will write when it is your turn. New accounts are not open until then.

### If you already have an account

New accounts are not open yet. The Fennick app on a Mac needs no account, so Sign in is kept out of the way: it is in **Settings**, under **Account** (on a phone, in the card at the top of Settings). To get there fast, press `⌘K`, type `sign in` and press `Enter`. If you have an account:

1. Open **Settings** at the foot of the sidebar and click **Sign in** under **Account** (or press `⌘K` and pick **Sign in**). Type your email and click **Send link**.
2. The email has a 6-digit code and a link. Type the code in the sign-in box, or open the link.

**Passkeys.** Once signed in, open **Settings**, then **Sign-in and security**, and click **Add a passkey**. Fennick says when it is added and lists each passkey with the day it was added; **Remove** takes one off (it asks first). Next time, pick **Sign in with a passkey**. The sign-in box also has **Continue with Google**, Apple, GitHub and X, for people who already have an account.

- In the Home Screen app, use the code. The link always opens Safari, and the Home Screen app keeps its own sign-in.
- A code works once and ends after 10 minutes. If a code does not work, Fennick offers to send a new one.

### A new device

Sign in on a new device and your notebook opens at once. You can read and write while the rest of it arrives. The foot of the sidebar says **Syncing the rest of your notebook…** with how much is here so far; click it for more. If you close Fennick, it carries on from there next time.

A private browser window may not have room for a big notebook. Then the foot of the sidebar says **Not enough room here**. A normal window or the Mac app has room for all of it.

### When Fennick updates

An update to how your notebook is stored runs behind the page, so you can keep typing. If an update ever goes wrong, Fennick puts the notebook back as it was, with everything you've written, and the foot of the sidebar says **Repairing this notebook…** until it's done. If another device has a newer Fennick than this one, the foot of the sidebar here says **Fennick was updated · reload**, and nothing more goes up from this device until you reload. What you wrote stays, and goes up after the reload. See [What leaves your Mac](settings.md#what-leaves) for the short report it sends us.

### Lock Fennick

Fennick can lock when you leave it, like a Mac does. Open **Settings**, then **Sign-in and security**, and under **On this device** set **Lock** to **Immediately**, **After 1 minute**, 5 or 15 minutes, or **After 1 hour**. It is **Off** until you set it.

- The time counts from when you leave: another tab, or the window hidden. Coming back after that time shows **Fennick is locked** and asks for your passkey (Touch ID on a Mac). Opening Fennick again in a new tab locks too.
- In a browser, Lock needs a passkey on your account. Add one first (see above).
- In the [Mac app](#mac), it unlocks with Touch ID or the Mac's password. In the iPhone app (coming), with Face ID, Touch ID or the iPhone’s passcode.
- While it is locked, nothing behind shows and typing goes nowhere. What you wrote before it locked is kept and keeps saving. If unlocking does not work, **Sign out** is on the lock screen.
- Each device has its own Lock setting.

### Sign out

Open **Settings** and click **Sign out** under **Account**. Fennick signs this browser out of your account in every tab and deletes this browser’s copy of your notebook. Your notes stay in your account.

- If some changes haven’t reached Fennick’s server yet, Fennick asks first. **Wait** keeps you signed in while they go.
- Words typed in another tab and not saved yet stay in this browser, and are saved to your account the next time you sign in here. Settings says so while they wait.
- If Fennick’s server can’t be reached, you stay signed in and nothing is deleted. Try again later.
- If someone else signs in on this browser, your sign-in here ends. Your copy stays, and anything not yet sent goes up when you sign in here again.
- If your sign-in ends on this device by itself, Fennick says so at once, with **Sign in**. In the Mac app, until you sign in again, the foot of the sidebar says **Signed out · not syncing**. What you write stays here, and goes up when you sign in.

## Day pages

Each day has its own page. Today's page is where Fennick starts.

- Beside the title: **‹** and **›** step a day back or on. **Today** comes back to today. **⌄** (or a right-click on Today) opens the date menu: this week, month, quarter and year, and the [pages that come back every year](dates.md#spine). The calendar button picks any date.
- In the sidebar: **Today**, the pages you opened lately under **Recents**, and a month calendar. Click a day in it to open that day; click the month, the year or a week's number to open that page.
- The **Calendar** page shows each day of the month, how many blocks you wrote, and the entities dated that day.

An empty page's first block, a day's too, says “Write, or press / for blocks, # to tag” until you type. Any other empty block says “Write, or press / for blocks” while the cursor is in it; a heading, list, to-do or quote shows its own name.

Opening a day makes its page, with its `#day` tag, so its fields and links work from the start. A week, a month, a quarter and a year have pages too: see [Dates](dates.md#spine).

A new notebook opens on today's page with a **Getting started** list: first steps you do for real on your own pages, each ticked off as you do it. *Skip* puts it away. *Getting started* in the [command menu](command-menu.md) brings it back. Its first card asks how far AI may go with your notes (see [Settings › AI](settings.md#ai)).

## Blocks

Each paragraph you write is a block. Press `Enter` for a new one. A block reads like ordinary writing, but underneath it is a block:

- it can be a heading, a list item, a to-do and more ([Writing](writing.md));
- it can hold blocks inside it, as an outline ([Outlining](outlining.md));
- it can be tagged, and carry fields ([Tags](tags.md), [Fields](fields.md));
- it can open as a page of its own: click its bullet in the left margin.

Point at a block to see its faint bullet. Click the bullet to open the block, drag it to move the block, right-click it for the block's menu.

On an empty page, clicking in saves nothing. `Enter`, `Tab`, a style key such as `⌘B`, or a style button on the phone's keyboard bar does nothing until you type. The first letter you type, a paste, or the bar's **#** or **@** makes the block.

## Pages

- Click **New page** under Search in the sidebar, press `⌃⌥N` (`Ctrl+Alt+N` on Windows), or pick *New page* in the [command menu](command-menu.md). Type a title, then press `Enter` to start writing.
- Every block is a page too: click its bullet to open it. A page made with *New page* sits in the Library, under nothing.
- **Library** in the sidebar lists every page and entity, and **Tasks** every task and to-do. See [The Library and Tasks](library-and-tasks.md).
- **Recents** (every page you opened, newest first) is in the sidebar too, and **Starred** once you star something.
- The path above a page's title shows where it sits. Click a step to go there.

## Quick capture

Write something down and send it somewhere, without leaving the page you are on.

1. Open it: press `⌘K` and pick **Quick capture**. On a phone, tap **Search** in the bottom bar and tap **Add to today**, or type “capture”.
2. Pick where it goes (see below).
3. Write. `Return` starts a new block.
4. Click **Add** (or **Create** for a new page), or press `⌘Enter`.

| Way | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Add to a day** | Adds the blocks to the end of a day. Use ‹ and › to step to the day before or after. |
| **Add to a page** | Adds the blocks to the end of the page you pick: one of your 60 pages edited last (pages, not tagged entities). It starts on the page you used last. |
| **New to-dos** | Adds the blocks to a day as to-dos. Text and list blocks become to-dos. |
| **New page** | Makes a page. The first block is its title, the rest its blocks. The page opens. |

- It opens in the way that fits where you are. On a day, it adds to that day, or makes new to-dos there if you used New to-dos last. On a page, it adds to that page. Anywhere else, it uses the way you used last.
- Markdown makes real blocks: `# `, `## ` and `### ` headings, `- ` or `* ` lists, `1. ` numbered lists, `[ ] ` to-dos (`[x] ` ticked), `> ` quotes, `---` dividers, ````` code, and indenting for nesting.
- The others add and you stay where you are; a short note says where the blocks went.
- **Cancel**, `Esc` or a click outside closes it. If you close it without sending, your words wait for a minute. Open it again to pick up where you were.

## Finding your way

- `⌘K` opens the [command menu](command-menu.md): pages, entities, days, blocks and actions, found as you type.
- **Search** at the top of the sidebar opens the same menu. It finds words and #tags in every block, and can filter by tag, page, date and who wrote it. See [Filters](command-menu.md#filters).
- Back and Forward (the arrows at the top, `⌘[` `⌘]`, or the browser's own) walk the pages you opened. Hold Back, or right-click it, to see up to 15 pages you came through. Click one to go straight there.
- Click a section's label (**Starred**, **Recents**, **Calendar**) to fold it, and again to open it. Fennick remembers it on this device. To move, hide or add sections, see [Customize the sidebar](settings.md#customize).
- `⌘\` makes the sidebar small, a strip of icons; press it again to hide it, and once more to bring it back. The strip has one icon for each part of the sidebar, in the same order; **Starred**, **Recents** and **Calendar** open beside it.

## Tabs

On a computer, a band runs across the top of the window in the color of the open page's tag (grey when it has none). At its left, always in the same place whether the sidebar is full, small or hidden: the fox, the sidebar button, and Back and Forward. Over the page, your open pages as tabs; over the right panel, its views.

- Following a link changes the tab you are in. `⌘`-click a link (or click it with the middle button) to open it in a new tab, next to the one you are in.
- **+** or `⌃⌥T` opens a new tab on today, at the end, beside the **+**. Point at a tab for its **×**, or press `⌃⌥W`, to close it.
- A day's tab reads like “Wed, Oct 14”, with a sun; a week, month, quarter or year keeps its name and a calendar. Recents and the sidebar's **Today** use the same marks.
- Every tab is the same width, whatever its name; a long name ends in “…”. With more tabs than fit, they all get narrower together.
- Fennick keeps your tabs on this device.
- On a phone there is no band. On a page, *Open pages* in the page's **⋯** menu shows how many pages are open; on other screens, a round button at the top right shows it. Tap it to see them, open a new one or close one.

## Saving

There is no Save button and no “Saved” message. In the Mac app, or signed in, Fennick keeps every letter as you type, on this device, and sends it to your account when you are signed in. The demo keeps nothing. While Fennick is in alpha, keep a copy of anything important somewhere else.

- Only what you write or change is saved. Reading and moving around change nothing. The one exception: opening a day, week, month, quarter or year page for the first time makes that page.
- If a change can't be kept, Fennick puts the block back as it was and says “That change couldn’t be saved, so it was undone”, with the reason when there is one.
- If words you typed can’t be kept in their block, because the change was refused or the block is gone, Fennick keeps them for you. **Couldn’t be saved** shows in the sidebar with a count. Open it to see each change, with every word, who made it, on which device and when. **Put back** tries it again, **Let go…** asks first and then drops it, and you can copy the words. Nothing there is lost until you put it back or let it go.
- Those words are yours alone. They are kept in a small file beside the notebook, not in the notebook. They go to your own other devices, but never to anyone else's, and never into the notebook's history.

## The Mac app

Fennick also runs as an app on a Mac, in its own window. It needs no sign-in: open it and start typing. It opens and takes notes with no internet, even the first time.

- Tabs use the Mac's own keys: `⌘T` a new tab, `⌘W` close it, `⌘1` to `⌘9` go to one, `⌘⇧[` `⌘⇧]` the tab before or after.
- [Lock](#lock) unlocks with Touch ID or the Mac's password.
- It updates itself. It looks for a new version when it opens and every hour, and downloads it in the background. Then it asks: “A new version of Fennick is ready”, **Restart now** or **Later**. It never restarts on its own; after Later, the update goes in when you quit Fennick. **Check for Updates…** is in the Fennick menu.

## Next

- [Writing and formatting](writing.md)
- [Tags](tags.md)
- [Fields](fields.md)
- [Views](views.md)
- [Import and export](import.md)
- [Settings and the sidebar](settings.md)
- [Keyboard shortcuts](shortcuts.md)