Shortcuts

Keep the handful of things you reach for every day in one list at the top of the sidebar.

Shortcuts sits near the top of the sidebar, under Home. On the iPhone it is the first group on the screen the app opens on, under the tiles.

Six kinds of things can be shortcuts: a note, a template, a notebook, a stack, a tag and a saved search. They sit side by side, so a tag can be right under a notebook without either of them moving from where it is kept.

Add a shortcut

A note: open its context menu and choose Add to Shortcuts, right under Pin. Or, with the note open, use Shortcut in the Inspector under Filing.
A notebook, stack or tag: its context menu — in the Mac sidebar, in the Notebooks and Tags tables, and in the iPhone's own lists.
A saved search: its context menu in the sidebar.
A template: its context menu in the Templates list.

You can also drag a notebook, stack, tag, saved search or note straight into the Shortcuts list. A line between the rows shows where it will land; drop it on the Shortcuts header to put it at the end.

Swipe right on a note, a template, a notebook, a stack or a tag to add it to Shortcuts — the button is orange, like a pin. You can choose which side it is on in Settings ▸ Swipe.

Use and arrange your shortcuts

Picking a shortcut goes straight to the thing. A notebook, stack, tag or saved search shows its notes, just as its own row in the sidebar would. A note or a template opens in the editor, with the list beside it holding that one note.

Picking a shortcut highlights the shortcut alone, not the row it points to elsewhere in the sidebar.

Drag the rows to put them in the order you want. A row dragged within the list is moved, not added twice. To reorder from the keyboard, use Move Up, Move Down, Move to Top and Move to Bottom in a shortcut's context menu.

The list folds away like Notebooks and Tags.

Point at the glyph beside Shortcuts — it turns into an arrow — and click it.

Tap anywhere on the Shortcuts header, name included.

While the list is empty, it says how to fill it.

Remove a shortcut

Choose the same command again wherever the thing is listed, or use the shortcut's own context menu. On iPhone and iPad, you can also swipe left on the shortcut. Removing a shortcut doesn't ask first; the thing it pointed to stays where it is.

What happens to a shortcut later

A shortcut always shows the current name of what it points to. Rename a notebook, a tag or a stack, and the shortcut follows.
If a rename merges two tags or two stacks that were both shortcuts, the two shortcuts become one.
Deleting a notebook, tag or saved search removes its shortcut too.
A note in the Trash keeps its shortcut, but the shortcut is hidden. Restore the note and the shortcut is back in its place.
Your shortcuts are the same on your Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Note: A shortcut is not a pin. A pin keeps a note at the top of the list it is already in; a shortcut lifts it out into this list. A note can be both, and the two commands sit next to each other in its menu.