The Notes app

Notes is a second Android app for notes, lists and tables only, in the style of Google Keep. It opens directly on the notes, even with no network, and it has home-screen widgets, launcher shortcuts, a Quick Settings tile and a share target. It is connected to the same Mailr server and has the same notes and the same sync as the Notes tab of the Mailr app. Both apps can be installed on one phone.

Install and sign in

Download the Notes APK from the server's Get the app page (/get-app), below the Mailr app, or from the same release page as the Mailr app, and install it. Android 10 or later is required. On the first start, enter your server address and sign in with single sign-on or with your email and password, as in the Mailr app. The Notes app has a session of its own: it is listed in the web app with the phone's name, for example "Notes on Pixel 9", under Settings → You → Password & devices, and it can be signed out there.

With a setup link (mailr-notes://setup?server=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.example.com), the app shows Use this server? with the full address from the link, and the server is filled in only after you tap Use this server. While you are signed in, a setup link for another server is not used.

Notes, lists and tables work as in the Mailr app: see Notes, lists and tables for the grid, the list editor, sections and quantities, tables and the row form, sharing, history and work without a network. The Notes app also has the following.

• Open in Mailr in a note's ⋮ menu, when the Mailr app is on the phone.
• Settings at the foot of the menu: the account, Sign out, the theme (as the phone, light or dark), Colours from the wallpaper (Android 12 and later) and Hide in Recents and screenshots (off by default: every Notes screen is a blank card in Recents, and screenshots and screen recordings stay empty, as with the Mailr app's setting of the same name). The Notes app has the web style of the Mailr app, with amber as its colour. On sign-out, the notes are removed from the phone; they stay on the server.

Widgets

Long-press the home screen, tap Widgets and find Notes. When you place a widget, pick the list, note or table for it. Long-press it later to pick another.

Widget	Contents	Actions
Checklist	One list: its unchecked items in order, with section names and quantities, then "2 checked · Usual (3)"	Tap an item to check it. Undo is shown in the header for 7 seconds. Tap + to add items to this list. Tap the title to open the list
Note	One note's title and text	Tap it to open the note
Table	One table: the first column and one or two chosen columns, the first rows, and the row count or a total	Tap + to open a new row. Tap a row to open it
Quick capture	New note, New list, Add to a list, Dictate	Tap any button to open quick capture

Usual items on the widget. When a list has usual items to suggest, they are shown on the Checklist widget as chips under the items: "Usual + coffee + eggs + bananas". Tap one to add it. The row is hidden when there are none.

Add by voice. With the microphone on the Checklist widget, and with Dictate on Quick capture, speech is recognised with the phone's own on-device speech recognition; nothing is sent to a speech service. Say "add milk and eggs to shopping", "put bread on the Costco list" or "shopping: milk". The words are read by fixed rules, with no model. For a list name that matches no list, "No list called “groceries”" is shown instead of a guess. On the Checklist widget, words without a list are added to that list. If the phone has no on-device recogniser, a notice is shown in the app.

Items on a widget can be checked without a network. The checks are kept on the phone and sent to the server when the network is back. Widgets are updated with every change: one made in the app, on the web, or on another phone.

Quick capture

Quick capture is opened over whatever is on the screen. Choose Note, List or Add to list.

• Note: a title and the text.
• List: a title and the items, one per line.
• Add to list: pick the list and, if it has sections, a section. Type items as in a list's add line, for example 2 limes, coffee. Start with # and a list's name to pick another list: #packing socks, charger. With a #name that matches no list, a new list with that name is started.
• In Note, text that starts with # and a list's name is added to that list as items, as on the web: #Shopping Costco: milk. Anything else stays a note.

Tap the microphone to dictate into the text through the phone's speech recogniser.

Launcher shortcuts and the tile

Long-press the Notes icon for New note, New list and the last three notes, lists or tables opened. A note's ⋮ menu (or a card's long-press menu, or a table's ⋮ menu) has Add to home screen: a shortcut with the note's icon and colour. When the note is moved to Trash, its shortcut is greyed out with "Note is in Trash"; when the note is restored, the shortcut is active again.

Add the New note tile to Quick Settings: pull down the shade twice, tap the pencil, and drag New note into place. Tap it to open quick capture.

Share to Notes

In any app, tap Share and choose Notes. On the sheet, the shared content can be saved in three ways.

• New note (the default). For text with several lines, the first line is the title. A shared link is saved as a note with the page's title and the address; nothing is fetched.
• Add to a list. Recent lists come first. Each line or comma piece is added as an item, read as in a list's add line. Pick a section if the list has some.
• Add to a table. Tab- or comma-separated text is added as rows, in the table's column order. The rows are shown on the sheet first. A first line with the column names is skipped.

Images can't be saved to Notes yet.

Links

Links to a note or a table are opened in the Notes app: mailr-notes://note/<id>, mailr-notes://table/<id> and mailr-notes://table/<id>/row/<row>. Web links to /notes/n/<id> and /tables/t/<id> are opened there too when the server's address was set when the app was built (see below). For a link to a note the account can't see, "Not available to" and the account's address are shown.

Reminders

Reminders on notes are posted by the Notes app, on the Note reminders notification channel, with Snooze 1 h and Dismiss. While the Notes app is installed, note reminders are not shown in the Mailr app, so only one notification is posted. A snooze or dismissal on the phone is applied on the web and on the other devices too.

Updates

An administrator can set the oldest version of the Notes app that the server accepts (see Phone apps). When the installed version is refused by the server, Update Mailr Notes to keep syncing is shown at the top of the app, and changes are kept on the phone until the app is updated. Tap Update to download the new version from the server (/api/v1/app/notes.apk) in the browser, then open the file to install it. When the server has a newer version, Update available is shown at the top of Settings. See Updates for the Mailr app, which works the same way.

Administrators: the sign-in address and build settings of the Notes app are on Phone apps.