Online Notepad

How do you write, organize, and keep a local note?

Type into the editor or choose Open to read a text file from your device. New document and New note create separate documents; select an existing title under Local documents to return to it. Rename changes the document title, while the filename controls the exported copy. These are separate names: renaming a note does not automatically rename its download.

For a meeting draft, create a document, rename it “Launch checklist,” and paste the example below. Choose Save version before revising it. Editing saves the local library automatically; Save version keeps a recoverable snapshot, and Save or Save as writes a separate file. Those actions protect different copies of your work.

Draft agenda
Draft budget
Send draft

Expand More, choose Find / replace, enter draft in Find literal text and Final in Replace with. With Match case off, there are three matches. Replace all produces Final agenda, Final budget, and Send Final on separate lines. With Match case on, the original text has only one match, in the last line. Undo reverses the replacement.

How do you find and replace repeated text?

Search treats punctuation literally: a period finds a period, and brackets find brackets. It does not interpret your input as a regular expression. Replacement text is inserted literally too, so dollar signs are retained rather than expanded into special replacement patterns. Leave Replace with empty to delete matching text.

Previous and Next select occurrences in the editor and wrap around at either end. Replace changes the current occurrence; Replace all changes every non-overlapping occurrence. There is no whole-word option: searching for cat also matches inside catalog. An empty search has no matches. Review the count and selected text before a broad replacement, particularly with short identifiers or common letter combinations.

What is the difference between auto-save, undo, and saved versions?

Recovery options for the current document

Feature	What it keeps	Main limit
Automatic local saving	Current titles, text, and saved versions	Depends on available browser storage
Undo and Redo	Previous text states in memory	Up to 100 previous states; lost on reload
Version history	Persistent title and text snapshots	Up to 30 per document within the shared storage limit
Export all notes	A downloaded JSON library backup	Must be exported again to include later edits

Undo covers typing, imported text, and replacements within each document. Rapid typing is grouped, while a new edit after Undo clears the redo branch. Undo restores text only: it does not restore filenames or reverse a file already written to disk. New note preserves the previous document in the list rather than clearing it.

Choose Save version for an immediate snapshot. A five-minute timer also snapshots documents whose title or text differs from their latest version. In Version history, select a Saved version to preview it before choosing Restore as new version. Restoration preserves the current document as a snapshot and records the restored content as another version, subject to retention limits.

How do you open a file and save a separate copy?

Open reads .txt, .md, .csv, and .json files into the current document, replacing its text. Undo restores the previous text. Create a separate document first if you want to keep the imported file alongside another note. All four formats remain plain text; the tool does not validate structured syntax or render Markdown. For formatted output, use the Markdown Editor.

Choose a filename and File extension, then use Save as under More. Supporting browsers show a destination picker; otherwise the browser downloads a UTF-8 text copy. Save reuses a destination granted through that picker. Opening a file alone grants no overwrite access, and changing the filename or extension resets the saved destination. Unsupported filename suffixes receive .txt; filesystem-sensitive characters are replaced with underscores.

The selected file is read entirely into memory without an application file-size cutoff. Large files can therefore reduce responsiveness; the local library limit still applies separately. Copy all provides another way to transfer text. If clipboard access fails, select and copy manually. Ctrl/Cmd+O opens a file, Ctrl/Cmd+S saves, and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+S invokes Save as.

How do you back up all notes or move them to another device?

Export all notes downloads notes-backup.json containing document titles, text, and saved versions. Import notes backup validates that backup format and merges it into the local library. Open merely loads a JSON file as editable text; it does not restore a library. Use the backup control when moving several documents between browser profiles or devices.

Merging uses document IDs to identify existing notes. If the backup contains an older copy of an existing note, a confirmation asks whether to replace newer local notes. Cancel keeps those newer notes and merges the rest. The import file-size check rejects backups larger than 120 × 1024 × 1024 bytes, but imported libraries still undergo the smaller local storage limit.

How reliable and private is browser storage?

Markdown Editor and Online Notepad share one local library, stored in IndexedDB with localStorage as a fallback. The serialized library has a 20 × 1024 × 1024 byte cap, including notes and versions. Oldest versions are removed first; if that is insufficient, oldest notes are removed too. This is not a guaranteed per-note character allowance, and browser storage can fail before that cap.

Watch the save status and warning banner. When storage is unavailable or full, the tool keeps working in memory; export or copy your current work before leaving. For concurrent edits, a warning may report preserved changes and Recovered conflict copies. Follow its instruction to export current notes before reloading to view merged documents.

Notes are not uploaded or synchronized to an account, and the editor does not encrypt its browser storage. Clearing site data or losing a temporary browser profile can remove local copies. Delete all local notes asks for confirmation and removes both writing tools’ notes, versions, and legacy drafts. Downloaded files remain separate and must be deleted separately.

How do you adjust the editor and check your writing?

Under More, Text size offers Small, Medium, Large, and Extra large. Word wrap starts enabled; disable it to scroll long lines horizontally when inspecting tabular text or code. Wrapping changes the display rather than inserting newlines. The editor also supports vertical resizing where the browser provides a resize control.

Live statistics show characters, words, lines, and estimated reading minutes. The editor is plain text, with spellcheck disabled and no rich-text toolbar. For a detailed breakdown, use the Word Counter or Character Counter before exporting your final draft.