Your Files & Sync
Where are my notes stored?
“I wrote things in visualOS — where are they on my disk?” Here’s the exact answer for every kind of content.
More in Your Files & Sync
If you have a connected folder
| Content | Where it lives on disk |
|---|---|
| Notes, text, to-dos, shapes, arrows, drawings | Inside board.json of the folder they’re on (and, authoritatively, in canvas-data.json at the top). Notes are small — they live as text inside these files rather than as one file each. |
| Documents (the long-form editor) | A real Markdown file (.md) in the folder where the document sits on your canvas. Open it in any editor — it’s plain text. |
| Images, videos, PDFs, Office files | Ordinary files in their folder on disk, moving along when you move them between folders in the app. |
| Everything, historically | Snapshots in the hidden .versions/ folder — see Version history. |
So: to read a note outside the app, open the board.json of its folder — it’s human-readable JSON. To edit, use the app (the mirror is one-way; why).
If you haven’t connected a folder
Your notes exist only in the browser’s internal storage (IndexedDB) on that one device, in that one browser profile. They’re safe in normal use, but invisible as files — and a browser reset, a “clear site data” click, or private-mode rules can remove them. Two ways out:
- Best: connect a folder — from then on everything above applies.
- At minimum: export a backup regularly — one file containing all boards, notes and images.
“I can’t find a note I wrote”
- Use search (Cmd/Ctrl+F) — it looks through every folder at once and jumps you straight to the note.
- Check you’re in the right workspace — each workspace has its own canvas and its own folder.
- On another device: make sure it has the same folder connected and the folder has finished syncing — see the Keep Downloaded fix.