Notes

Raycast Notes helps you organize your thoughts from anywhere. You can track your todos, take notes during meetings, and save your next big idea. It's designed to be lightweight with Markdown support and is a keystroke away with a deep integration into the rest of Raycast's ecosystem.

Our note-taking experience comes with three commands:

• Raycast Notes: This command toggles the Notes window.
• Create Note: This command creates a new note and opens the window. It's ideal for capturing a thought quickly.
• Search Notes: This command allows you to search all your notes by title and content, making it easy to revisit previous notes.

Creating

It all starts by creating a new note. It can be your next big idea or just a way to jot down some thoughts. If you have Raycast Notes already open, you can click the plus button in the top-right corner of the toolbar (or press ⌘N / CtrlN) to create a new note.

Alternatively, you can use the Create Note command in Raycast's Root Search, which is globally available. After you have successfully created a new note, you can start writing. The first line of the note is used as the title of the note, which is shown in the toolbar.

Editing

Raycast Notes offers a lightweight editing experience that allows you to format your note with ease.

There are five ways to format your notes:

• By typing Markdown syntax like creating a heading with #
• By typing / to open a menu of formatting options like headings, lists, and blockquotes
• By pressing keyboard shortcuts like ⌘B / CtrlB to make text bold
• By choosing the Format action from the Action Panel (⌘K / CtrlK)
• By showing the Format Bar at the bottom of the window

Links aren't part of the / menu. To add one, press ⌘L / CtrlL or use the Markdown syntax below.

Below is an overview of all formatting options and their corresponding keyboard shortcut and Markdown syntax.

Paragraph Formatting

Everything you need to organize your content into clear, structured sections - from headers and lists to specialized blocks that help keep your notes tidy and easy to navigate.

Format	macOS Shortcut	Windows Shortcut	Markdown Syntax
Heading 1	⌥⌘1	CtrlAlt1	Type # at the beginning of a new line
Heading 2	⌥⌘2	CtrlAlt2	Type ## at the beginning of a new line
Heading 3	⌥⌘3	CtrlAlt3	Type ### at the beginning of a new line
Code block	⌥⌘C	CtrlAltC	Type ``` (three backticks and a space) or ~~~ (three tildes and a space) at the beginning of a new line
Blockquote	⇧⌘B	CtrlShiftB	Type > at the beginning of a new line
Ordered list	⇧⌘7	CtrlShift7	Type 1. (or any other number followed by a dot) at the beginning of a new line
Bullet list	⇧⌘8	CtrlShift8	Type * or - at the beginning of a new line
Task list	⇧⌘9	CtrlShift9	Type [] for an unchecked task or [x] for a checked task at the beginning of a new line

To toggle a task’s checked state, place the cursor on the task line and press ⌘Enter / CtrlEnter.

Text Formatting

Basic styling options that let you modify the appearance of individual words or phrases within your text to emphasize important points, add links, or create distinctions.

Format	macOS Shortcut	Windows Shortcut	Markdown Syntax
Bold	⌘B	CtrlB	Type **two asterisks** or __two underlines__
Italic	⌘I	CtrlI	Type *one asterisk* or _one underline_
Strikethrough	⇧⌘S	CtrlShiftS	Type ~~two tildes~~
Underline	⌘U	CtrlU	N/A
Code	⌘E	CtrlE	Type `one backtick`
Link	⌘L	CtrlL	Type [link text in square brackets](link-url-in-parentheses)

Other Formatting

Additional formatting elements that help you enhance your notes with visual separators and expressive elements like emojis to improve readability and communication.

Format	macOS Shortcut	Windows Shortcut	Markdown Syntax
Emoji	N/A	N/A	Type : to open the inline emoji picker
Horizontal rule	N/A	N/A	Type three dashes (---) or three underscores and a space (___ ) at the beginning of a new line

Images

Keep screenshots, diagrams, and photos next to the text they belong to and appear as blocks in your note. You can start adding images to Notes by doing the following:

• Add Image: Open the Action Panel (⌘K / CtrlK), choose Add Image, and pick one or more files in the Select Images window.
• Image: Type / and choose Image from the menu.
• Drag & Drop: Drag an image from your computer into the Note window.
• Paste: Paste copied image files from your clipboard into a Note.

When you add several images at once, Raycast inserts them together. If only some of them can be saved, Raycast lets you know. Notes supports JPG/JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, and BMP images up to 20 MiB per file.

With an image selected, the Action Panel offers these actions:

• Quick Look: Preview the image.
• Copy Image: Copy the image to the clipboard.
• Save Image As…: Save the image as a file.

You can't add images when a note can't be edited, such as a note opened from Recently Deleted.

Reordering List Items

You can rearrange a bullet, ordered, or task list by dragging its items, without cutting and pasting. Hover over a list item to show its drag handle to the left of the bullet, number, or checkbox. Then drag the handle and drop the item in its new position.

• Nested items: The list item moves together with all the items nested under it.
• Nesting level: Where you drop the item horizontally sets its level, so you can move an item out one level or nest it under another list item.
• Numbering: Ordered lists renumber automatically after you drop.
• Scrolling: You can scroll the note while you drag.
• Canceling: Press Esc to cancel a drag.

Dragging works in the active Notes window while you're editing. It isn't available when you preview a note from Recently Deleted. To reorder without a mouse, choose Move List Item Up or Move List Item Down from the Action Panel (⌘K / CtrlK).

Organizing

Raycast Notes offers support for multiple notes but balances it with a lightweight user interface. Only one note is visible at the time. Notes are organized as a stack. You can think of them as a notepad with multiple pages. To access previous notes, you can click the Browse Notes tool bar item in the top right or press ⌘P / CtrlP.

Alternatively, you can use the Search Notes command in Raycast's Root Search. This is handy when you want to quickly open a note, such as a note for your 1:1 with your manager.

Pinning

Some notes are more important than others and you want to revisit them on a regular basis. Those notes can be pinned to the top of the Search Notes command and the Browse Notes action. To pin a note, press ⇧⌘P / CtrlShiftP (from the Search Notes window, it's ⌘. / Ctrl.).

Once a note is pinned, it can be accessed with ⌘0 / Ctrl0 through ⌘9 / Ctrl9 while you have the Notes window open. This is similar to how pinned tabs work in most browsers and should feel familiar.

Navigating

Raycast Notes keeps your focus on a single note at a time. But sometimes you want to go back and forth between multiple notes. You can use the ⌘[ / Ctrl[ and ⌘] / Ctrl] keyboard shortcuts to navigate between previously opened notes. This is similar to how the navigation hierarchy works in most browsers.

Deleting

Open the Action Panel (⌘K / CtrlK) in the notes window and choose Delete Note to remove the current note, or Delete All Notes to clear your entire list at once. Either way, notes move to Recently Deleted first rather than disappearing immediately.

Using Notes with AI

Bring a note into a conversation with AI Chat when you want to ask AI about it or build on it. In the Notes window, open the Action Panel (⌘K / CtrlK) and choose Send to AI Chat. You can also select a note in the Search Notes command and choose the same action.

Raycast opens AI Chat and attaches the note with its latest saved text, and its title if it has one. If AI Chat is already open, Raycast reveals it and attaches the note there. The note isn't sent as a message, so you can add your prompt before you send it. If you were editing the note, Raycast saves your changes before attaching it. The action is available in the Notes window when the current note has content and isn't open from Recently Deleted.

Settings

Find these in Settings → Raycast Notes:

• Show Notes Toggle Button in Menu Bar: Add a button to the menu bar that shows or hides the Notes window.
• Escape Key Loses Focus: Pressing Esc in Notes moves focus away from the window instead of closing it. This overrides Escape Key Closes Window in Settings → Keyboard for Notes only.
• Zoom: Adjust the zoom level of the Notes content.

FAQ

Troubleshooting

If Notes isn't working as expected, here are some common issues and steps to resolve them.