Library & Search

The sidebar and document list are how you move around your library in Outerline for Mac. This page covers how they are organized, how documents are named and sorted, and the ways to search — inside Outerline and from the rest of macOS.

The Sidebar

• Starred collects documents you have starred. Drag a document onto it to star it.
• Documents holds All Documents, your folders, and the documents kept at the top level of the library.
• Tags lists every #tag in your library. Select one or more tags to filter the document list to notes that have all of them. Right-click a tag to give it a colour.
• Recently Deleted appears when there is something in it. See Files & Backup.

Choose which sections appear in Settings > General > Sidebar. With Top Level Documents on, documents stored directly in the library root appear below your folders; click one to see a list of only the top-level documents. All Documents always shows the whole library.

Drag documents onto a folder to move them there, or onto the Documents heading or All Documents row to move them to the top level. Folders only highlight for drops they can accept. Use View > Expand Folders and Collapse Folders to open or close the whole tree.

Document Titles

By default Outerline names each document from its content. To see filenames instead, open Settings > General > Title Display and choose File Name, which shows full filenames with their extensions everywhere documents are listed. A title you set yourself still takes precedence. This preference only changes what you see on this Mac — it never renames files or edits your Markdown.

Sort the Document List

Choose View > Sort By to sort by name, date modified, date created, or word count, in ascending or descending order. Turn on Settings > General > Sort Library Per Folder to have each folder remember its own sort order.

Search

The search field in the Library toolbar filters the current document list by title or content.

For the whole library, press ⌘+P or choose View > Advanced Search. Results are grouped by document, with each matching line listed; choose a line to jump straight to it. Match Case and Whole Word narrow the results.

Search everywhere in Outerline ignores accents, so Chloe also finds Chloë. Unless Match Case is on, it ignores capitalization too.

Spotlight

Outerline adds the saved documents in your current library to Spotlight — their titles, tags, and text. Choosing a result opens the document in Outerline. There is no switch inside Outerline; manage Spotlight and Siri visibility in System Settings.

Only the current library is indexed. When you switch libraries, the previous library’s entries are removed and rebuilt if you return. Notes stored only in iCloud and not downloaded to this Mac stay findable by title.

Siri and Shortcuts

Outerline provides these actions in the Shortcuts app, and you can ask Siri to use them:

• Open Document opens a note in Outerline.
• Search Documents opens Advanced Search with your term filled in.
• Create Document saves a new note in your library.
• Append to Document adds text to the end of a note, even if it is open in the editor.
• Get Document from Link turns an outerline:// link into a document whose text you can pass to the next action.

The editor toolbar’s Siri button opens the system Writing Tools for your selection or the whole document.

On iPhone

See Library on iPhone for the iPhone Library, search, and Siri actions.