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Ask HN: Where do you save links, notes and random useful stuff?

10 points

16 hours ago

| 15 comments

I have 2,600+ notes in Apple Notes and can barely find anything.

My kid just dumps everything into Telegram saved messages. Running a small research - curious what systems people actually use (not aspire to use).

Do you have a setup that works or is everything scattered across 5 apps like mine?

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TheKnack

59 minutes ago

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I used to keep everything in Obsidian, but I recently switched to keeping notes in Obsidian and links and articles in Karakeep (self-hosted).

https://karakeep.app/

One of many things that I like about Karakeep is that when you save a link it captures both a screenshot and text from the page, and uses AI to create tags and a summary for the link. Basically it automatically categorizes everything that you save.

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weird_tentacles

15 hours ago

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The core idea of Zettelkasten:

1. ONE (shared) dump-pile of all new notes. Your 2,600 pile should do fine

2. REGULAR 'cleaning' of the new notes: a) Each note gets one or many tags (#urban-decay #gaming #assets) b) Each note is trimmed down to its essence, ready to be used for reasonable purposes. (e.g further writing)

3. 'cleaned' notes are moved to your golden store, ready to be found by searching (search "#urban-decay")

You have 1. You need 2. It's slightly work-y, but interesting and ... fun. Rediscovering and polishing forgotten dust-rubies.

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a_protsyuk

12 hours ago

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That's a solid workflow. The "cleaning" step is where most people fall off though - how long does it take you to process a batch, and how often do you actually sit down to do it?

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gagik_co

3 hours ago

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I’m also a “text myself” kind of person. I’m using my own chat-based notes app called tetrify, which is now adopting the Matrix protocol for sync.

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Arathorn

18 minutes ago

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ooh, that's cool - come tell us about it in matrix.to/#/#twim:matrix.org when it's ready :)

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CodeBit26

7 hours ago

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My system is basically a 'digital graveyard' if I don't use full-text search. I moved everything to Obsidian because it's just Markdown files on my drive. For links, I use a simple Telegram bot I wrote that dumps everything into a CSV. Low tech, but it’s the only thing I’ve actually stuck with for more than a year.

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sandreas

4 hours ago

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I use a selfhosted flatnotes install with a cronjob commiting the changes to a private github repository.

Works pretty well

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longitudinal93

6 hours ago

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I pin "Note To Self" in Signal and drop important stuff there. For less important stuff I have a Matrix room on my own server.

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throwaway5465

11 hours ago

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Tools: Zettlr for notes. user?weird_tentacles explained the concept of zellelkasten. These are synced to a cloud folder so I have access to them on the move.

Blog: Compiling notes into 'new' knowledge is challenging and interesting. I try to keep on doing what I did in postgrad research.

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a_protsyuk

10 hours ago

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Zettlr is underrated. When you're compiling notes into something new - how do you find the right notes to pull together? Do you browse, search, or does the linking do the work?

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throwaway5465

4 hours ago

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Memory, notes hierarchy and filename (I tend to keep notes conceptually atomic and not just the date/time as a filename), tag search, free text search, citation backsearch; I have a bibtex library linked but that's mainly focused on maintaining references to published work- I use JabRef but IMHO that's really too heavy for what I use it for.

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theMezz315

15 hours ago

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Google Keep CherryTree - which is much nicer than the web site portrays https://www.giuspen.net/cherrytree/

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a_protsyuk

12 hours ago

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CherryTree looks interesting - hierarchical nodes. Do you split notes between Keep and CherryTree by type, or is there a different logic?

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snowhale

13 hours ago

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plain files in a git repo, one directory per topic, markdown. search is just grep. the friction of organizing is basically zero which means I actually do it. been doing this for ~6 years, it's messy but findable.

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a_protsyuk

12 hours ago

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The "low friction = actually use it" insight is real. When grep fails you - topic you don't remember the exact words for - what's the fallback?

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choutos

15 hours ago

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LogSeq, with the "brain" shared across devices using Koofr over webdav

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a_protsyuk

10 hours ago

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  LogSeq with WebDAV - nice setup. Do you use it mostly for linked notes/graph, or more as a daily journal?

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HardwareLust

15 hours ago

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I'm lazy, so I use Google Keep and will probably regret it someday.

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a_protsyuk

10 hours ago

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"Will probably regret it someday" - what's the thing you're most worried about losing?

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JohnFen

14 hours ago

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I keep all that stuff on a Wiki that I run in my house.

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a_protsyuk

12 hours ago

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Self-hosted wiki - what software? And do you access it on mobile when you're out, or is it strictly home network?

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LetsAutomate

15 hours ago

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Notion — good for linking related notes

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a_protsyuk

10 hours ago

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Does the linking actually pay off when you need to find something, or do you mostly just search?

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journal

13 hours ago

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in md files in the file system.

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a_protsyuk

10 hours ago

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Do you organize into folders, or just dump everything flat and rely on search?

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ZYZ64738

15 hours ago

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...sending myself an email

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a_protsyuk

10 hours ago

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Email as inbox - do you ever actually process it, or does it just pile up with everything else?