Getting started

Kinetic Notes has one idea at its centre, and once it clicks the rest of the application follows from it: the search field is also the title field. You never decide whether you are looking for a note or making one. You just start typing.

The one thing to learn

Always begin typing in the field at the top of the window.

As you type, two things happen at once. The list below narrows to notes matching what you have typed — matching on the full text of every note, not just titles — and the field itself stands ready to become a new note’s title.

Then:

• The note already exists. It appears in the list. Press Return⏎ to start editing it, or Command J⌘J and Command K⌘K to move through the matches first.
• It does not exist yet. Press Return⏎ and you get a new note titled with exactly what you typed, with the cursor already in the body.

That is the whole loop. To write the next note, return to the search field with

Command L⌘L and type again — this does not rename the note you were just in.

Installing

1. Download the latest release and drag Kinetic Notes.app to your Applications folder.
2. Open it.

It runs on macOS 13.0 Ventura or later, natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel. There are no runtime dependencies to install alongside it — only system frameworks.

See the download page for checksums, release history, and instructions for building from source.

Coming from Notational Velocity

Your existing notes are safe, and Notational Velocity keeps working. Kinetic Notes is deliberately a separate application rather than an upgrade in place:

• It stores notes in ~/Library/Application Support/Kinetic Notes/, not in Notational Velocity’s Notational Data folder.
• It uses its own Keychain item for encrypted databases, so changing a passphrase here can never affect the one Notational Velocity depends on.
• It has its own bundle identifier and preferences.

You can keep both installed indefinitely.

On a genuine first launch, Kinetic Notes offers to import an existing Notational Velocity notes directory, encrypted ones included. It copies, never moves, and does not write to Notational Velocity’s data at any point. If the import finds an encrypted database, it will ask for that database’s passphrase.

Where to go next

• Keyboard shortcuts — the full reference. Learn five of them and you will rarely touch the mouse.
• Search — how matching works, and why one fact per note pays off.
• Encryption — what is protected, and the one trade-off to understand before turning it on.