The graph view

See your notes and the links between them as a map, filter and color it, find clusters and forgotten notes, and export it as an image.

On this page
Documentation sections

The graph draws each note as a dot and each link as a line. Notes that link a lot sit at the heart of the map, isolated ones drift at the edge. It is a good way to see the shape of what you know, find a note by where it lives rather than by its name, and spot the notes that deserve a link.

Open the graph

Click Graph in the Show notes as bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+G. The same shortcut takes you back.

What you see:

  • a dot for each note, colored by notebook at first (the legend is in the bottom left corner);
  • a square for each file of your vault that a note links to with [[file:…]], or shows as an image or a file card taken from the vault;
  • a hexagon for each folder a note links to and, depending on your settings, a diamond for each notebook and a dot for each tag;
  • lines for the links. A link to a note that does not exist yet ends on a node of its own.

Only the [[…]] links written in the text draw a line between two notes. A sub-page block or an embedded note does not.

Move around

  • Drag the background to move the map. Use the mouse wheel to zoom.
  • Drag a dot to put it elsewhere. Filarr keeps the positions for this profile, on this device.
  • The buttons in the top right corner: zoom in and out, Fit the whole graph, Recompute layout, Export as an image and Graph settings.

Open a note from the graph

  • Click a note: the Note details panel shows its links in and out, its Neighbors, its Tags and its Last modified date, with Open note and Preview.
  • Click a file or a folder to open its folder. Click a notebook to list its notes.

Link two notes from the graph: hold Shift and click a note, then Shift+click another one. Filarr adds a [[…]] link to the second note at the end of the first one. Esc cancels.

Filter, group and adjust

Click Graph settings to open the panel on the left.

Filters

  • Filter nodes... fades every node whose name does not match what you type, so the matches stand out.
  • Tags and Attachments show or hide tags and files.
  • Existing files only hides the links to notes that do not exist yet, and the nodes they end on.
  • Orphans shows or hides the notes with no link.
  • Local graph shows only the open note and its neighbors. Jumps sets how far from the note the graph goes.

Groups

New group gives a color to the notes that match a search: a word of the title, tag:#name or notebook:name. You can move groups up and down in the list.

Display and Forces

  • Arrows shows the direction of each link. Text fade threshold, Node size and Link thickness change what you read.
  • Center force, Repel force, Link force and Link distance change how tight the map is. Group by notebook keeps the notes of a notebook close to each other.

Color the graph

The Color section chooses what the colors mean:

  • Notebook: each note takes the color of its notebook;
  • Clusters: Filarr finds groups of notes that link a lot together and gives each group a color;
  • Recency: from cold to warm, depending on how recently the note changed;
  • Type: one color per kind of node (note, tag, notebook, file).

Tint links by notebook colors the lines like their notebook. Cinematic mode puts the map on a dark background.

The Filarr section adds Note icon in the node, Show notebooks, and Time Travel: a slider that hides the notes created after the chosen date, to see how your notes grew.

Export the graph as an image

  1. Click Export as an image.
  2. Choose PNG (an image at twice the resolution, for a slide or a message) or SVG (every dot stays an object, to print or retouch).
  3. Tick Include labels and Transparent background if you want them.
  4. Click Export.

Filarr exports the whole graph, not only what is on screen.