Trilium Notes

What it does

Trilium is a note-taking app for building a large personal knowledge base. Notes sit in a tree you can arrange however you like, and one note can live in several places. It has a rich text editor, a daily journal, to-do lists, mind maps, drawings and maps. You can lock private notes with a password. Use it as a desktop app, or run it on your own server and open it from any browser or phone.

• Notes in a tree, with one note able to sit in several places
• Daily journal, to-do lists, mind maps, drawings and maps
• Password-protected notes for private writing
• Scripts, custom widgets and themes written as notes

Great for: People who want one private place for notes, a journal and a personal wiki, on desktop and in the browser.

Make it yours: ideas

Pick an idea to start from, or describe your own.

• Settings, no code A daily journal that opens on today's page “I want a diary where each day gets its own page with the date as the title, grouped by month, and a button to jump to today.” Start with this idea
• Settings, no code A calm, readable theme “Make Trilium look calmer: a soft cream background, a bigger serif font for reading, and less clutter in the sidebar.” Start with this idea
• Settings, no code Book reading list with ratings “Help me keep a list of books I've read, each with the author, date finished, a star rating and my thoughts, and a table showing them all.” Start with this idea
• Settings, no code Lock my private diary with a password “Some of my journal is very personal. Make those pages need a password even if someone opens my laptop.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API Save a thought from my phone in one tap “When I have an idea on my iPhone, I want to type it into a shortcut and have it land in today's journal page in Trilium.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API A mood and sleep tracker in the journal “Add a mood (1–5) and hours of sleep to each day's journal page, and show me a simple chart of the last month.” Start with this idea

How easy is it to adapt?

Themes, custom CSS, attributes, scripts and widgets are written as notes inside Trilium, so a lot can change without touching the source. Source changes mean a large TypeScript monorepo (pnpm) with a Preact/jQuery client and a shared core used by server and desktop. Your AI always tries the gentlest step first, so your version stays easy to update.

1. 1

   Settings 4 options

   No code. Change it in the app or its config.

   • Switch light/dark, change fonts, or write your own theme as a note.
   • Turn notes into simple records, e.g. books with author and rating, or recipes with cooking time.
   • A daily diary note created automatically, grouped by year, month and week.
   • Publish selected notes as a read-only web page, with a custom template if you like.
2. 2

   Extend 2 options

   Themes, plugins, webhooks and the API. Still no fork.

   • Add buttons, side-panel widgets and automations without rebuilding Trilium.
   • Add notes from other apps, phone shortcuts or scripts.
3. 3

   Code 2 options

   Your AI edits the source for anything else.

   • Change the interface itself.
   • New data or behaviour. Always go through the Becca cache so sync keeps working.

Can I trust it?

• AGPL-3.0-only. Free to use and change. If you run a changed version that other people use over the internet (not just you or your household), you must offer them your source code under the same licence. Private use has no extra obligations.
• Your data: stores personal data, on your own device or server. A single SQLite file (document.db) in the trilium-data folder, plus automatic backups in its backup/ folder.
• Other services: Sync server (another Trilium server) (optional, free (self-hosted) or paid third-party hosting); OpenID Connect provider (optional, free (self-hosted) or varies)
• Pinned version a7cae93. Every handover uses exactly this code, which we've reviewed.
• Don't set TRILIUM_GENERAL_NOAUTHENTICATION on a server others can reach.
• Scripts and widgets run with full access to your notes. Only paste scripts you understand or trust.
• Shared notes are public to anyone with the link. Check what a shared subtree contains.

Did it work for people?

Tell us how it went

For your AI

The project pack has the pinned version, how to run it, and where to customise it. Your prompt links to it automatically.

https://handoff.bespokeai.software/p/trilium/a7cae93/pack.md

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