Switch sync off for specific notebooks

[anon98397870]

I would like to use Inkdrop for both work and personal life, but have a strict requirement that work files are not synced anywhere, and only remain locally on my workstation.

It would be great if Inkdrop supported turning sync off for specific notebooks, so that I could sync my personal files while leaving out my work notebooks.

Would this be a feature that you would consider, perhaps as part of the “Make notebooks behave more like ‘projects’” portion of your roadmap?

Thanks for your work!

[craftzdog (Takuya Matsuyama)]

Hi Feroz,

Thank you for the suggestion.
I understand you want a selective sync which would be nice to have for people like you.
But I’m afraid to say no as I will never use such feature, which makes me so hard to keep it stable.
From my experience through Inkdrop, most bugs are of features that I rarely use.

[anon98397870]

Thanks for the speedy response!

[taichi]

I have the same feature request as the OP. I also have a strict requirement that work files are not synced anywhere, and only remain locally on my workstation.

It saddens me to learn that this feature was already discussed and @craftzdog dismissed it as not a priority.

I understand that this may not be crucial for indie developers, but it’s quite common in other workplaces where all work documents and notes must be kept locally and are not permitted to sync to the cloud (even with end-to-end encryption). Some level of support for local notebook(s) would be extremely helpful.

I really love Inkdrop’s editor and markdown support, but I am really frustrated that I am not able to use it for both personal and work in a single account and instead have to use alternatives like VSCode or other markdown editors for work-related notes.

Are you willing to reconsider now that several years have passed, please? Or do you have any suggestions or workarounds?

[craftzdog (Takuya Matsuyama)]

Hi @taichi san,

Thanks for the suggestion. I understand how much you want to take work-related notes. I’m glad to know Inkdrop helps your workflow.

Well, while selective sync sounds simple to support, it has some significant UX issues if you absolutely don’t want to make your work notes synced:

1. When it comes to the implementation of the local-only notebooks, the app will have to decline to move notes across synced and local-only notebooks. You will have to duplicate them manually in order to avoid accidentally making them online.
2. The app basically won’t stop you to accidentally write work notes in the synced notebooks. That’s completely up to you, but you can’t always be 100% sure whenever writing a new note.

So, I think this feature does not solve your issue.
Also, I have to mention that I still have no need for this feature myself now, honestly. I don’t want to provide unstable features. I must be super careful to decide whether to add such a feature.

By the way, there is a feature suggestion for multiple databases so you can have a personal and a work database, respectively:

Separate Work vs Personal Spaces

It would be nice to be able to split work and personal notes with this app. Kind of like 1password vaults. If I login to inkdrop on my work computer, I only want it to have access to work notes, even if the IT department gets access to my laptop. While if I login to inkdrop on my personal computer I want access to personal and work spaces.

It’d be possible to support an offline database.
That looks better because it lets you make sure that you are on the work database in this UX.
Actually, I’ve been thinking of providing this feature in the ‘pro’ plan in the future.

However, supporting multiple databases requires changing the fundamental data store implementation, and allowing you to switch one / open both is absolutely a complicated feature, whereas I will not be actively using.
I’m afraid that I’d like to focus on other core features that would matter for more people and me, as I recently published v6:

Inkdrop Desktop v6.0.0-canary.1

Hi! I’m super excited to announce that the first canary version of v6.0.0 is available It comes with a bunch of ground-up improvements. Let’s go! https://youtu.be/12u21cV7LYM The New Editor based on CodeMirror 6 Floating toolbar In v5, the toolbar was fixed on top of the editor, which takes up the space even when you don’t use it. Instead, the editor now displays a floating toolbar when selecting text. [floating toolbar] GitHub Alerts syntax support The editor now supp…

I have a lot of tasks to do, and I must prioritize them as a solo developer.
I hope you understand it.
I guess we can discuss it again when the current roadmap finishes.

The Roadmap of Inkdrop vol.6

[taichi]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. While I’m disappointed, I understand the need for prioritization as a solo developer and the importance of focusing on other core features.

Count me in on the “pro” plan whenever it becomes available in the future

In the meantime, I will continue my search for an alternate note-taking app that has great markdown/mermaid support for my work-related notes.

[craftzdog (Takuya Matsuyama)]

@taichi

Count me in on the “pro” plan whenever it becomes available in the future

That sounds amazing.

The current-only-workaround would be to use v6-canary for your work notes. Configure it to offline-only before logging in as described here:

Possible to use Inkdrop Sync Server on Mac and Don't Sync on Windows?

Hi Chris, Yes, that’s possible. To disable sync before logging in, set core.db.remote.disabled to true in your config.json like so: { "*": { "core": { "db": { "remote": { "disabled": true } }, ...

Because the stable app and canary app can be run at the same time and store data in different directories, you can switch between blue and gold icons quickly. Note that please do it at your own risk, and I don’t officially encourage doing it (as a business owner)