Getting Started

Last reviewed: 2026-07-07

This page takes you from installation to your first real work: opening or creating a vault, learning the interface, and understanding the three editor modes.

What is a vault?

A vault is an ordinary folder on your computer that holds your Markdown notes. Plainva adds a hidden .plainva/ subfolder for the search index and settings — your notes themselves remain untouched .md files. You can have several vaults (e.g. “Personal” and “Work”) and switch between them.

Opening or creating a vault

On launch, the welcome screen greets you:

Open Local Vault — pick an existing folder of Markdown files (Obsidian vaults work out of the box).
Create New Vault — start empty or from a prepared folder structure; both are adjustable anytime. The Empty vault contains just an index.md overview. Available templates: PARA, Zettelkasten, ACE (Linking Your Thinking), Johnny.Decimal, GTD and Journal — each creates folders, a welcome note with a quick guide and automatically maintained index.md overviews in the OKF format (folder and file names follow the app language). The Journal template additionally wires up the vault’s daily-notes settings. The PARA, GTD, Zettelkasten and Journal templates also ship ready-linked databases with matching note templates — for example projects with a status board and an area link, or tasks that point to their project.
Open Online Vault — pick your cloud provider: WebDAV / Nextcloud connects directly (enter the server URL, username and password or app token, then Browse Server); for Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and S3-compatible storage you pick a local sync folder first — setup then opens automatically in Settings (see Sync Setup).

Recent Vaults lists everything you have opened before. Remove from list removes an entry from Plainva only — the files stay on disk. Enable Automatically open the last vault on start to skip the welcome screen in the future.

The interface

Left sidebar — three views: Files (the file tree), Tags (all #tags in the vault) and Bookmarks. At the top sits the big New button (New Note, plus More options for New Folder, New Base, Daily Note). At the bottom: the vault switcher, Open Daily Note and Settings.
Title bar — your open tabs. Tabs can be reordered by dragging and moved between editor panes.
Editor area — where you read and write. Via the tab menu (Split right / Split down) or the shortcuts Ctrl+Alt+V / Ctrl+Alt+S you split the editor into two panes, e.g. a note next to a database.
Right sidebar — four sections, reorderable by drag: Calendar (daily notes), Outline (headings of the active note), Backlinks (who links here) and Properties (the note’s frontmatter).
Status bar — word/character count, sync status (Local/Online/Offline) and save status (Saving… / Saved).

The three editor modes

Switch modes at the top right of the editor:

Mode	What for
Read Mode	Fully rendered view for reading and navigating. Links open right inside Plainva.
Live Preview	The default for writing: Markdown renders as you type; formatting characters only appear where you are working.
Markdown Source	The raw text without rendering — for full control.

Which mode notes open in is up to you: pick the Default view under Settings → General (read, live or source). Switching the mode in the editor applies to that file for the current session.

You can also toggle between Readable width and Full width.

File tree basics

Creating: right-click a folder → New Note Here, New folder or New database (.base). The big New button creates inside the currently selected folder (or the parent folder of a selected file).
Selecting: click selects, Ctrl+click adds/removes individually, Shift+click selects a range, middle-click opens in a new tab.
Context menu: includes Rename (updates links vault-wide), Duplicate, Open in split (right) / Open in split (bottom), Add bookmark, Copy Path, Show in File Manager, Delete.
Multi-selection: deleting asks once for all items, duplicating and moving by drag work on the whole selection. Deleted items go to the operating system’s trash.
New notes automatically start with a # Heading derived from the file name.

Daily notes

Open Daily Note (or clicking a date in the Calendar on the right) opens or creates today’s note. Configure the base folder, date format and an optional template under Settings → Vault Settings → Daily Notes & Templates.

In the calendar, the Today button returns to the current month; clicking the month label opens a quick month/year picker. There you can also enable Show week numbers to add an ISO week column — the setting is remembered.

Settings

Settings (gear icon at the bottom of the leftmost action rail, or Ctrl+,) close via the X in the top right, Esc or a click outside the window. Changes are saved immediately and automatically — only sync credentials are applied deliberately via Save/Connect (see Sync Setup). Settings come in two parts:

General — the Theme picker as preview cards: besides Petrol (the default) you get Nord, Solarized, Gruvbox, Catppuccin, Paper (E-Ink-like, maximally calm), Sepia (warm paper), Forest, Midnight (OLED black), High Contrast and Phosphor Green/Phosphor Amber (retro terminal with subtle scanlines). Plus the Mode (Light/Dark/System Default) — single-mode themes such as Midnight (dark only) pin the mode, and the light/dark switch in the title bar pauses while they are active. Also here: Language, updates (Plainva quietly checks for new versions on startup and shows a notice when one is found — opt out via Check for updates on startup), Show keyboard shortcuts (also via F1), Warnings, System diagnostics (e.g. the OS keychain status) and About & diagnostics (version details, Export diagnostics… — no note content — and Report a problem).
Vault Settings — per vault: Cloud Sync (see Sync Setup), Daily Notes & Templates (including the Template Folder), OKF (Open Knowledge Format) (see OKF) and Extended databases.

Customizing the interface

Toggle the sidebars via the two title-bar buttons or Ctrl+Alt+B (left) / Ctrl+Alt+R (right) — great for focused writing. Plainva remembers the state.
Command palette: Ctrl+P opens Commands — type and hit Enter to run (new note, daily note, split, sidebars, Back up now, and more).
Density: under Settings → General, choose between Comfortable and Compact — compact tightens lists, menus and table rows; note content is unaffected.
Native-free dialogs: confirmations appear as Plainva dialogs styled by your theme (destructive actions get a red button), short notices as subtle toasts in the bottom right — no more system popups.

The graph

Via Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+G (or the Graph section in the right sidebar) you see your vault as a map: folders as bubbles, notes as nodes, relations as labeled edges — including a cleanup mode and time travel. Details: Graph.