Frequently Asked Questions

It's a small Windows app that lets you attach a styled note to any folder. A note can hold text, a status, a 5-star importance, a due date, and pinned files. FolderNotes also shows the file you edited last and can hide a folder behind a privacy curtain. There's an optional read-only file browser too, called the Workspace, which is off until you switch it on. It runs quietly in your system tray, and everything it stores stays on your PC: no accounts, no servers.

That's by design, and it's good for your privacy. The note is docked to its folder's File Explorer window, so it shows only while that window is in front. When you switch to another app, click the desktop, or open a different folder, the note tucks away, and it comes right back the moment you return to its folder. This keeps your private note out of sight while you work elsewhere or share your screen, so it isn't left on display for anyone nearby to read. Nothing is lost: your text is saved automatically. (For a folder you want covered altogether, use the privacy curtain, and read below what it does and does not protect.)

Yes, if you prefer that. By default the note hides when the folder loses focus, which keeps it private. If you'd rather it stayed, open Settings and turn on Keep note shown until another folder. With it on, the note stays on its folder window even while you work in another app, and only switches or hides when you open a different folder (or close, minimize, or curtain that one). Because the note belongs to its folder window, any app that covers the folder also covers the note.

By default the note sits in the top corner of the folder's window and follows it as you move, resize, or minimize that window. If you'd rather it sat somewhere else, just drag it by its title bar to any spot. FolderNotes remembers that position per folder, and the note keeps that placement relative to the window from then on. Double-click the title bar to snap it back to the default corner.

Yes. Click the ✕ in a note's corner to minimize it to a small note-shaped badge. The badge stays put when you return to the folder, so the note does not pop open every time, and you can still tell at a glance that the folder has a note (the badge looks like a little note, different from the empty folder's + button). Click the badge to open the note again. By default it then stays open until you minimize it once more. If you prefer, turn on Settings > Minimized notes stay minimized (peek mode), and a click will only peek at the note, returning to the badge when you come back.

Yes. Every folder keeps its own separate note, saved inside that folder. In a File Explorer window with several tabs, the note follows the active tab, so you always see the note for the folder you're actually looking at, and it switches the instant you change tabs.

It's the most recently edited file in that folder, with how long ago it changed, so you can pick up right where you left off. Click it to open the file. It looks at the folder's top level only, not inside subfolders.

Press Ctrl+Alt+F anywhere, or right-click the tray icon and choose Quick open, to pop up a small launcher that lists the folders you marked important. Click one to open it. The pop-up stays open until you close it with its ✕ or the Esc key, so you can open several in a row, and you can drag it anywhere by its header. You can turn the shortcut off in Settings. Left-clicking the tray icon opens the larger Important Folders window instead. Folders you've hidden are left out of the launcher, because it opens without asking for the passphrase.

Yes. Open the Important Folders list from the tray. Each row has small up and down arrows on the right, use them to move a folder higher or lower, so the ones that matter most sit right at the top. By default the Important tab is sorted by star rating and then by name, and All by name; the moment you move a folder by hand it stays exactly where you put it. Your order is remembered, and the folders you haven't moved keep the automatic order. The Due dates tab is the exception: it has no arrows and always stays in date order, soonest or most overdue first.

Yes. The Important Folders window has a Tasks panel on the left. Add a quick task there, or click the checklist button on any folder's note to add a task tied to that folder. The list gently scrolls on its own and pauses the moment you hover over it, so you can read or click. The − and + buttons in the panel's header make that crawl slower or faster. Click the pencil to edit a task, and the checkbox to finish it, which moves it to the Archive. In the Archive you can restore a task or delete it for good (deleting is only available there). The list is kept in %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes\tasks.json, so it survives reinstalling.

Yes. If you give a folder a due date, FolderNotes shows a tray reminder when one or more folders are due today or overdue, at most once a day so it never nags. Click the reminder to jump straight to those folders. A hidden folder counts toward the number and is listed by name, but its note text is not shown in that list at all: the preview stays blank, and no passphrase in that window opens it. Reading the note means revealing the folder itself. You can turn reminders off in Settings.

You can write notes in any language. Notes automatically switch to right-to-left for Hebrew, Arabic, and similar scripts, and back to left-to-right for others. The app's own interface is fully translated into nine languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, and Japanese. Choose one in Settings, or leave it on Automatic to follow your Windows display language.

Open the note and click the trash icon, then confirm. It clears the text, stars, status, due date, pinned files and the hidden mark, and deletes the .foldernote.json file from that folder. The folder and everything else in it are untouched. Note that if the folder was hidden, clearing its note un-hides it.

On almost any. A note is saved as a small file inside its folder, so it works wherever Windows lets an app write a file, which is virtually all of your own folders. A few places are the exception, because a note file cannot be counted on to save there: the root of a drive (like C:\, or a mapped network drive shown as Z:\ that may not be connected), the top-level C:\Users folder, and Windows system folders such as C:\Windows and Program Files, which Windows protects from every app. In those, FolderNotes simply doesn't show a note rather than trying and failing to save. Your own folders inside them, like C:\Users\YourName\Documents, work completely normally.

Everything stays on your computer. There is no networking code in the app at all: no accounts, no servers, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting, no update check. The only thing that ever leaves the app is a link you click yourself, which opens in your browser: this FAQ, or the feedback page, whose address carries the app's version number so a report says which build it came from. Nothing about your folders, files or notes is ever put in a link. Your data sits in three places:

• Each folder's note is a hidden file named .foldernote.json inside that folder. Because it lives there, it travels with the folder, into a copy, a backup, a OneDrive sync, or a code repository.
• %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes (a hidden folder) holds the list of which folders have notes, the passphrase hash, your task list, and the Workspace's marks and categories.
• %APPDATA%\FolderNotes holds your settings, the per-folder attention-time file, your manual folder order, and a small rolling error.log if the app ever hits an unexpected error. Because FolderNotes comes from the Store, Windows keeps that folder inside the app's own package data rather than at the literal %APPDATA% path: open %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages, then the FolderNotes package folder, then LocalCache\Roaming\FolderNotes.

See the Privacy Policy, and what stays behind when you uninstall.

To show the right note for the folder you're viewing and to display the most recently edited file, FolderNotes reads file and folder names and their dates on your device. If you switch the Workspace on, it also reads file sizes and asks Windows for the icons and thumbnails it draws in the tiles. All of that reading is local, and nothing is copied, uploaded, or shared. The only file FolderNotes writes into a folder of yours is that folder's own note file, apart from a backup file you save yourself with Export all notes.

Open the folder's note and click the eye icon. The first time, you set one passphrase, and that same passphrase is shared: it covers every folder you hide. To reveal a hidden folder later, open it in File Explorer and enter the passphrase (or use Windows Hello) on the curtain. Revealing is permanent: it clears the hidden mark, so the folder stays visible until you click the eye again. Hiding a folder also hides everything inside it, and the curtain names the folder you actually hid rather than the subfolder you clicked. If there's no eye icon on the note, Privacy curtain (hide folders) is switched off in Settings.

No, and it matters that you know exactly what it is. The curtain is a window FolderNotes draws on top of the File Explorer window showing that folder, and it exists only while FolderNotes is running. Your files are not encrypted, not moved, not renamed, and their Windows permissions are unchanged. Anyone who quits FolderNotes, opens the folder in a different file manager, uses a command prompt, signs in when FolderNotes isn't running, or takes the drive to another computer will see the files normally. What it does do is keep a folder out of sight from someone glancing at your screen or borrowing your PC for a minute. For genuinely sensitive data, use real encryption, such as Windows' own BitLocker or an encrypted archive.

No. Nothing is encrypted, compressed, moved, renamed, or re-permissioned. Hiding writes a single flag into the folder's note file and into FolderNotes' own index, and the app then draws a curtain over any Explorer window that shows that folder. The one thing that is hashed is your passphrase, so the app can check it without storing it. If you need the files themselves to be unreadable without a key, that is encryption, and FolderNotes does not do it.

Windows keeps its own list of recently opened files and shows it in File Explorer's Quick access. This list is controlled by Windows, not by FolderNotes, so it can include files from a folder you've hidden. As a Microsoft Store app, FolderNotes runs in a protected sandbox and cannot change this Windows list on your behalf. You can turn it off yourself in a few seconds, and it's a standard Windows setting:

1. Open File Explorer (Windows key + E).
2. Click the ... (See more) button at the top, then Options.
3. On the General tab, under Privacy, uncheck Show recently used files in Quick access.
4. Click Clear next to "Clear File Explorer history", then OK.

This removes the files already listed and stops Windows from listing recent files going forward. You can reach the same screen from FolderNotes: open Settings and click Open Folder Options.

You can set a new one. Open Settings and click Forgot it? Reset...: it asks for a new passphrase and does not ask for the old one. It reveals nothing. Every folder you had hidden stays hidden, any unlock still standing from this session is withdrawn, and from then on only the new passphrase (or Windows Hello) opens them. It replaces the key rather than using it. Next to it, Change passphrase... is the version that does ask for the current passphrase first.

The catch is getting into Settings, which asks for the passphrase itself. If Windows Hello is set up and turned on, use the Use Windows Hello button on that prompt and you're in.

If you have no way in at all, no Hello and no memory of the passphrase, delete the file %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes\config.json (and the older copy at %APPDATA%\FolderNotes\config.json if it exists, which the app would otherwise migrate forward; on a Store install that folder sits under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages, in the FolderNotes package folder, at LocalCache\Roaming\FolderNotes). That file holds only a one-way PBKDF2 hash of the passphrase, never the passphrase itself, so it genuinely cannot be read back out, and deleting the file is the only way to clear a passphrase you can neither type nor replace from inside the app. Be clear about the consequence: with no passphrase set, FolderNotes stops curtaining anything, so the folders you had hidden are visible again immediately. They keep their hidden mark, so the next passphrase you set puts those curtains back. Your notes and your files are not affected either way.

To protect your hidden folders. Anyone who could open Settings and switch the privacy curtain off, or simply quit FolderNotes, would see your hidden folders without ever knowing the passphrase. So while a passphrase is set, all of these ask for it (or for Windows Hello):

• opening Settings, and changing the privacy-curtain or start-with-Windows boxes in the first-run Welcome guide;
• Exit from the tray menu;
• opening a hidden folder's note through the right-click Folder Note command. A hidden folder still appears in its parent folder's listing, so that command is reachable from one level up, and the note text is exactly what the curtain is protecting;
• the Hidden tab in Important Folders, which is the one view that says which folders you chose to hide;
• Delete all notes in the Settings danger zone.

To be exact about the rest of that window: a hidden folder is still listed by name and path in the other tabs, the same way it still appears in its parent folder in File Explorer. Its note text is never shown in that window: the preview is blank in every tab, and the search box skips hidden notes altogether, since a hit alone would tell you what a hidden note says. Neither of those comes back when you unlock the Hidden tab, which buys you the list of hidden folders and not their notes; reading one is what opening the folder is for. What the passphrase does add in the other tabs is the padlock badge that marks which of the listed folders are hidden. If you haven't set a passphrase, none of this applies, because nothing is hidden.

Yes, if your PC has Windows Hello set up. Wherever FolderNotes asks you to prove the passphrase, a Use Windows Hello button lets you confirm with your face, fingerprint, or PIN instead. It's fast, and nothing leaves your device. Hello is per-PC; the passphrase is the master key, always available as a fallback and the one that works on another computer. The Hello button doesn't appear while you're setting a passphrase, only while you're proving one. You can turn Hello off in Settings.

Make sure FolderNotes is installed and running (its icon is in the tray). On Windows 11 the command appears in the main right-click menu for folders. If you just installed it, try restarting File Explorer or signing out and back in.

Right-click the FolderNotes tray icon, open Settings, and turn on Start with Windows. The same checkbox turns it off again. It's also one of the boxes on the first-run Welcome guide. If you'd previously switched FolderNotes off in Task Manager > Startup apps, Windows blocks the app from re-enabling itself, and FolderNotes says so and points you there. While a passphrase is set, this box is protected: the Welcome guide asks for the passphrase before it will change, and Settings asks for it at the door. An app that never starts is an app that never draws a curtain.

Right-click FolderNotes in the Start menu and choose Uninstall, or open Settings > Apps > Installed apps and remove it there. Store apps don't appear in the old "Programs and Features" Control Panel, which is normal. Uninstalling does not remove your notes, see the next answer for what stays and how to remove it.

They stay. Uninstalling removes the app, not your notes, and it does not remove everything FolderNotes stored. Part of it survives on purpose, so that reinstalling finds your notes again instead of leaving folders marked hidden with no passphrase left to unlock them. That also means a folder you had hidden is hidden again after a reinstall, and still needs the same passphrase.

What Windows removes for you

%APPDATA%\FolderNotes: your settings, the per-folder attention-time file, your manual folder order, and an error log if the app ever wrote one. Windows also wipes this if you use Settings > Apps > FolderNotes > Advanced options > Reset.

What stays behind, deliberately

• Every note, as a hidden .foldernote.json file inside the folder it belongs to. If you've copied or synced those folders anywhere, the copies have the note files too.
• The hidden folder %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes, holding index.json (which folders have notes, plus their stars, status, due date and hidden mark), config.json (the passphrase hash), tasks.json, and the Workspace's workspace.json, workspace-boards.json and its folder of dated snapshots.

To remove all of it

1. Before uninstalling, open Settings and, in the Danger zone, click Delete all notes. That deletes the .foldernote.json file from every folder FolderNotes knows about and empties the index. If you used the Workspace, click Reset Workspace marks too.
2. Uninstall the app.
3. Delete the folder %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes. Paste that path into the File Explorer address bar to get to it. This takes the rest with it: the passphrase hash, the task list and the Workspace snapshots.

If you've already uninstalled, step 3 still works, and any note files left inside your folders can be deleted like any other file. They're named .foldernote.json and are marked hidden, so switch on View > Show > Hidden items in File Explorer to see them. Nothing was ever sent anywhere, so there is nothing to delete off a server.

Yes, on 64-bit (x64) Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or newer, and on Windows 11. All the features are the same on both.

No. While it sits in the tray it checks which folder the front File Explorer window is showing a few times a second, which costs almost nothing, plus a modest amount of memory. It never indexes your drives on its own and never scans in the background. Two things do walk your drives, and both only when you ask for them: Find notes on this PC in Settings, which looks for note files you already have; and, in the Workspace, Search all drives and the smart views (Edited today, Last 7 days, Large files), which build a list of file names in memory so the search can answer. That list is never written to disk, and a bar across the top of the Workspace shows the count and carries a Stop button.

It's an optional, richer way to look at your files: larger tiles or Explorer-style columns, plus colour marks, statuses and category columns you can put on files and folders. It is off by default. Turn it on in Settings > Workspace (beta) > Enable the Workspace view, then open it from the tray menu. It is read-only: it never moves, renames, copies, or deletes anything, and its own header says so ("View only, files never move"). The marks and categories are virtual, stored in %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes and never written into your folders. Folders you've hidden are hidden there too: the Workspace asks the same question File Explorer is asked and puts the same curtain over its file area before it draws a single tile, so nothing is drawn and then covered up.

Yes, while Time tracking and "last opened" is on in Settings, which it is by default. FolderNotes records the path of each folder you view and how long you spend there, keeping a running total per folder plus per-day buckets for the last 30 days, in %APPDATA%\FolderNotes\time.json, and shows it on the note and under Time spent in the tray menu. The list of folders itself is never trimmed. It stays on your PC like everything else. Turning the setting off stops it recording, but there is currently no button in the app that erases what's already there: delete time.json yourself (see where your notes are stored for where a Store app really keeps that folder), or uninstall, which removes the whole %APPDATA%\FolderNotes folder.

Not directly, FolderNotes is fully local by design. Because each note lives inside its folder, it travels with the folder if you copy it, back it up, or sync it through a service like OneDrive. The list of which folders have notes is separate (in %USERPROFILE%\.foldernotes) and does not sync, so on the other PC either import a backup, or use Find notes on this PC to rebuild the list from the note files themselves.

Yes. In Settings, use Export all notes to save everything to a single file, then Import notes on the other computer, which writes each note back into its folder if that folder exists there and skips the ones that don't. The backup is a plain, unencrypted JSON file containing your note text and hidden marks, so keep it wherever you'd keep the notes themselves. Your list of folders is kept outside the app too, so it survives reinstalling, and you can rebuild it any time with Find notes on this PC, which only reads.

Yes. In Settings, the red Danger zone has a Delete all notes button. It permanently removes every note from every folder FolderNotes knows about on this PC (text, stars, status, due dates, pinned files, and hidden marks). Your folders and files are not touched. It asks you to confirm first, and if you set a privacy passphrase it asks for that too. This cannot be undone, so export a backup first if you might want them back. It does not clear your passphrase, your task list, the Workspace marks, or the time file, see what stays behind when you uninstall for those.