In Tana Outliner, you mainly navigate around by interacting with nodes and references, the sidebar, the global search. Other navigation methods are based around the type of connection the nodes have with each other.
Navigating via nodes and references is quite simple:
To zoom in on a node, click on the node bullet or use Cmd+.Alt+→
To zoom out of a node to the previous view, use the back button or use Cmd+,Alt+←
Right-click on an node to see options
The sidebar allows you to navigate to some key locations:
Today: Always going to the current day node.
Supertags: The place to view all supertags from all workspaces you're a member of.
Pinned: An area you can use to pin important nodes to the sidebar
Workspaces: If you are working with multiple workspaces (i.e. more than just your main workspace), you will see this section.
The global search (Cmd+SCtrl+S) allows you to jump to any node in your graph. Similarly, the command line has some fixed locations you can jump to easily. Type Open to see the full list.
In addition, there are different ways to navigate your data in Tana Outliner based on the connection you're traversing:
Via the tree: To navigate up the tree, use the breadcrumbs. Going down the tree, use the command Expand all to see all the branches below.
Via a supertag: Adding supertags connect your nodes together even though they appear in very different parts of the tree. Click the supertag to navigate to the supertag home to find all tagged nodes gathered here.
Via references and option fields: Open a reference in its original location by clicking on the node bullet or the inline link. Option fields allow you to reuse existing nodes as field values, connecting your information in a structured way.
Via the reference section: Every node has this section at the bottom that shows every connection to this node.
Via day/week/month/year nodes: When you're on a calendar node, there are navigation arrows to go to the previous/next increment, or use the calendar to pick the exact day.
Via the back button: You can use the Back button to go back to previous contexts
Tabs and panels allow you open several nodes at the same time
Panels let you open nodes next to each other. New panels will open to the right of the original window. Resize panels by dragging the separation line between them.
On any navigational menu/button in Tana Outliner, use
Cmd+SCtrl+S will open items from search in the panel that was in focus
Tabs is supported in the Tana Outliner Desktop App and allows you to easily switch back and forth between content. This is great to stay in context when you're working on something, but then have to join a meeting.
On any navigational menu/button/node in Tana Outliner
All workspaces come with the following nodes of their own:
Home
Daily notes*
Schema
Library
Settings
Trash
Home node
The home node is the first node of every workspace. It's the place you end up when you click on any of the workspaces in the sidebar, or if you click on the avatar of your workspace in the breadcrumbs.
Curious to know how others organize their home nodes? Check out the Home node showcase showing different entries from the community!
Daily notes
Your private workspace has Daily notes created by default. New workspaces you create have the option to activate Daily notes.
The schema node is the place Tana Outliner will store any supertags and fields that are created ad-hoc, or sent to be "discoverable". It's a bit of a legacy node at this point, and the conventions for how to use this are currently in flux.
To go to the schema node:
Option 1: On the home node, go to the node options (ellipsis ... button) > Open Schema
Option 2: Run the command Open schema
Library
The library node is used for nodes that don't have a "place", either under the Home node or the Calendar nodes:
Nodes are created in the Library if they're made inline using @-mention and they don't exist yet.
Option 1: On the home node, go to the node options (ellipsis ... button) > Open Library
Option 2: Run the command Open library
Settings
Each workspace has settings of their own.
To go to the workspace settings:
Option 1: On the home node, go to the node options (the ellipsis ... button) > Open settings
Option 2: Run the command line Open settings
Trash
Each workspace has its own trash.
To go to the trash of the workspace:
Option 1: On the home node, go to the node options (ellipsis ... button) > Open Trash
Option 2: Run the command Open trash (deleted)
Allow content from...
This controls which adjacent workspaces can populate the results of search nodes and autocomplete actions like @-mentions within a particular workspace context. This setting can be custom set from all workspaces. Examples:
You can set it so all content from every workspace you're a member of is available to you from within your private workspace by allowing content from everything there.
You can keep Workspace A completely isolated from retrieving anything from other workspaces you're a member of by unchecking everything there, while allowing Workspace B to find things from Workspace A still.
Export workspace
Each workspace can be exported in Markdown or JSON format. The Markdown export is intended to be used for export to other tools, or for browsing the files, and should be used in most cases. The JSON export is for technical use cases, where you want the full export with all metadata.
If you only want to export a subset of content, see Download options.
To export the Markdown of a workspace:
On the home node, go to the node options (ellipsis ... button) > Export workspace as Markdown, or use the command Export workspace in markdown/JSON in the command line.
You will then see a modal with information about the download process. Things to be aware of:
The export typically takes a few minutes and runs locally on your machine. Please don't close your computer or reload Tana Outliner while it's exporting.
If your workspace is too big, or if you don't have enough available memory or CPU the export might fail.
You can speed up the export by closing memory intensive programs and unnecessary tabs in your browser.
You can see a count of the nodes in the workspace on the bottom of the information modal.
If you experience consistent issues with exports, please file a bug inside Tana Outliner.
You will see a loading screen while the export is running, and you will not be able to use Tana Outliner during this time.
The export will be a zip file with all the markdown files (.md) of your workspace. You will be able to browse the files in a file manager, or upload the files to another service that supports Markdown (e.g. Github, Obsidian).
References in your graph will be represented with markdown links, making it possible to click between files in the export.
Tagged nodes will get their own file, with the field contents inside.
For Calendar nodes the hierarchy will be maintained in the markdown file system, and you can navigate to a daily note to find the contents inside.
Image/video files will not be included in the export file, but the markdown files will have download links to the items, so you can view them or download them individually.
To export the JSON of a workspace:
On the home node, go to the node options (ellipsis ... button) > Export workspace as JSON. It will immediately prompt you to enter a name for the file and will proceed to download if you accept.
This is a raw JSON export of your workspace. For technical reasons, there is currently no way for users to import these files back into Tana Outliner again. They can be used by our engineers to restore a workspace if need be, but our servers also take frequent backups of all workspaces so even if you don't download a JSON of your workspace and think that data has gone missing that used to be there, we can look at backups to find it again.
This is best answered with a few quotes from our users:
"I really like bringing together notes and tasks into the same place, it makes finding context for tasks much easier."
"Supertags are amazing to track all todos and decisions across all my daily notes and projects"
"I like that I can build Tana Outliner as I go along, adding functionality or cutting it as necessary. I tried Notion in the past and having to build different databases up front was much less good!"
"It's easier for me to find the information I need and not have to think about the right way to store notes."
"Jot down, capture my thoughts and easily organize them"
"A flexibly accessible system. Everything is connected, but not forced. I don't need to invest so much time building the system. Just build as I go. I don't need to fill everything or make it consistent. It's there when I need it"
"No other tool provide pure outliner with task management, databases and complex queries."
To read more about what users think about Tana Outliner, check out our Producthunt page.
How does Tana Outliner's AI work?
Tana Outliner's built-in AI assists you with things like live voice transcription, summarizing meetings, extracting insights from meeting transcripts and letting your AI chat with your notes as context, without leaving your flow.
Press Space below any note to start an AI chat with that note as context: ask questions about what was said in a meeting, get AI to reformat rough notes into a blog post, a Slack summary, formal meeting minutes, or help you with brainstorming or reviewing your notes. Check out AI-powered templates to see what AI can do.
Tana Outliner lets you build out custom AI-based automations with command nodes and event triggers. You can also build out AI chat agents (like custom GPTs) with specific prompts or instructions for how to process something, for example an OKR agent that will review your draft and suggest how to improve them.
Can I record and transcribe meetings in Tana Outliner?
Yes, the app can capture voice or meeting audio, transcribe it automatically, and link it to related projects or people so it becomes part of your knowledge graph. This allows you to compound the information from meetings into a powerful historical archive.
We believe meetings are an important way to capture knowledge and context that is important when working with tasks. Tana Outliner lets you tag tasks, decisions, or follow-ups directly in the meeting notes. You can also customize how meeting transcripts are processed to tailor your workflow to different use cases.
Check out templates for meetings: use research interviews, investor meetings, hiring interviews.
How do you take notes in Tana Outliner?
Tana Outliner has two main areas for note-taking: the daily scratchpad, and the wikis/dashboards.
Daily scratchpad. Plan your days, do braindumps, send yourself reminders, all on your daily notes. This place is the catch-all for anything that needs to be written down and recorded on a daily basis. From the notes you take today, not everything is important tomorrow, let alone in the long run. For the stuff that is important, apply supertags to give it structure and importance in the outliner. Using supertags is the first step to building your knowledge graph.
Wiki/dashboards. The best place for your knowledge-base to be is in the more permanent area of the Workspace Home. This place doesn't shift with time like the calendar nodes do. This is also the first thing you see when clicking on a workspace in the sidebar, making it a good entry point.
Use the outline to structure your content.
Make references to content that should be repeated.
Use views like Side menu and Tabs to make sections navigable.
Remember that it's easy to move and rename things as you go, so don't be afraid to commit now and change later.
For everything you've added a supertag to, you can make search nodes that gather them in one place. These become your dynamic task board, meeting notes, project overview, media library, recipe collection, showing you what you've collected in your graph that is worthy of keeping.
If you need to see your information in many different ways, make as many search nodes querying the same data as you need. That's the beauty of a knowledge graph with a powerful search functionality. These two modes in Tana Outliner form the backbone of all note-taking in the app.
How is Tana Outliner different from Notion?
Tana Outliner isn't a page-based tool with databases inside pages, it's a knowledge graph workspace built as a living network. Where Notion organizes information in folders and tables, forcing you to navigate to the right place to note something, Tana Outliner lets you simply take notes anywhere, add supertags, and the information will flow to where it's needed. You can create live searches anywhere to pull out the information you need, filtering on properties and supertags. Since the app is an outliner editor, any note can be tagged, linked or referenced, offering enormous flexibility.
Tana Outliner lets you easily connect your ideas dynamically, like your brain does. By typing @ you can mention any note and pull it in as a reference, not just create a backlink. References let you work on a mirrored version of the note, but changes will also be applied to the original. This makes it easier to update information, avoiding it becoming stale.
The app is built for voice input, both on desktop and mobile. With live transcription on desktop, you can talk instead of typing, or transcribe meetings with the meeting notetaker and get automatic summaries. In the mobile apps, you can record voice memos and build custom workflows by adding supertags with instructions for how they should be processed.
Tana Outliner offers a Daily Notes page, a fresh notepad to start your day with planning, reflection, or journaling. You can customize your daily notes as a dashboard, pulling in tasks for review, open projects, and more with live searches.
Together, this makes Tana Outliner a great Notion alternative for power users who are looking for an AI-powered notetaking app giving them more control over how to build out their workflows. It also makes it one of the best tools for building a second brain, with methodologies like Getting Things Done (GTD) or Zettelkasten.
Where can I find the most common keyboard shortcuts in Tana Outliner?
Open the side panel to see the most common keyboard shortcuts from the sidebar.
Where do deleted/trashed nodes go? Does the trash get emptied?
When you delete something, it goes to Trash. You can access Trash via the command Open trash.
To empty trash, use the command Empty trash for workspace [current workspace]. It may take a couple of times of running empty trash to get all nodes out.
Should I have just one or multiple workspaces?
We suggest you keep one workspace until you need to do one of the following things, many of which will trigger or require the creation of a new workspace anyways:
Collaborate with someone in Tana Outliner (requires you or the other person to create a workspace and invite each other)
Import content from Roam, Logseq, Workflowy, or other tools (this automatically creates a new workspace for the purpose of the import)
Create a holding space (separate from your private workspace with no "Allow access from" for testing other people's templates and setups before you bring it in to your active workspaces)
Create a Tana Outliner Template (which means you want a clean, self-contained workspace setup so you know you're creating a template with no references pointing to other workspaces)
Is there a free trial or a demo?
Absolutely. You get a 14-day free trial of our paid plans so you can experience the full power of Tana Outliner, no strings attached. Starting a trial currently requires a credit card, and gives AI credits to test the powerful AI features in the app. You can easily cancel anytime during the trial and no charge will be made.
