Import Markdown files
Bring Markdown notes from Bear, iA Writer or another app into Soot, including their pictures, files and folders.
On iPhone or iPad? You’ll need a Mac to import your notes. With Soot Pro, they’ll then sync to your iPhone and iPad.
Your notes in the other app aren’t changed, and nothing in Soot is overwritten. Soot makes its own copy of your notes, and the two aren’t linked: anything you change in the other app afterwards stays there. If a note you’re importing has the same name as one already in the destination folder in Soot, it’s left out and listed under Import details.
Prepare your notes
Soot imports a folder of Markdown files. How you get one depends on the app.
Bear
Click Notes in the sidebar, click a note in the list, then press ⌘A to select every note. Choose File ▸ Export Notes… and choose Markdown. Turn on Export attachments, and turn off Merge notes in single file. Save the export to a new folder.
iA Writer
There’s nothing to export, because your files are already Markdown. In Finder, open iCloud Drive: the folder named iA Writer holds your library.
Other apps
Export your notes as Markdown into a folder, with their pictures and files if the app offers that.
Step by step
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To keep everything from the other app inside one folder in Soot, make that folder now with File ▸ New Folder…
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Choose File ▸ Import Notes…
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Drag the folder holding your Markdown files into the Import Notes window, or click Choose Folder… and pick it.
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Untick any notes or folders you don’t want.
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Under Import into, choose the folder you made in step 1. If you leave it on Library, your notes, and any folders they’re in, go at the top level of your library.
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A note that starts with a heading keeps it as its title. For a note without one, Soot uses its filename. If you see Use titles from properties, turn it on to use each note’s
title:property instead, where it has one. This option appears when some of your notes have a title property and no heading.
Stand-in: the Import Notes window on a Bear export goes here, showing its notes and Import into. -
Click Import. The button shows how many notes you’ve ticked.
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Check Import details. It lists:
- Links to pictures, files or notes that aren’t in the folder. The links are kept unchanged, so you can fix them in Soot.
- Links that could point to more than one note. Soot links to the first matching note it finds. Follow the link in Soot to check that it opens the note you meant.
- Notes left out because one with the same name was already there. To bring one in anyway, change the title of the note already in Soot, then import again with only that note ticked.
What comes across
- Your notes and any folders they’re in.
- Pictures, PDFs and other files your notes link to. Photos larger than 2048 pixels on their longest side are scaled down to that size and saved as JPEG.
- Tags, including ones written in the text as
#tag, which work as tags in Soot. - Properties at the top of a note, which Soot shows in the note’s details rather than in its text.
From Bear
- Links between notes become ordinary links.
- A YouTube link Bear shows as a card comes in as a video you can play in the note.
- A PDF Bear shows as a page shows its first page in Soot too.
- Other links Bear shows as cards, such as web pages, come in as ordinary links.
- Bear has no folders, so your notes come in side by side.
- Custom picture display sizes aren’t kept, so pictures show at their own size.
From iA Writer
iA Writer shows a file when a line holds only its name, such as /Holiday/beach.jpg. Soot brings that file into the note and shows it in the same place.
Having trouble? Email hello at sootsync dot com and I’ll help.