Locked notes.

Lock a note with a password of its own. Its text and its images are encrypted on disk, and it opens only with that password. The title stays readable, so you can still find it and link to it.

Each note has its own password. Locking one note says nothing about any other.

Locking a note

1. Open the note, and press esc so the caret leaves the text.
2. Run :lock.
3. Type a password, then the same again, and press ⏎.

The note is locked at once: its text goes, and in its place is the password prompt. The images in the note are encrypted along with it.

Opening a locked note

A locked note opens on a padlock and a password field, with the caret already in it. Type the password and press ⏎. Opening takes about a second, on purpose: it makes guessing passwords slow.

If caps lock is on, the prompt says so. A wrong password says wrong password, and nothing else happens.

Once open, a locked note works like any other: you write, and it saves as you go, encrypted. It stays open until you lock it again with :lock, lock everything with :lockall, or quit. Every locked note is locked again the next time Paperkites starts.

What stays hidden

Paperkites never reads a locked note's text into its index, even while it's open. So a locked note's words don't turn up anywhere else:

• In the list it shows its title, and where its first lines would be, two blacked-out bars.
• Search (/) doesn't look inside it.
• Its #tags, [[links]] and @mentions don't count: not on tag pages, in backlinks, on person pages or in the graph.

Its title does stay visible: in the list, in ⌘K, in the graph, and as the file's name. Links to a locked note still work. Give it a title you don't mind being seen.

Images

• Images already in a note are encrypted when you lock it. The plain originals are removed.
• An image pasted or dropped into a locked note is encrypted before it's written.
• If another note shows the same image, the plain original stays for that note, and the status pill tells you.

An encrypted image is shown only while its note is open.

A new password

Open the note with its password, press esc, and run :passwd. Type the new password twice and press ⏎.

The note and its images get a new key as well as a new password, so the old password opens nothing written from then on. Copies made before the change, in a backup or a sync history, still open with the old one.

Removing a lock

Open the note with its password, press esc, and run :unlocknote. The note is a plain markdown file again, its images are plain image files again, and its tags, links and mentions count once more.

A locked note's lock can't be changed or taken off without its password.

Commands

On disk

A locked note is still a markdown file with its title on top. Below it are two encrypted blocks:

---
id: 01J8Z3K4QW7T9V2N5M6B1C0D8E
created: 2026-09-24T08:15:00Z
lock: password
---
# Trip

-----BEGIN AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----
…the note's key, encrypted with your password…
-----END AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----

-----BEGIN AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----
…the note's text, encrypted with that key…
-----END AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----

Its images are attachments/<id>.age, encrypted with the same key.

Neither block is a key anyone can use: the first opens only with your password, and the second only with what's in the first. So a locked note is safe to sync, back up or keep in git like any other file.

Both blocks are standard age files, so a note opens without Paperkites too: age -d with the password gives the note's key, and age -d -i with that key gives its text.

What a lock doesn't do

• It can't reach old copies. If a note was plain before you locked it, earlier versions may still be in your sync history, a backup or git. For something secret, lock the note first and write after.
• It's only as strong as the password. Anyone with a copy of the file can try passwords on their own machine. A few random words make a password that can't be guessed; a short one can.
• The title, dates and the file's size stay visible.
• An open note is open. While it's unlocked, its text is on your screen and in Paperkites' memory.