How do notebooks and tags work?

Harbor uses the system you already know: notebooks, stacks, and tags.

Notebooks hold notes. Every note lives in exactly one notebook, and each notebook shows a count of what’s inside. You can turn the counts off, or reorder and hide sidebar items, in Settings → Sidebar. Stacks group related notebooks — a “Home” stack might hold Receipts, Warranties, and Projects.

Tags cut across notebooks. A note lives in one notebook but can wear many tags, which is what makes them good for themes that span your whole library — taxes, travel, 2026. Harbor’s tags are hierarchical, up to three levels deep (travel > europe > portugal), and you can drag a tag to re-parent it. You can also tag a note without leaving the text: type # and pick a tag.

The pieces work together in search: notebook:Receipts tag:taxes finds exactly what it says. The search grammar covers the rest.

To get to one fast, open quick search (⌘K, or Ctrl+K on Windows and Android; the search button on a phone) and type part of its name. Notebooks, stacks and tags show up right there — press Enter to open one.

They also work at capture time. The Web Clipper picks the notebook and tags as you save, and an @Notebook or #tag in the subject of an emailed note files it the moment it arrives — into notebooks and tags you already have, since email never creates either.

Two smaller helpers round it out. Shortcuts pin the notes, notebooks, or searches you use most to the sidebar — drag to reorder. And the Trash is a soft landing: deleted notes wait there until you restore them or empty it for good.

That’s the whole system, deliberately. No required Markdown, no elaborate tagging methodology to adopt. A few notebooks, a few tags, and a search that finds everything gets most people further than any complicated setup.