Joplin the note taking app for all operating systems

Einleitung

After several attempts with Nextcloud, Notes, Trillium Notes, I have been using Joplin for some time to record and manage my notes.

The advantage is that Joplin and the corresponding apps are available for all operating systems. This applies to the desktop operating systems Windows, Linux and macOS as well as corresponding apps for Android and iOS.

I have recorded a video for setting up the app and integrating it into Nextcloud or Joplin Server:

Setup

Setting up Joplin is very, very simple. You download a client for your operating system from the website, be it Windows Linux or macOS or even one of the smartphone operating systems. Then comes the most important setting, namely the synchronization target, i.e. where Joplin should store the notes, including any file attachments.

In principle, this can even be done in the file system. However, unless it is a network drive, there may be problems with synchronization between different clients.

Joplin offers various cloud systems as a synchronization target, such as Dropbox, OneDrive and of course Nextcloud. Joplin also has its own cloud, namely the Joplin Cloud, which can be used as a synchronization target. I find the Joplin Cloud relatively expensive at around €2.50 per month for 2 GB of space, as there are certainly cheaper providers on the market.

Once you have selected the synchronization target, you only need to enter your user name and of course your password and you can get started. If you use one of the cloud services, for example OneDrive or Nextcloud or Dropbox, which are already integrated into the desktop systems anyway, you don’t even have to enter a password. You can then check the synchronization settings in the settings. And if that worked, you’re basically in business.

Nextcloud

When using Nextcloud as a synchronization target, it is best to choose the WebDav setting. This is displayed when you log into Nextcloud using a browser and look at the settings under Files

It is best to add a separate directory to this path so that all the notes are not stored in the base directory of Nextcloud.

Joplin Server

In addition to the various cloud services, Joplin also has its own synchronization server, although this is still in the beta phase. This server can be set up relatively easily using Docker, for example, and can then take over synchronization in a network. This server uses PostgreSQL as a database, which is not a problem for me now, as I already have a Progress database running as a server for Da Vinci Resolve.

However, you can also use SQLite if the effort for a “real” database is too great.

You just have to be careful that this is actually reachable, as Joplin wants to reach a specific NTP server in the default setting. By default, the setup wants to reach pool.ntp.org. Alternatively, an environment variable can be used to define which NTP server should be used for the Joplin server.

The default login is admin@localhost and admin. You will then be asked to change this password. I would use the NGinx proxy manager to connect to the outside world.

In contrast to Trlium Notes, you can also create multiple users here. What I would still be missing, however, especially if I want to make the server accessible from the Internet, would be 2FA authentication, depending on the importance or confidentiality of the data.

Conclusion

Joplin has proven itself to be useful for me, as it offers various options for synchronizing notes and you can use many options. Not just pure Markdown from Markt, but also, for example, inserting code snippets, inserting links and possibly including files in the notes.

I have been using Joplin on various devices for more than 3 years, independent of the Joplin server, and it has always worked smoothly so far.

ciao tuxoche