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Everything you need to set up, use, and get the most out of VaultBook — from first launch to advanced workflows.
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🚀 Getting Started
System requirements
VaultBook runs in any Chromium-based browser — Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, or Vivaldi. It requires support for the File System Access API, which is available in all Chromium browsers on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Safari and Firefox have limited support for local file access features.
There is nothing to install. VaultBook is a single HTML file. No runtime, no framework, no dependencies.
Download & setup
VaultBook.html to open it in your default browser. If it doesn't open in a Chromium browser, right-click and choose "Open with" to pick Chrome or Edge.repository.json and an /attachments directory to store your workspace data.If this is your first time opening VaultBook, a short tutorial will guide you through connecting a folder. Follow the prompts — it takes about 15 seconds.
Saving your work
VaultBook autosaves your work as you type, with debouncing to prevent excessive writes. A sync indicator badge shows the current save state. You can also click the manual save button at any time. A concurrent-write guard prevents data races if autosave and manual save overlap.
✏️ Notes & Editing
The rich text editor
Every note opens in a full-featured rich text editor. The toolbar gives you access to:
Text formatting — bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and case transformation (UPPER, lower, Title, Sentence).
Headings — H1 through H6, accessible via the toolbar dropdown.
Lists — ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists.
Tables — insert tables using the visual size picker. Once inserted, right-click any cell for a context menu with options to add/remove rows and columns.
Code blocks — insert code blocks with language labels. Code is displayed with syntax-aware formatting.
Callout blocks — accent-bar blocks with a title header and body content, ideal for tips, warnings, or summaries.
Colors — pick text colors and highlight colors from the color palette in the toolbar.
Fonts — switch between available font families via the font selector dropdown.
Links & images — insert hyperlinks and inline images directly into the note body.
Markdown — VaultBook supports Markdown rendering via the marked.js library. You can write in Markdown and see it rendered in the editor.
Entry fields
Each note has the following fields: Title, Body (rich text), Labels (multi-select tags), Page path (which notebook the note belongs to), Attachments, Sections (sub-entries), Favorite toggle, Protected/encrypted status, Due date, Expiry date, Repeat/recurrence schedule, and auto-generated Created at / Updated at timestamps.
Sections (sub-entries)
Sections let you break a long note into collapsible parts. Each section has its own title, rich text body, and dedicated file attachments. Sections appear as accordions you can expand or collapse. A clip count badge shows how many attachments each section has.
Version history
VaultBook Pro automatically creates version snapshots of your entries. Versions are stored in the /versions directory and retained for 60 days. Open the history modal from any entry to browse snapshots from newest to oldest and restore a previous version.
📂 Organization
Pages (hierarchical notebooks)
Pages are VaultBook's primary organizational layer. You can create nested pages in a parent/child tree structure, reorder them with drag-and-drop, and assign color dots and icons. Right-click any page for a context menu with rename, delete, and move options. The "All Pages" root view shows every note regardless of page. A pages utilization pie chart in the analytics panel shows how your notes are distributed.
Labels (tags)
Labels are color-coded tags you attach to entries. Use them to categorize notes across different pages. Filter your entry list by one or more labels from the sidebar. The analytics panel includes a label utilization pie chart. When editing an entry, VaultBook Pro suggests relevant labels based on content analysis.
Inline hashtags
You can write #hashtags directly into your note content. These hashtags are picked up by the built-in Kanban Board tool, which auto-generates columns from them — turning your notes into a drag-and-drop project board.
Favorites
Star any entry to add it to your favorites. The sidebar has a dedicated Favorites panel with a compact scrollable list for quick access.
Multi-tab views
Open multiple entry list tabs simultaneously using the + button in the tab strip. Each tab maintains its own independent view state — including sort order, active filters, and pagination — so you can compare or work across different sets of notes.
Filters
Filter entries by: active page, active label(s), file type (match any or match all), date field, and date range (any, 7 days, 30 days). Filters combine, so you can view entries on a specific page with a specific label that have PDF attachments from the last 7 days.
Sort controls
Sort your entry list by multiple fields using the dropdown. Toggle between ascending and descending order. Use checkbox options for additional filtering behavior.
Pagination
Configure items per page using the pagination controls. Navigate with Prev/Next buttons. A total count is always displayed so you know where you are in your library.
🔎 Search & AI
Main toolbar search
The search bar in the toolbar finds matches across titles, note bodies, labels, attachment names, and extracted attachment text. Results appear instantly. A typeahead dropdown shows real-time suggestions as you type, and query history suggests past searches for quick repeat access.
Ask a Question (QA search)
The QA sidebar is a separate search engine designed for natural-language questions. It searches across your entire library with weighted scoring: titles carry the highest weight (8×), followed by labels (6×), inline OCR text (5×), body content (4×), sections (3×), main attachments (2×), and section attachments (1×). Results are paginated (6 per page) with prev/next navigation. The system respects your active page and label filters.
Vote-based learning
Both QA search results and Related Entries support upvote/downvote. Upvoting a result pushes it toward the top for that query in future searches. Downvoting pushes it down. Votes are persistent — they're saved in state.userVotes and survive across sessions. A confirmation dialog with educational tips appears the first time you vote (you can disable it). An undo toast appears after each vote in case of mistakes.
AI Suggestions (sparkle pager)
The ✨ sparkle button opens a 4-page carousel. Page 1 (Suggestions) shows upcoming scheduled entries and your weekday reading patterns — the top 3 entries you've read on the current day of the week over the past 4 weeks. Page 2 shows recently read entries (up to 100, deduped, with timestamps). Page 3 shows recently opened files and attachments. Page 4 shows your recently used tools. The suggestions engine learns a personalized relevance distribution across your library over time.
Related Entries
When you're viewing a note, VaultBook shows contextually similar entries. These appear with fade-in/out animations and are paginated with prev/next navigation. You can upvote or downvote each related pair (Reddit-style) to train the relevance model. Votes persist and improve ordering over time.
Inline OCR
Images embedded within your notes are automatically processed with OCR (via Tesseract). The extracted text is cached per entry in the inlineOcrText field and indexed for search. When you run a QA query, the top 12 candidates trigger background OCR processing if it hasn't been done yet — so search gets smarter the more you use it.
Smart label suggestions
When editing a note in VaultBook Pro, the label picker shows AI-generated suggestions based on the entry's content. Suggestions appear as pastel-colored chips with counts, making it easy to tag consistently without breaking your writing flow.
🔒 Encryption & Security
How encryption works
VaultBook Pro uses AES-256-GCM — the same encryption standard used by governments and financial institutions. Key derivation uses PBKDF2 with 100,000 iterations of SHA-256. Each encrypted entry gets a unique random 16-byte salt and 12-byte initialization vector (IV), ensuring that even identical content encrypts to different ciphertext.
Setting a password
To encrypt an entry, open it for editing and enable the "Protected" toggle. You'll be prompted to set a password. This password is specific to that entry — each entry can have a different password. Passwords are never stored on disk in any form.
Unlocking entries
When you open an encrypted entry, VaultBook prompts for the password. Once unlocked, the decrypted content is held in memory only (the _plain field) and is never written to disk unencrypted. If you've already unlocked an entry during the current session, VaultBook's session cache remembers the password so you don't need to re-enter it until you close the tab.
Lock screen
Enable the lock screen to blur the entire application and block all pointer events and text selection. This is useful when stepping away from your computer. The lock screen requires re-authentication to dismiss.
VaultBook has no backend and no knowledge of your passwords. If you forget an entry's password, we cannot recover it. Store your passwords in a secure password manager or the built-in Password Generator tool.
📎 Files & Attachments
Attaching files
You can attach files to entries and to individual sections within entries. Files are stored in the /attachments directory via the File System Access API. An index.txt manifest keeps track of all attachment metadata in JSON format.
Attachment indexing
VaultBook extracts text from attached files and indexes it for search. This means you can find a note by searching for words that appear inside an attached PDF, text file, or other supported document. Background warm-up automatically loads indexed text for the top search candidates so results stay fast.
Browsing attachments
The File Explorer tool lets you browse all attachments across your entire workspace — by file type, by entry, or by page. Right-click any attachment for a context menu with additional options. The sidebar attachment ticker shows recent attachment activity.
File type filtering
Filter your entry list by the types of files they have attached. Choose "match any" to find entries with at least one matching file type, or "match all" to find entries that have all the specified types.
Reindexing
If your attachment index ever gets out of sync, click the ♻️ reindex button to rebuild it from the /attachments directory. This scans all files and regenerates the index.txt manifest.
📅 Scheduling & Calendar
Due dates, expiry, and repeat
Any entry can have a due date, an expiry date, and a repeat/recurrence schedule. Set these fields when editing the entry. The sidebar shows three dedicated time tabs: Recent (recently modified entries), Due (upcoming due dates), and Expiring (entries approaching expiry).
Timetable & calendar
Open the timetable from the toolbar for a full calendar modal with day and week views. The timeline is scrollable across 24 hours. Calendar data is backed to disk and rehydrated on load, so your schedule persists across sessions. The AI suggestions pager integrates with the timetable, surfacing entries due in the next 48 hours.
Analytics
The analytics panel in the sidebar shows: entry count, entries with files, total file count, total storage size, and a file type breakdown. Three Canvas-rendered charts visualize your workspace: a label utilization pie chart, a last-14-days activity line chart, and a pages utilization pie chart. Strength metrics appear as inline pills with expandable details.
Random note spotlight
The 🎲 widget in the sidebar shows a random note that refreshes every hour. A "New pick" indicator lets you know when a fresh suggestion is available. It's a lightweight way to rediscover old ideas.
🧰 Built-in Tools
All tools open directly inside VaultBook from the sidebar — no extensions, no new tabs, no installs.
Kanban Board
Your labels and inline #hashtags automatically become columns. Entries are cards you can drag and drop between buckets. Changes sync back to your notes.
File Analyzer
Drop a CSV or TXT file and get instant visualizations and analysis of your data.
RSS / Atom Reader
Follow your favorite feeds organized in folders. Content updates when you refresh.
Threads
A chat-style note-taking interface in a focused centered overlay. Great for quick thoughts, meeting notes, or brainstorm sessions.
Save URL → Entry
Paste any web URL and VaultBook creates a new entry from the page content, making it searchable in your library.
MP3 Cutter & Joiner
Trim silence, cut clips to specific timestamps, and join multiple audio segments — all within the browser.
File Explorer
Browse every attachment in your workspace organized by file type, parent entry, or page hierarchy.
Photo & Video Explorer
Point it at a folder of photos and videos and browse them in a visual gallery interface.
Password Generator
Generate strong, random passwords with configurable length and character sets. Copy to clipboard instantly.
Folder Analyzer
Analyze disk space and file sizes for any folder on your system. Useful for understanding storage usage.
PDF Merge & Split
Combine multiple PDFs into one, or split a single PDF into separate files — without leaving VaultBook.
PDF Compress
Reduce the file size of PDF documents, including scanned PDFs with embedded images.
Import from Obsidian
Drag and drop your .md files from Obsidian (or any Markdown source) and VaultBook converts them into searchable entries instantly.
🛠️ Troubleshooting
/attachments directory, they may need to be re-attached.repository.json, /attachments, and /versions) to the new computer. Open VaultBook.html in a Chromium browser and connect to the copied folder. Everything — notes, attachments, history, and settings — will be exactly as you left it.❓ General FAQ
VaultBook.html file with the new one. Your data is stored in the workspace folder, not in the HTML file, so updates never touch your notes or attachments. VaultBook shows an update banner when a new version is available.