A journal for everything worth keeping.
xotes is a modern commonplace book. Write down the quotes, ideas, and observations that matter, and keep them in one place you will actually come back to.
What is a commonplace book?
For centuries, readers and thinkers kept one notebook for the things worth remembering: a line from a book, an idea that would not let go, an observation from an ordinary day.
John Locke published a method for indexing one. Thomas Jefferson kept one for decades. The habit is simple: collect what matters in one place, so it is there when you need it.
Most people today would call it a journal. xotes calls it a commonplace book.
Why keep it in xotes
Paper is hard to search
A notebook is lovely until you need one quote from three years ago.
Notes apps turn into junk drawers
Everything goes in. Nothing has a title, a tag, or a home.
xotes keeps it findable
Every entry carries a title, category, and tags, and once a day revisit brings one back to you, so what you keep actually gets reread.
How it works
- 1.
Capture. Write anything: a quote, an idea, a note from your day.
- 2.
Sort with one tap. xotes suggests a title, category, and tags. Change anything you like.
- 3.
Scan the pages you already have. Photograph a book page or an old journal and xotes turns it into text. On Core and Pro, Split turns one page into separate entries.
- 4.
Bring your highlights. Import from Readwise, a Kindle My Clippings file, or any CSV, on any plan. On Pro, Readwise syncs automatically every day.
- 5.
Find it again. Search by keyword, tag, category, or date, or read your book straight through in reading mode. Once a day, revisit brings back one of your own entries at the top of your book, with on this day entries from past years coming first.
Your words stay yours.
- Never trains AI on your entries
- Never sells your data
- Never rewrites you
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Export your whole book anytime, photos included.