How to use ForestNote, feature by feature. For what it is and how to install it, see the README.
The editor has a top bar with your notebook name, page arrows, a page counter, and the tool
cells. Most tools are a single tap; a small ▾ on a tool's label means tapping it opens a
chooser (pens, erasers, fonts, templates).
Pick a pen from the Fountain cell. Tapping it opens a popup with three pen types and a row of width chips:
- Fountain — varies with pen pressure, like a real fountain nib.
- Fineliner — an even line that ignores pressure.
- Highlighter — a translucent wash that's drawn behind your ink, so it never covers what you've already written and never darkens where two strokes overlap.
The seven width chips set the line thickness. Each pen type remembers its own width, so a thin Fineliner and a fat Highlighter coexist without re-picking every time you switch.
Finger touches are ignored — only the stylus draws. That's deliberate, so you can rest your hand on the panel.
The Stroke cell holds two erasers:
- Stroke eraser removes a whole line wherever you touch it.
- Pixel eraser rubs out only the part you drag over, splitting a stroke if you erase through its middle.
If your stylus has a hardware eraser button, flipping the pen erases too. It uses whichever eraser type you picked last.
Tap Template to set the background for the current page: blank, dot, ruled, or grid, at 5, 7, or 10 mm spacing. Use default follows the notebook's global template; picking a specific one overrides it for just that page. The lines are sized to the panel's true physical resolution, so 5 mm on screen is actually 5 mm.
Tap the grid icon at the top-left of the editor to open the Library — a card grid of your folders and notebooks.
- Open a notebook by tapping its card. Descend into a folder by tapping it; the breadcrumb and the Up button walk you back out.
- Create a notebook or folder from the Notebook ▾ / Folder ▾ cells in the Library header.
- Long-press a notebook for its properties — created and modified dates, page count, rename, and delete.
- Search from the magnifier in the header. It matches notebook and folder names and jumps straight to a result.
- Add pages with the
+page arrow in the editor; move between pages with the◀▶arrows.
ForestNote reopens your last notebook and page on launch. If there's nothing to resume, it opens the Library instead. You can force "always start in the Library" in Settings.
Deleting a notebook or folder moves it to the Recycle bin (reachable from the Library header), not straight to oblivion. Restore items from there, or empty the bin to delete for good. The bin also auto-empties after a number of days you set in Settings.
Switch to the Lasso tool and draw a loop around what you want. The lasso grabs both handwriting and text boxes inside the loop. A floating menu appears:
- Cut / Copy / Delete act on the whole selection.
- Drag anything inside the loop to move the selection around the page.
- Paste is tap-to-place: tap Paste to arm it, then tap where you want the content to land. It keeps the relative spacing of everything you copied.
Two of the menu buttons — Recognize and To-do — only appear when the selection contains handwriting, since both work on strokes. They're covered next.
Lasso some handwriting and tap Recognize. ForestNote runs it through Google's on-device handwriting recognizer and drops the result onto the page as an editable text box. Nothing leaves the device.
Recognition needs Google Play Services and a language model. The first time you use a language, ForestNote prompts you to download it (about 20 MB). Manage installed languages under Settings → Recognition models.
You can also type a text box directly: pick the Text tool and drag a box. A full-screen editor opens for the text, font, size, weight, border, and whether the box sits above or below your ink. Tap an existing box to select it, then drag to move or use the corner handles to resize.
Lasso a handwritten task and tap To-do. If you've set up a calendar (below), ForestNote recognizes the text, shows a task sheet where you can edit the title, set a due date, add a note, and optionally attach the full recognized text, then sends it as a task (a CalDAV VTODO).
Tasks go out through an offline queue. If you're not connected, the task waits and sends itself once you're back on Wi-Fi — you won't lose it. Check the queue under Settings → Queued tasks.
Set up your calendar under Settings → Calendar (CalDAV tasks): the collection URL, username, and password. Any CalDAV server (Nextcloud, Radicale, Fastmail, and others) will store the task. The task also carries a back-link to the page it came from, but that link only resolves if your server is UltraBridge; other servers keep the task itself just fine.
ForestNote syncs notebooks against a self-hosted UltraBridge server. Configure it under Settings → Sync: the server URL, username, and password. Once set, the app syncs when it comes to the foreground, on a periodic timer, and when you close the Library or recycle bin with unsaved changes.
Sync is multi-master — edit the same notebook on two devices and the changes merge per row, last-writer-wins, without a manual conflict step. Credentials are stored encrypted (Android Keystore), not in plain settings.
If you don't run an UltraBridge server, leave Sync blank and ForestNote works fully offline.
Reach Settings from the gear in the Library header.
| Section | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Startup | Start in the Library or your last notebook; pre-fill new notebook names with a timestamp; sync when you close an overlay |
| Sync | UltraBridge server URL and credentials |
| Calendar (CalDAV tasks) | CalDAV collection URL and credentials, plus a connection test |
| Recognition models | Download or delete handwriting languages |
| Recycle bin | How many days before the bin auto-empties |
| Debug | On-device file logging (off by default) |
| About | App version |