Fern Notes Support

Something not working, or an idea for Fern Notes? Email dbpatel219@gmail.com and I'll get back to you.

Change the capture shortcut

The capture panel opens with ⌃⌘J to start with. To use a different shortcut:

1. Open Settings in Fern Notes (⌘,) and choose General.
2. Click the Quick capture field and press the shortcut you want.

Export or restore a backup

A backup is everything in Fern Notes, in one .fern file. Fern Notes also imports backups saved before it was renamed, which end in .loopback.

1. Open Settings, choose General, and find Backup.
2. Click Export Backup and choose where to save the file.
3. To restore, click Import Backup and pick the file. Importing replaces everything with the backup; what you had is saved as a safety copy first.

How sync works

Fern Notes syncs through your own iCloud account, so your notes match on every Mac where you're signed in to the same Apple Account.

• Turn on Sync with iCloud in Settings, under General, on each Mac.
• The same section shows when Fern Notes last synced, and Sync Now syncs straight away.
• If sync is greyed out, check that you're signed in to iCloud in System Settings.

Lookups and AI

Everything in Fern Notes works without AI. To use lookups or ask a note questions, open Settings, choose AI, and pick a provider: your own Anthropic, OpenAI or AWS Bedrock key, a model running on your Mac in Ollama or LM Studio, or Apple Intelligence on Macs that support it. Lookups only run on notes or groups you give a prompt.

Privacy

No account, no Fern Notes servers, no analytics in the app. Read the Fern Notes privacy policy.