Today we’re launching a major new feature for Micro.blog Premium subscribers. Micro.blog notes are a new way to save content in Micro.blog when you don’t want to use a blog post or draft. Notes are private by default, end-to-end encrypted across all platforms, with a special companion app named Strata for iOS. (Android coming soon.)
Notes are great for:
- Jotting down ideas or brainstorming future blog posts. Notes use Markdown, so it’s easy to move the text into a blog post draft later.
- Sharing content with a smaller group of friends or family, without that content being linked on your blog. When a note is shared, it is given a unique, random-looking URL on your blog that you can send to others.
- Journaling within Micro.blog, so you can use the same platform whether you’re writing something just for yourself or sharing it with the world in a blog post.
From the launch of the platform, Micro.blog has been about public blog posts. We want to make the web a little better with thousands of new blogs, where the user owns their identity and content. Some people want private posts too, but we’ve delayed adding that because it doesn’t fit perfectly into the public web. With the wrong implementation, it would turn Micro.blog into more of a closed silo, with some features only available when you’re signed in.
Notes will be Micro.blog’s initial solution to private posts, a foundation we can build on. By default, notes really are private. They are encrypted and we can’t see them. But any note can be shared with others. When sharing a note, it’s decrypted and published to a corner of your blog, accessible only by direct URL.
This level of encryption adds a new wrinkle to how Micro.blog usually stores data. We’ve tried to keep it simple, but honestly it can be confusing, and we expect a few bumps along the road. We will continue to make it as seamless as possible. There are options to download a copy of the “secret key” used in Micro.blog, as well as saving a copy to iCloud. I recommend both.
In the future, notes will make their way into more Micro.blog features. For example, you can imagine attaching notes to bookmarks, web page highlights, or a book you’re reading. We are very excited about the potential for this in Micro.blog.
Here’s a screenshot from the web. Enjoy!
Matt Langford Oh, this is going to be useful!
Aeryn oh, that’s really cool. Thank you.
Miraz Jordan This sounds great Manton! Thank you. This would have been very handy for me last year when I relied on obscurity to 'privately' share info with a group of others. Looking forward to trying it out. 😁
Rob Fahrni 
Simon Woods Nice! Such a clever way to implement private posting. 💯
Pedro Corá I needed something like that this morning! Awesome!
Numeric Citizen Congrats! Can't wait to demonstrate this in my next YouTube video!
Miraz Jordan Two questions: can I make and manage Notes from the web interface? Where do I do this?
Manton Reece @Miraz Yes, you should get a "Notes" item in the sidebar, down near the bottom (or in the profile menu for smaller windows). The web version is really the definitive version, but the native apps are nice too.
John Brayton @manton That is a huge feature, and it is nice to see end-to-end encryption on private notes. Congrats!
Miraz Jordan Ah thanks. Made my Safari window fullscreen and there it is!
Miraz Jordan Ahhh, the other problem for me is that not only do I have my Safari window not set to fullscreen but I also have it set to 125% page zoom, otherwise the font is way to small for me to read comfortably. That meant the pop-up menu doesn't show me everything on the list and Notes was too far down. 😀
Mitch Wagner Looks interesting. How is this different from drafts, though? Other than the potential to share privately with other people, which I can see as being useful for many people.
Manton Reece @MitchW That's one of the differences, but the other major part is as a way to write down things that will never go to your blog. In that sense, it's closer to Apple Notes or a note-taking app like Bear.
David Enzel Thank you for this. I have to think about how I might use it. Is it possible to create a note in the iPhone app?
Simon Woods @MitchW Yep, this is a note-taking tool. As such I would expect greater functionality, over time, for taking notes in a way that I would not expect from saving a draft. In fact, I would never ever want to see "Drafts" as a section in the MB apps; that feature is a subset of Posts only.
From a users perspective, I believe this extends MB into a greater writing platform; this is the type of thing that competes with Ulysses, Scrivener, etc.
Jordon Wadlington totally recognize that this is a 1.0 and more features are coming, but any thought to utilizing Apple’s new Journaling Suggestions API (or a similar method for pulling in external information) ? I love the concept here, but I (sometimes) find it difficult to start journaling from a blank page
Simon Woods @abc I've just realised that there is no link for Strata in the original post. Here it is: Strata
Jarrod Blundy 
Patrick Rhone Really nice. Instant Home screen add (though not entirely sure how I'll use it yet). Congrats on the launch!
David Enzel @SimonWoods Wow. A separate app already. Than you.
Jeffrey Florek, Jr. Very interesting! Is there an API for this? I’ve been playing around with web technologies recently and one of my favorite things about Micro.blog is how open everything is for tinkering.
Manton Reece @jeffreyflorek Yes, I'll post the notes API later today. There is room for improvement and I think we'll add to it to achieve better sync between apps in the future. It also requires the user sharing their "secret key" with any app, so there are privacy questions that apps (and users) will need to think about.
Numeric Citizen @jarrod do you think of any use cases for you?
Simon Woods @abc No problem! 👍
When I searched for the app on the iPhone it quickly offered the actual app as the top auto-complete suggestion. 👍
Jarrod Blundy @numericcitizen I like the idea of having easily shareable and private webpages. Also, it’s a place to write things down when I’m on a Windows computer that will sync with my Apple devices, which is nice.
Numeric Citizen 
David Johnson On my iPhone 13 Mini it is not possible to access the Notes tab in Safari. I see the tab, go to press it but because it is so low down Safari’s bottom bar appears (I have the single tab option selected for Safari). As the Micro.blog side bar does not scroll, I cannot access the Notes tab.
Manton Reece @crossingthethreshold Oh no, I haven't tested on a small screen in a while. We'll get that fixed, thanks.
Mitch Wagner I'll try it out and see how it works and fits my workflow. I'm using Ulysses now for rough drafts of posts and links I might want to share.
Congratulations on getting this out—I know you worked hard on it!
Manton Reece @otaviocc Sorry about the crash! It tries to get and save the key from iCloud, so something definitely got confused with that. We need more gracefully handling of that. (There's also a preference to turn off iCloud which may help.)
David Johnson David Johnson I’m not clear if Notes can be used exported? I see that they can be shared, but for example, can a notebook be used exported out of Micro.blog?
David Johnson 
annie's micro(b)log Oh yeah I love this already.
Chris Enns @Annie I'm trying to wrap my head around it—the why part I mean. I think it's neat even if it's not for me, just curious what it sparks for you?
Leon Mika What a great feature. Congratulations on the launch.
annie's micro(b)log @iChris I'm a big fan of using fewer tools/fewer apps. Less to learn/manage/have my data stored in. I use both Obsidian and Workflowy daily but neither one is good for quick little private notes (on mobile esp.) -- at least, not for me. So i've been reluctantly using Apple Notes to fill that gap. I love the idea of having all my quick-capture notes flowing into mb instead. I also frequently have things I want to capture and maybe post later, but not yet. Those usually end up in a MB draft post which is okay but doesn't feel quite right. So I like the idea of having those little bits just go into the notes section too. Before I would kind of wrestle with: "Is this a draft post? or just a note?" Now they'll just all be notes. Less friction.
Peter Wickins oh that’s a great new feature!
I think you’ve just given the @HemisphericViews crew a topic for the next podcast as @canion explores adding the latest new thing into his workflow.
Chris Enns @Annie Ahhh that's a great workflow for it.
Also: Obsidian? 🤔 I edit videos for a client who does tutorials on it and I'm very curious too. But now I'm adding even more apps instead of less! 😆
Kimberly Hirsh 
Anna Havron 😸😸😸😸😸 This rates FIVE smiling cats! Can't wait to play with it.
Hunter Yeagley API unlocks so many options 🤯. Amount of times I share a note from my Notion and wish I could add more of “me” to the look, tone, and feel. Thank you for all your work!
Andrew Canion @meandering You know Notes apps are my catnip!
Marcos D. Alves @manton Premium only 😯. Not for me.
Rene van Belzen While I appreciate the hidden nature of the Notes feature, it can't replace private notes. True private notes should be accessible independant of the status of the Internet or a webservice, and probably never leave the sanctity of one's device, other than for backup, and in that case use pre-Internet encryption (encrypt data before it is sent over the wire). So, encrypted notes is probably a better term than private notes.
Manton Reece @renevanbelzen Interesting. To be clear, Micro.blog notes are encrypted before sent over the wire. I do want to have better offline access in the future, though.
Hunter Yeagley @renevanbelzen I don’t think that is an agreed on definition in most cases.
Lisa Sieverts I don’t know what to do when Strata asks for an encryption key
Loura This is a fantastic feature! I can't wait to try it out 😄
Manton Reece @agilelisa We need to improve the first-launch experience, because it can be confusing. You need to start by setting up notes on the web. Then, click on Notes → "..." → Settings → Show Secret Key. You can use the iOS camera app to scan the QR code and that will give you a link that automatically sets up Strata.
Sven Dahlstrand A belated congrats on launching! 🎉
Ridwan Jaafar I'm amazed at how M.b continues to innovate. Love it.
Halsted M. Bernard This is a great new feature. I was looking for something like this when I wanted to share more info with the Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup group. Nice work!
Andrew Canion @meandering Thanks for the suggestion. We talk about Strata and micro.blog Notes on Episode 105
Manton Reece @canion Cool, looking forward to listening!
Peter Wickins @canion thanks for the shout out!
Andrew Canion @meandering You’re welcome - appreciate your suggesting it as a topic!
Manton Reece Oops, looks like I have a link formatting problem in replies. Will fix.