Getting Started

Welcome to Neatbase. This guide walks you through the basics: creating a notebook, adding fields, and filling in your first notes. By the end, you'll have a working notebook and know your way around the app.

What is Neatbase

Neatbase is a personal database app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. You create notebooks with custom fields — things like Name, Email, Rating, or Due Date — and every note you add follows that same layout.

For example, a "Contacts" notebook might have fields for Name, Email, Phone, and a Rating. A "Recipe Collection" might use Ingredients, Prep Time, and a photo. There are 23 field types to choose from, covering text, numbers, dates, ratings, tags, images, checklists, and more.

You can work with your data in two ways. Notes view shows a scrollable note list with a full detail panel for editing one note at a time. Table view shows everything in a spreadsheet-style grid with inline editing, column sorting, and powerful filters. Both views are always available, and you can switch between them with a single click.

Your notebooks sync across all your devices through iCloud.

Creating Your First Notebook

1. Click the + button at the top of the sidebar.
2. Choose New Notebook.
3. A template picker appears with 20 pre-built templates — Contacts, Expense Tracker, Project Tasks, Reading List, and more — plus a Blank option.
4. Pick a template to create a notebook instantly with a pre-set name, icon, color, and fields. You're ready to start adding notes right away.
5. Or choose Blank to start from scratch. You'll be asked to enter a name, pick an icon, and choose a color before the notebook is created.

Your new notebook appears in the sidebar. If you chose a template, it already has fields configured. If you chose Blank, the next step is to add fields.

Adding Fields

Fields define what information each note will hold. You need at least one field before you can create notes.

1. With your new notebook selected, click the gear icon in the toolbar to open notebook settings.
2. You'll land on the Fields tab.
3. Click Add Field.
4. Pick a field type from the grid. Types are organized into sections: Text, Contact, Numbers, Date, Selection, Rich Content, Measurement, Scanning, and Layout.
5. Give the field a name (for example, "Name" for a Short Text field, or "Rating" for a Rating field).
6. Some field types need extra configuration. For instance, Currency asks you to pick a currency code (USD, EUR, etc.), and Tags asks you to define the available options.
7. Optionally, turn on Show in note list to display this field's value as a subtitle on note cards in the sidebar.
8. Click Add to save the field.

Repeat this for each field you want. You can always come back and add, remove, or reorder fields later.

For a full breakdown of every field type, see Fields.

Creating Notes

Once your notebook has at least one field, you can start adding notes.

1. Click the + button in the toolbar, or press Cmd+N on Mac.
2. A new note appears with all your fields ready to fill in.
3. Click into any field and start typing or selecting values.

Changes save automatically. There's no save button to worry about.

Switching Between Views

Use the toggle in the center of the toolbar to switch between Notes view and Table view.

Notes view is best for browsing through notes one at a time and editing individual records in the detail panel.

Table view is best when you want to see all your data at once, compare notes side by side, sort by any column, or filter with specific conditions.

Each notebook remembers which view you were using, so switching back to a notebook picks up where you left off.

For details on each view, see Notes View and Table View.

Organizing with Groups

As you create more notebooks, you can organize them into groups. Groups work like folders in the sidebar.

1. Click the + button at the top of the sidebar and choose New Group (or press Cmd+Option+N on Mac).
2. Give the group a name.
3. Drag notebooks into the group, or right-click a notebook and use Move to to place it inside.

Click the chevron next to a group name to expand or collapse it. Groups can be nested one level deep (a group inside a group), giving you a clean two-level hierarchy.

You can also drag groups and notebooks up and down in the sidebar to reorder them.

Keyboard Shortcuts

These shortcuts work on Mac:

In Table view (when a cell is selected):

What's Next

You've got the basics down. Here are some good next steps:

• Fields — Learn about all 23 field types and how to configure them.
• Notes View — Master the note list, search, sort, and detail editing.
• Table View — Learn about sorting, filtering, column management, and inline editing.
• Web Forms — Publish a web form from your notebook and collect responses.
• Sharing — Share a notebook with others using end-to-end encryption.
• Neatbase Pro — See what's included in the Pro subscription.