Vault Workflow

The vault keeps your Markdown, text, and supported code files in a folder tree inside the current browser.

Table of Contents

Organize Files and Folders

Use the Vault panel to create files and folders, open documents, and drag editable items into a new location. Right-click an item to rename, duplicate, move, export, download, inspect Properties, add a favorite, or move content to Trash.

Choose Sort Items By in Vault Options or an Organizer background menu to sort personal content by name, modified time, or type. Direction labels adapt to the selected field, such as A to Z or Newest First. Folders remain grouped before files. The protected /MDash folder stays above personal content in its fixed guide order.

Properties shows a file's vault location, type, detected language, size, activity, status, and content counts. Folder Properties shows direct and recursive item totals, total size, and the latest descendant modification. Choose Analyze Links for a separate report with Internal Links, External Links, Unresolved, and Backlinks. The same action supports files, folders and their subfolders, and the entire vault through Vault Options. Backlinks calculate in the background for files and folders; the tab is disabled for the entire vault. External website availability is never checked.

A simple project might use this structure:

Project Atlas/
├── Brief.md
├── Research/
│   ├── Interviews.md
│   └── Sources.md
└── Planning/
    └── Milestones.md

Keep related documents together. Use explicit paths when files in different folders share a name.

Use Vault Organizer

Open Vault Organizer from the Vault panel, press Ctrl/⌘ + Alt + V, or run it from the command palette when you need a larger file-management workspace.

Vault Organizer provides:

A collapsible folder tree and breadcrumbs
Name filtering for the live vault and a separate Trash filter
Multi-selection, copy, cut, paste, and drag-and-drop
Bulk favorites, Properties, ZIP export, and recoverable deletion
Sortable Explorer columns and resizable panes
Bulk restore, Empty Trash, and deliberate permanent deletion

Use Shift to select a range, Ctrl/⌘ to select individual items, or the header checkbox to select everything currently visible.

Resolve Name Conflicts

When a destination already contains the same name, choose Keep Both, Replace, or Skip. Replace moves the previous item to Trash instead of deleting it immediately.

Update Internal Links is enabled by default. Moving or renaming files then repairs matching wiki-links and relative file links in editable Markdown documents. Organizer moves, copies, renames, and Trash actions also offer a short-lived Undo action.

Short wiki-links search by name across the live vault. Duplicate names require a choice; paths identify a specific file. Relative Markdown links resolve from the containing folder.

Know What You Can Undo

Action	What Happens	Recovery
Rename or move	The item changes location and matching internal links can be updated	Use the immediate Undo action
Replace	The incoming item takes the destination name	Restore the previous item from Trash or use Undo
Move to Trash	The item and any descendants leave the live vault	Choose Undo or Restore
Delete permanently	The selected Trash content is removed	Restore from a full backup only
Empty Trash	Every item in Trash is removed	Restore from a full backup only

Work with Tabs

Opening a file places it in a tab. Closing the tab does not delete the file.

Use a tab context menu to mark a favorite, close, duplicate, copy, move, rename, export, change document direction, or select a slide theme. Read-only bundled tabs provide Copy To without editing or moving actions. Use the tab menu or command palette to reopen the most recently closed tab.

When tabs exceed the available width, scroll the tab strip or use its fading navigation controls. Choose Open Tabs beside New File, or press Ctrl/⌘ + Alt + P, to search every open tab by filename or path.

The browser owns Ctrl/⌘ + W, so close an MDash tab from its menu or the command palette.

Use All, Favorites, Recent, and Trash

All shows the complete live folder tree.
Favorites collects files you marked for quick access.
Recent lists the 30 files opened most recently.
Trash holds recoverable files and folders until permanent deletion.

Moving a folder to Trash includes its descendants and removes affected files from open tabs, Favorites, Recent, Search, wiki-link results, and backlinks. Use the immediate Undo action or choose Restore in Trash. Restored items return to their original writable folder when it still exists, or to the vault root otherwise.

Delete Permanently and Empty Trash cannot be undone. A full backup includes Trash, while a ZIP export does not.

Search and Navigate

Use Quick Open to find a file by name.
Use Search All Files to find text across live vault files.
Use Outline to navigate headings in the active Markdown document.
Use Backlinks to find notes that link to the active document.
Use Vault Organizer filters when you are managing a folder or a group of files.

Trash stays outside normal Search, wiki-link resolution, backlinks, and live file counts.

Understand Bundled Content

The /MDash README and Docs folder are read-only. At startup, MDash restores missing bundled files and updates changed bundled copies from the application without rewriting files that already match.

Use Refresh Bundled MDash Docs only as a recovery action. Duplicate a bundled file into a writable folder when you want to annotate or adapt it. You can hide bundled content from Vault Options and show it again later.

Protect the Vault

The vault belongs to the current browser profile and site origin. It is not synchronized to another device. Use a ZIP for a readable folder copy and a full backup for the most complete MDash restore point, including Trash and optional interface settings.

See Import, Export, and Backup for exact backup and restore steps. See Privacy and Local Storage for storage protection, browser data, network requests, analytics, and reset behavior.

Creating, duplicating, or copying into an occupied name uses the same numeric suffix: Report 2.md, Report 3.md, and so on. Copying into a folder with no conflict preserves the name.

Case Sensitive and Whole Word are shared between Find and Replace and Find in Preview across tabs and reloads. Regex is remembered for editor searches. Search text and replacement text remain separate from these preferences.

With Synced Scroll enabled, reaching the top or bottom of either scrollable pane aligns the other pane to that document boundary. Between the boundaries, source-line alignment is preserved.