Notes, Markdown, and Links
The notes field is the free-form part of every task — context, links, snippets, or a running log. On Mac it does more than hold plain text: it styles Markdown as you type, stamps in dates and times, links to other tasks, and surfaces every link it finds for quick opening. This page covers all of that. For the rest of the task editor, see The Task Editor.
The Notes Toolbar
Beside the notes field, in its left margin, sits a small column of chips. From top to bottom:
- Markdown Preview — toggles a rendered, read-only preview of your notes.
- Insert Date & Time — opens a menu of date and time stamp formats.
- Open Links in Notes — appears once your notes contain at least one link, and lists every link found.
The Insert Date & Time and Open Links chips are disabled while Markdown Preview is active.
Markdown in Notes
2Do styles Markdown live as you type. The source markers stay visible — a **bold** word shows the asterisks and renders bold at the same time — so your notes are never converted or rewritten behind your back. What gets saved is always the source Markdown you typed, not a rendered version of it.
Supported Markdown
- Emphasis —
*italic*or_italic_ - Strong —
**bold**or__bold__ - Inline code —
`code`— and fenced code blocks - Strikethrough —
~~struck~~ - Headings —
#through###### - Blockquote — lines beginning with
> - Lists — unordered and ordered; pressing Return at the end of a list line continues the marker
- Links and autolinks —
[label](https://…)and bare URLs - Highlight —
::highlighted:: - Underline —
<u>underlined</u>or[u]underlined[/u] - Horizontal rule — a line of three or more
-,*, or_(spaces allowed, e.g.- - -) - Escaping — a backslash keeps a marker literal, so
\*not italic\*renders its asterisks as text
There is no GitHub-style task-checkbox rendering. A - [ ] line stays as literal Markdown text — use 2Do's own sub-tasks or checklists for tickable items.
Markdown Preview
Click the Markdown Preview chip to switch the notes field into a read-only rendered view. In preview the source markers are stripped, links become clickable, and the chip fills with your accent color to show preview is on. Click it again to return to editing.
Preview is per-session and read-only — it never changes what's stored. The saved note is always the source Markdown. Entering preview clears the notes field's undo stack for that session, and the Insert Date & Time and Open Links chips are disabled while preview is showing.
There's no setting to turn Markdown styling off; it's always on. The same renderer is used by Quick Look.
Insert Date & Time
Drop a formatted date or time stamp straight into your notes — handy for journaling progress or logging when something happened. Two ways to reach it:
- The notes toolbar chip Insert Date & Time.
- The main menu Edit > Insert Time Stamp submenu.
Both open the same list of formats:
| Format | Example style |
|---|---|
| Short Date | localized short date |
| Short Date & Time | localized short date with time |
| Long Date | localized long date |
| Long Date & Time | localized long date with time |
| Universal Date | yyyy-MM-dd |
| Universal Date & Time | yyyy-MM-dd plus the time in your 12/24-hour clock format |
| ISO 8601 Date & Time | UTC yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z' |
| Time | current time |
| Weekday | full weekday name |
| Month | full month name |
The stamp is inserted at the cursor (replacing any selection) with a trailing space.
There's no keyboard shortcut for inserting a stamp, and the notes field must be focused — the menu items stay greyed out otherwise. The chip focuses notes for you first. Inserting a stamp is disabled during Markdown Preview.
Linking to Another Task
Type @{ in the notes field and pick a task to drop in a live @{Task Title} link — click it later to jump straight to that task in its list. Because the link is just the task's title stored as plain text, you can also type it by hand on any device, and 2Do resolves it to the matching task wherever your notes sync.
For the full picture — composing links across devices, how they resolve by title, the Copy Embeddable Link shortcut, and worked examples — see Linking to Other Tasks.
Link Discovery
As you type or paste, 2Do watches your notes for links and detects them automatically:
- Task links —
@{…}tokens. - URLs — web addresses and email addresses.
- File links — whole-line local paths beginning with
/or~/, backed by a secure bookmark.
Detected links are underlined inline in the notes field. Once at least one link exists, the Open Links in Notes chip appears. Clicking it opens a menu titled Open Links with a "Found N Link(s)" heading and up to three sections — task links, URLs, and local file links.
- Click a link inline, or a row in the menu, to open it.
- Hovering a menu row selects and scrolls the notes field to that link's source text.
- Web and mail links open through the system; file links open through a sandbox-scoped opener that may prompt you to regrant access; task tokens focus the task.
You can also copy every link in one shot with Copy Links from Notes in the editor's Copy menu. The Open Links chip and menu are disabled during Markdown Preview.
This is distinct from the Task menu's "Open Links" command, which opens all ordinary URLs in the selected task at once rather than presenting the per-link menu.
Tips
Because the saved note is always the source Markdown, you can round-trip notes through sync and other 2Do apps without losing your formatting markers.
Use @{ links to stitch related tasks together — a project task can point at its dependencies, and one click jumps you straight there.