What is Deft used for?

Deft is an Emacs mode for quickly browsing, filtering and editing a directory of plain text notes, inspired by Notational Velocity. It is a good fit for plain-text note taking in Emacs and searching a folder of notes.

Yes. Deft is open source. Its source code is on GitHub at jrblevin/deft and is written mainly in Emacs Lisp.

Yes. Deft is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What are some alternatives to Deft?

Similar open-source tools in the Note Taking category include Flatnotes, VimWiki and Dnote. SaaS products in the same category include Mem, Agenda and Amplenote.

Is Deft actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Deft was on 24 May 2024. The project has 759 stars on GitHub.

Deft: open-source note taking

About Deft

Deft is an Emacs mode for working with directories of plain text notes. It lets you browse, filter and edit notes quickly, in the spirit of Notational Velocity, so finding the right file at the right moment takes only a few keystrokes.

It aims to raise productivity when writing and taking notes by automating routine chores such as creating new files and saving them. Because the notes are ordinary text files, they remain usable with any other tool. The search box filters the file list as you type, which is the core of the workflow.

Deft is open source under the BSD license according to its README, although the repository metadata shows no license. The latest stable release described there is version 0.8 from January 2018, and it can be installed from MELPA Stable with package.el or downloaded manually.

Key features

Quick browsing of plain text notes
Incremental filtering of the note list
Automatic creation and saving of files
Notational Velocity style workflow
Installable from MELPA

Good fit for

→Plain-text note taking in Emacs
→Searching a folder of notes

Built with: Emacs Lisp
Tags: emacs; note-taking; plain-text; search; notational-velocity; elisp; notes

Deft: questions and answers

What is Deft used for?: Deft is an Emacs mode for quickly browsing, filtering and editing a directory of plain text notes, inspired by Notational Velocity. It is a good fit for plain-text note taking in Emacs and searching a folder of notes.
Is Deft open source?: Yes. Deft is open source. Its source code is on GitHub at jrblevin/deft and is written mainly in Emacs Lisp.
Is Deft free?: Yes. Deft is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What are some alternatives to Deft?: Similar open-source tools in the Note Taking category include Flatnotes, VimWiki and Dnote. SaaS products in the same category include Mem, Agenda and Amplenote.
Is Deft actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Deft was on 24 May 2024. The project has 759 stars on GitHub.