Import from Notion

The Notion import copies your Notion pages into a folder on this machine. Each page becomes one Markdown file. A vault that watches the folder turns the pages into memory.

It is read only on Notion's side. The import lists and reads, and it never writes to Notion.

The import arrived in 2.1.0.

Where it lives

The import is a panel, not a window of the board. It sits in two places:

• Settings › Connectors, on the Notion tile;
• the notes step of the onboarding, on its Notion card.

The token

The import reads with a Notion token. The panel walks you through it:

1. Open Notion's token page with Open Notion's token page.
2. Create a new token, give it a name, pick your workspace.
3. Tick « Notion API ».
4. Pick an expiration. 7 or 30 days is safer.
5. Create the token, copy it, and paste it in Notion token.

No page needs to be shared with the token. It reads what you can read.

Save the token seals it on this machine. The field empties after the save, and the token is never shown again. The panel then checks it with Notion and says who it is connected as. Forget the token removes it.

The token can read and write your Notion. Mnemosyne OS only reads with it. If this machine cannot seal it, the panel says the token is stored readable on disk.

Running an import

1. Choose a folder… picks where the pages go. A folder that belongs to Mnemosyne OS itself is refused.
2. Tick Include meeting-note transcripts if you want them.
3. Press Import now.

The panel counts the pages as it goes. One import stops after 30 minutes. Run it again and the pages already written are skipped.

What lands in the folder

• One .md file per page. Pages sit flat at the root of the folder, so a page you move in Notion keeps its file.
• The rows of a database go in a folder named after the database. Their properties sit at the top of each file.
• Files hosted by Notion are saved in a _files folder, because their links expire. A file over 50 MB is not saved, and its link stays in the page.
• A .notion-manifest.json file records what was written and when.

A second import only pulls the pages edited since the first one.

The receipt

At the end the panel says what was done, and what was not.

• Done: the pages written, the database rows, the pages unchanged and the files saved.
• Blocks Notion did not give. Each one is marked in its page.
• Files not saved.
• Pages from an earlier import that Notion did not list this time.

The import never deletes those last pages. Notion's search can miss a page that still exists, so their files stay. Delete them by hand if they are gone from Notion. The one file it removes is its own older copy of a page you renamed.

A page that fails is named, and the import goes on with the others.

Putting it in memory

When no vault watches the import folder, the Notion tile says so. Put it in memory fixes that in one press. The folder is watched by a vault named Notion, created the first time and reused after. Every new import then updates it.

Or choose another vault links the folder to a vault you pick instead. See watched folders and vaults.

The other way in

A Markdown export made from Notion also works. Put it in a watched folder and its pages become memory the same way.