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Joplin Data API

This API is available when the clipper server is running. It provides access to the notes, notebooks, tags and other Joplin object via a REST API. Plugins can also access this API even when the clipper server is not running.

In order to use it, you'll first need to find on which port the service is running. To do so, open the Web Clipper Options in Joplin and if the service is running it should tell you on which port. Normally it runs on port 41184. If you want to find it programmatically, you may follow this kind of algorithm:

let port = null;
for (let portToTest = 41184; portToTest <= 41194; portToTest++) {
    const result = pingPort(portToTest); // Call GET /ping
    if (result == 'JoplinClipperServer') {
        port = portToTest; // Found the port
        break;
    }
}

Authorisation

To prevent unauthorised applications from accessing the API, the calls must be authenticated. To do so, you must provide a token as a query parameter for each API call. You can get this token from the Joplin desktop application, on the Web Clipper Options screen.

This would be an example of valid cURL call using a token:

curl http://localhost:41184/notes?token=ABCD123ABCD123ABCD123ABCD123ABCD123

In the documentation below, the token will not be specified every time however you will need to include it.

If needed you may also request the token programmatically

Using the API

All the calls, unless noted otherwise, receives and send JSON data. For example to create a new note:

curl --data '{ "title": "My note", "body": "Some note in **Markdown**"}' http://localhost:41184/notes

In the documentation below, the calls may include special parameters such as :id or :note_id. You would replace this with the item ID or note ID.

For example, for the endpoint DELETE /tags/:id/notes/:note_id, to remove the tag with ID "ABCD1234" from the note with ID "EFGH789", you would run for example:

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:41184/tags/ABCD1234/notes/EFGH789

The four verbs supported by the API are the following ones:

  • GET: To retrieve items (notes, notebooks, etc.).
  • POST: To create new items. In general most item properties are optional. If you omit any, a default value will be used.
  • PUT: To update an item. Note in a REST API, traditionally PUT is used to completely replace an item, however in this API it will only replace the properties that are provided. For example if you PUT {"title": "my new title"}, only the "title" property will be changed. The other properties will be left untouched (they won't be cleared nor changed).
  • DELETE: To delete items.

Filtering data

You can change the fields that will be returned by the API using the fields= query parameter, which takes a list of comma separated fields. For example, to get the longitude and latitude of a note, use this:

curl http://localhost:41184/notes/ABCD123?fields=longitude,latitude

To get the IDs only of all the tags:

curl http://localhost:41184/tags?fields=id

By default API results will contain the following fields: id, parent_id, title

Pagination

All API calls that return multiple results will be paginated and will return the following structure:

Key Always present? Description
items Yes The array of items you have requested.
has_more Yes If true, there are more items after this page. If false, it means you have reached the end of the data set.

You can specify how the results should be sorted using the order_by and order_dir query parameters, and which page to retrieve using the page parameter (starts at and defaults to 1). You can specify the number of items to be returned using the limit parameter (the maximum being 100 items).

The following call for example will initiate a request to fetch all the notes, 10 at a time, and sorted by "updated_time" ascending:

curl http://localhost:41184/notes?order_by=updated_time&order_dir=ASC&limit=10

This will return a result like this

{ "items": [ /* 10 notes */ ], "has_more": true }

Then you will resume fetching the results using this query:

curl http://localhost:41184/notes?order_by=updated_time&order_dir=ASC&limit=10&page=2

Eventually you will get some results that do not contain an "has_more" parameter, at which point you will have retrieved all the results

As an example the pseudo-code below could be used to fetch all the notes:

async function fetchJson(url) {
	return (await fetch(url)).json();
}

async function fetchAllNotes() {
	let pageNum = 1;
	do {
		const response = await fetchJson((http://localhost:41184/notes?page=' + pageNum++);
		console.info('Printing notes:', response.items);
	} while (response.has_more)
}

Error handling

In case of an error, an HTTP status code >= 400 will be returned along with a JSON object that provides more info about the error. The JSON object is in the format { "error": "description of error" }.

About the property types

  • Text is UTF-8.
  • All date/time are Unix timestamps in milliseconds.
  • Booleans are integer values 0 or 1.

Testing if the service is available

Call GET /ping to check if the service is available. It should return "JoplinClipperServer" if it works.

Searching

Call GET /search?query=YOUR_QUERY to search for notes. This end-point supports the field parameter which is recommended to use so that you only get the data that you need. The query syntax is as described in the main documentation: https://joplinapp.org/help/#searching

To retrieve non-notes items, such as notebooks or tags, add a type parameter and set it to the required item type name. In that case, full text search will not be used - instead it will be a simple case-insensitive search. You can also use * as a wildcard. This is convenient for example to retrieve notebooks or tags by title.

For example, to retrieve the notebook named recipes: GET /search?query=recipes&type=folder

To retrieve all the tags that start with project-: GET /search?query=project-*&type=tag

Item type IDs

Item type IDs might be referred to in certain objects you will retrieve from the API. This is the correspondence between name and ID:

Name Value
note 1
folder 2
setting 3
resource 4
tag 5
note_tag 6
search 7
alarm 8
master_key 9
item_change 10
note_resource 11
resource_local_state 12
revision 13
migration 14
smart_filter 15
command 16

Notes

Properties

Name Type Description
id text
parent_id text ID of the notebook that contains this note. Change this ID to move the note to a different notebook.
title text The note title.
body text The note body, in Markdown. May also contain HTML.
created_time int When the note was created.
updated_time int When the note was last updated.
is_conflict int Tells whether the note is a conflict or not.
latitude numeric
longitude numeric
altitude numeric
author text
source_url text The full URL where the note comes from.
is_todo int Tells whether this note is a todo or not.
todo_due int When the todo is due. An alarm will be triggered on that date.
todo_completed int Tells whether todo is completed or not. This is a timestamp in milliseconds.
source text
source_application text
application_data text
order numeric
user_created_time int When the note was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time int When the note was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
markup_language int
is_shared int
share_id text
conflict_original_id text
master_key_id text
user_data text
deleted_time int
body_html text Note body, in HTML format
base_url text If body_html is provided and contains relative URLs, provide the base_url parameter too so that all the URLs can be converted to absolute ones. The base URL is basically where the HTML was fetched from, minus the query (everything after the '?'). For example if the original page was https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%5Bjava%5D+test, the base URL is https://stackoverflow.com/search.
image_data_url text An image to attach to the note, in Data URL format.
crop_rect text If an image is provided, you can also specify an optional rectangle that will be used to crop the image. In format { x: x, y: y, width: width, height: height }

GET /notes

Gets all notes

By default, this call will return the all notes except the notes in the trash folder and any conflict note. To include these too, you can specify include_deleted=1 and include_conflicts=1 as query parameters.

GET /notes/:id

Gets note with ID :id

GET /notes/:id/tags

Gets all the tags attached to this note.

GET /notes/:id/resources

Gets all the resources attached to this note.

POST /notes

Creates a new note

You can either specify the note body as Markdown by setting the body parameter, or in HTML by setting the body_html.

Examples:

  • Create a note from some Markdown text
curl --data '{ "title": "My note", "body": "Some note in **Markdown**"}' http://127.0.0.1:41184/notes
  • Create a note from some HTML
curl --data '{ "title": "My note", "body_html": "Some note in <b>HTML</b>"}' http://127.0.0.1:41184/notes
  • Create a note and attach an image to it:
curl --data '{ "title": "Image test", "body": "Here is Joplin icon:", "image_data_url": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAgAAAAICAIAAABLbSncAAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAANZJREFUeNoAyAA3/wFwtO3K6gUB/vz2+Prw9fj/+/r+/wBZKAAExOgF4/MC9ff+MRH6Ui4E+/0Bqc/zutj6AgT+/Pz7+vv7++nu82c4DlMqCvLs8goA/gL8/fz09fb59vXa6vzZ6vjT5fbn6voD/fwC8vX4UiT9Zi//APHyAP8ACgUBAPv5APz7BPj2+DIaC2o3E+3o6ywaC5fT6gD6/QD9/QEVf9kD+/dcLQgJA/7v8vqfwOf18wA1IAIEVycAyt//v9XvAPv7APz8LhoIAPz9Ri4OAgwARgx4W/6fVeEAAAAASUVORK5CYII="}' http://127.0.0.1:41184/notes

Creating a note with a specific ID

When a new note is created, it is automatically assigned a new unique ID so normally you do not need to set the ID. However, if for some reason you want to set it, you can supply it as the id property. It needs to be a 32 characters long string in hexadecimal. Make sure it is unique, for example by generating it using whatever GUID function is available in your programming language.

curl --data '{ "id": "00a87474082744c1a8515da6aa5792d2", "title": "My note with custom ID"}' http://127.0.0.1:41184/notes

PUT /notes/:id

Sets the properties of the note with ID :id

DELETE /notes/:id

Deletes the note with ID :id

By default, the note will be moved to the trash. To permanently delete it, add the query parameter permanent=1

Folders

This is actually a notebook. Internally notebooks are called "folders".

Properties

Name Type Description
id text
title text The folder title.
created_time int When the folder was created.
updated_time int When the folder was last updated.
user_created_time int When the folder was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time int When the folder was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
parent_id text
is_shared int
share_id text
master_key_id text
icon text
user_data text
deleted_time int

GET /folders

Gets all folders

The folders are returned as a tree. The sub-notebooks of a notebook, if any, are under the children key.

GET /folders/:id

Gets folder with ID :id

GET /folders/:id/notes

Gets all the notes inside this folder.

POST /folders

Creates a new folder

PUT /folders/:id

Sets the properties of the folder with ID :id

DELETE /folders/:id

Deletes the folder with ID :id

By default, the folder will be moved to the trash. To permanently delete it, add the query parameter permanent=1

Resources

Properties

Name Type Description
id text
title text The resource title.
mime text
filename text
created_time int When the resource was created.
updated_time int When the resource was last updated.
user_created_time int When the resource was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time int When the resource was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
file_extension text
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
encryption_blob_encrypted int
size int
is_shared int
share_id text
master_key_id text
user_data text
blob_updated_time int
ocr_text text
ocr_details text
ocr_status int
ocr_error text

GET /resources

Gets all resources

GET /resources/:id

Gets resource with ID :id

GET /resources/:id/file

Gets the actual file associated with this resource.

GET /resources/:id/notes

Gets the notes (IDs) associated with a resource.

POST /resources

Creates a new resource

Creating a new resource is special because you also need to upload the file. Unlike other API calls, this one must have the "multipart/form-data" Content-Type. The file data must be passed to the "data" form field, and the other properties to the "props" form field. An example of a valid call with cURL would be:

curl -F 'data=@/path/to/file.jpg' -F 'props={"title":"my resource title"}' http://localhost:41184/resources

To update the resource content, you can make a PUT request with the same arguments:

curl -X PUT -F 'data=@/path/to/file.jpg' -F 'props={"title":"my modified title"}' http://localhost:41184/resources/8fe1417d7b184324bf6b0122b76c4696

The "data" field is required, while the "props" one is not. If not specified, default values will be used.

Or if you only need to update the resource properties (title, etc.), without changing the content, you can make a regular PUT request:

curl -X PUT --data '{"title": "My new title"}' http://localhost:41184/resources/8fe1417d7b184324bf6b0122b76c4696

From a plugin the syntax to create a resource is also a bit special:

	await joplin.data.post(
		["resources"],
		null,
		{ title: "test.jpg" }, // Resource metadata
		[
			{
				path: "/path/to/test.jpg", // Actual file
			},
		]
	);

PUT /resources/:id

Sets the properties of the resource with ID :id

You may also update the file data by specifying a file (See POST /resources example).

DELETE /resources/:id

Deletes the resource with ID :id

Tags

Properties

Name Type Description
id text
title text The tag title.
created_time int When the tag was created.
updated_time int When the tag was last updated.
user_created_time int When the tag was created. It may differ from created_time as it can be manually set by the user.
user_updated_time int When the tag was last updated. It may differ from updated_time as it can be manually set by the user.
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
is_shared int
parent_id text
user_data text

GET /tags

Gets all tags

GET /tags/:id

Gets tag with ID :id

GET /tags/:id/notes

Gets all the notes with this tag.

POST /tags

Creates a new tag

POST /tags/:id/notes

Post a note to this endpoint to add the tag to the note. The note data must at least contain an ID property (all other properties will be ignored).

PUT /tags/:id

Sets the properties of the tag with ID :id

DELETE /tags/:id

Deletes the tag with ID :id

DELETE /tags/:id/notes/:note_id

Remove the tag from the note.

Revisions

Properties

Name Type Description
id text
parent_id text
item_type int
item_id text
item_updated_time int
title_diff text
body_diff text
metadata_diff text
encryption_cipher_text text
encryption_applied int
updated_time int
created_time int

GET /revisions

Gets all revisions

GET /revisions/:id

Gets revision with ID :id

POST /revisions

Creates a new revision

PUT /revisions/:id

Sets the properties of the revision with ID :id

DELETE /revisions/:id

Deletes the revision with ID :id

Events

This end point can be used to retrieve the latest note changes. Currently only note changes are tracked.

Properties

Name Type Description
id int
item_type int The item type (see table above for the list of item types)
item_id text The item ID
type int The type of change - either 1 (created), 2 (updated) or 3 (deleted)
created_time int When the event was generated
source int Unused
before_change_item text Unused

GET /events

Returns a paginated list of recent events. A cursor property should be provided, which tells from what point in time the events should be returned. The API will return a cursor property, to tell from where to resume retrieving events, as well as an has_more (tells if more changes can be retrieved) and items property, which will contain the list of events. Events are kept for up to 90 days.

If no cursor property is provided, the API will respond with the latest change ID. That can be used to retrieve future events later on.

The results are paginated so you may need multiple calls to retrieve all the events. Use the has_more property to know if more can be retrieved.

GET /events/:id

Returns the event with the given ID.