Files & folders
The file tree in Altretta's sidebar is the folder-and-note view of your vault, where you create, rename, move, and delete files — and where renaming or moving a note rewrites every link to it across the vault automatically.
Your vault is just a folder of Markdown files on disk. The file tree mirrors that folder exactly, so what you see in Altretta is what's on your filesystem — no hidden database, no proprietary container.
The file tree
Open the file tree from the sidebar to see your folders and notes. From here you can:
- Expand and collapse folders to navigate large vaults.
- Create a new note or subfolder in any location.
- Rename a note or folder.
- Move notes by dragging them between folders.
- Delete notes and folders you no longer need.
Because the tree is your real folder structure, you can also rearrange files in Finder, Explorer, or the terminal — Altretta picks up the change. Working inside Altretta is recommended, though, so that link rewriting and signed history stay intact.
Create a note or folder
Pick a location
Select the folder in the tree where the note or subfolder should live, or the vault root for a top-level note.
Create it
Add a new note or folder from the file tree (or create a note from the command palette). A new note's title becomes its filename — Project Ideas is saved as Project Ideas.md.
Start writing
The note opens ready to edit. Saving is automatic — Altretta writes to the .md file shortly after you stop typing.
Rename and move — links follow automatically
This is the part that saves you from broken vaults.
- Rename a note and Altretta updates every wikilink and embed that points to it, everywhere in the vault, in one step. Your links keep working under the new name.
- Move a note to another folder and the same thing happens — references are rewritten so nothing dangles.
This means you can restructure fearlessly. Rename a sprawling note, split a folder, or reorganize a whole area, and your [[wikilinks]] and ![[embeds]] stay connected — you never chase down broken links by hand.
Delete safely
Deleting a note doesn't destroy it. The file is moved into the vault's own .trash/ folder, keeping its original path, so it is still on disk and recoverable by hand at any time — it simply leaves your indexed vault and stops appearing in the tree, in search, and in the graph.
Separately, the facts the note contributed to the semantic graph are retracted with signed actions on the next indexing pass, so your signed history stays honest about what was taken away instead of quietly forgetting it.
.trash/ and the review-inbox staging folder are both hidden from the file tree and excluded from indexing. That's what stops a deleted note reappearing in your search results — and what makes recovery a matter of moving the file back.
Related
Organizing your vault
The overview: search, bookmarks, daily notes, templates, Bases, and Maps & Manuals.
Search
Can't find a note by browsing? Jump to it by its content instead.
Links & embeds
The wikilinks and embeds that get automatically rewritten when you rename or move a note.
Signed history
How a removal becomes a signed retraction rather than a hole in the record.
Glossary
Vault, wikilink, embed, file tree — defined.