Vaults & workspace
A vault is a folder of Markdown files, and Altretta lets you keep as many as you like and switch between them — each fully self-contained.
Multiple vaults
You can maintain multiple vaults — say, one for work and one for personal notes — and switch between them at any time. Switching vaults changes your whole workspace to that vault's content and setup.
Each vault carries its own:
- Settings — folders, editor and behaviour preferences, kept separately per vault
- Layout — which tabs are open and how the panes are split
- Graph — the semantic graph and backlinks built from that vault's notes
- History — the signed action history and note versions for that vault
Nothing bleeds between vaults; opening one never mixes in another's notes, graph, or configuration.
"Per vault" and "inside the vault" are not the same thing. Everything above is kept per vault on this device — see What's stored where.
Your workspace layout is remembered
The workspace layout — which tabs are open, how your panes are split, and which docks are showing — is saved per vault, on this device. Reopen a vault on the same machine and it returns to the arrangement you left.
What's stored where
Your notes stay as plain Markdown files you own. Altretta doesn't move them into a proprietary store — they're just files in your folder.
Almost everything around your notes lives outside the vault folder: preferences and layout are stored by the app on the device, and the graph, index and version history live in the app's own data directory, keyed to the vault's path. That keeps the vault folder clean — but it means your setup does not travel with the folder.
| What | Where it lives | Travels with the folder? |
|---|---|---|
| Your notes and attachments | Markdown and asset files in the vault | Yes — they are the folder |
| Team keyring, vault-format stamp, encryption marker | A small .altretta/ control folder in the vault | Yes |
| Generated maps | _maps/ in the vault | Yes (but excluded from sync) |
| Deleted notes, recoverable | .trash/ in the vault | Yes (but excluded from sync) |
| Settings and layout, per vault | The app's storage on this device | No |
| Theme, accent, fonts, custom CSS, keyboard shortcuts, interface language | The app's storage on this device, shared by all vaults | No |
| Semantic graph, search index, note version history, audit log, your keys | The app's data directory, keyed to the vault's path | No |
Two consequences worth planning for. First: open the same vault folder on a second machine and you get that machine's defaults — not your theme, shortcuts or layout, and an empty version history that starts building from scratch. Second: because the graph and history are keyed to the vault's path, moving or renaming the vault folder starts a fresh store and leaves the old one behind.
Theme, accent, fonts, custom CSS, shortcuts and language are deliberately global to the device rather than per vault: they describe you, not a particular vault, and the appearance ones are applied before the app even knows which vault you're opening.
Related
Settings
The unified settings surface, and where per-vault config lives.
Appearance & themes
Theme, accent, fonts and custom CSS — shared across every vault on this device.
Editor & vault settings
Per-vault editor and behavior options.
Verifiable knowledge
The signed history and time-travel each vault keeps.
Encrypted sync
Sync a vault's notes across machines through a shared folder you choose.
Glossary
Vault, workspace, and config area, defined.