Reference
How to export and back up your notes
The six formats in the export menu, which one to pick for a backup, and how to back notes up programmatically with the public API and a personal key.
Updated 5 min read
A note that lives on one service is a note with one point of failure — not because anything is likely to go wrong, but because your writing should outlive your choice of tool. LiveNote has two escape routes: the export menu for one-off downloads, and a public API for backups you can automate. This is the reference for both.
The export menu
Every note’s header has an export menu with six formats. Pick one and the note downloads immediately — no export queue, no email-with-attachment step.
| Format | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| TXT | Plain text, no formatting | Pasting anywhere; a copy nothing can render wrong |
| Markdown | Formatted Markdown source | Moving into another Markdown tool or a repository |
| HTML | A self-contained web page | Reading the note with formatting in any browser |
| JSON | The note’s full editor structure | Backups; lossless round-trips |
| A fixed, printable document | Sharing with people who print things | |
| DOCX | A Word document | Handing the note to an office suite |
JSON is the lossless one. It keeps the editor’s structure — the lists, checklists, and tables as the editor stores them — rather than a flattened rendering. If the point of the export is to be a faithful backup, JSON is the format. The others are faithful renderings, which is a different, useful thing.
Backups you can automate
For anything beyond a one-off download, LiveNote has a public API, and personal API keys for it are minted in Settings. The workflow:
- Open Settings and create a personal API key.
- Copy it somewhere safe the moment it is shown — the plaintext key appears exactly once, and there is no way to read it back later.
- Call the public API with the key to fetch the notes you want, in the format you asked for.
- If a key ever leaks or a script retires, revoke it in Settings. Revoking a key does not touch your account sessions.
The API is rate-limited to 120 requests per minute per key, which is ample for a nightly backup and deliberately hostile to scraping. A scheduled job that pulls your notes once a day sits comfortably inside it.
What an export is not
An export is a snapshot of a moment. A shared link is a living thing: the people holding it always see the current version, while a file in your downloads folder shows whatever was true when you clicked export. For notes other people are actively reading or editing, the link stays the source of truth, and exports are how you keep a personal copy alongside it.
- Re-export when it matters. A backup taken before a big edit is worth more than one taken after the fact; exports cost seconds, so take them freely.
- Do not use exports to transfer edits. There is no import-from-file path that reconciles with the live version. The page is the document; the export is a copy.
- Automate the boring part. If the thought of manual exports already bores you, that is the signal to mint an API key and put a scheduled script behind it.
The point of all of this is asymmetry: reading your notes should never depend on LiveNote being available, agreeable, or even still running. Export the ones you would hate to lose.