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How to share a note or send it by QR code

MemoKey can hand a note to another app as text, save it as a .txt file, or show it as a QR code that another phone scans. Nothing goes through a MemoKey server: the share sheet or the camera does the work.

Share a note as text

Open the note and tap Share in its toolbar, then Share in the Share Note menu. Your phone’s share sheet opens with the note’s title, a blank line and its text, ready for Messages, Mail, WhatsApp, Zalo or any app that takes text. Share is greyed out while the note has no text.

To share several notes at once, long-press a card on Home to start selecting, tap the other notes, then tap Share in the bar at the bottom. They are sent as one text, in the order of your list, with a line of three dashes (---) between notes.

Export Markdown in the same bar sends the selected notes as one .md file instead.

Save a note as a text file

Open the note, tap Share, then Save to Text. MemoKey makes a .txt file named after the note’s title (Untitled when it has none) and opens the share sheet, so you choose where it goes: Save to Files on iPhone, Google Drive or another app on Android.

The file holds the title, a blank line and the text, like a shared note. Restore from Backup in another copy of MemoKey can read a .txt file back as a note.

Move a note to another phone with a QR code

  1. 1. Show the QR code

    On the first phone, open the note and tap Show QR Code in its toolbar. The code holds the note’s title and text and is always black on white with a white margin, so it scans in dark mode too.

  2. 2. Open the scanner on the other phone

    On the second phone, open MemoKey, tap the add button on Home and choose Scan QR Code. The first time, iPhone asks to let MemoKey use the camera.

  3. 3. Scan the code

    Point the camera at the code. MemoKey shows “QR Code detected!” with the text it read, so you can check it before keeping it.

  4. 4. Add it as a note

    Tap Add to note. The text becomes a new note and a “Note added” message confirms it. The new note has no separate title: the old title is the first line of its text.

How long a note a QR code can hold

A QR code holds at most 2,331 bytes, title included. A plain English letter, digit or space is one byte; an accented letter such as é or ệ takes two or three, and an emoji four. So about 2,300 characters of English fit, and fewer of Vietnamese or emoji-rich text.

For a longer note, MemoKey says it is too long, shows its size in bytes and suggests sharing it as text, shortening it or using Save to Text. The QR code’s Share QR Code button sends the code as a picture, for example to print it or send it to someone who will scan it later.

Locked notes

Share, Save to Text and Show QR Code are in the note’s toolbar, so a locked note needs your passcode to open first. When you share several notes from Home and some are locked, MemoKey asks for the passcode once; Cancel leaves the locked notes out and shares the rest.

Whatever you share leaves MemoKey as plain text, and the lock does not travel with it: a note added from a QR code is a new, unlocked note without tags. Lock it again on the other phone if it needs to stay private.

How to lock MemoKey and single notes

Placeholders stay as written

Sharing, Save to Text and QR codes keep {date}, {time} and {cursor} exactly as you wrote them; only the keyboard and Copy fill them in. So a template scanned into MemoKey on another phone keeps working there, but someone who receives it in a chat app sees the placeholders themselves.

Guide to templates and placeholders

Still stuck? See the FAQ or Support page.