Sempere
Guide contents

Using Sempere

Import from Notability

What the importer reads, what it brings over, the options, and the report.

Sempere imports the raw notes of a personal Notability backup: .note and .ntb files, folders that hold them, or the backup’s zip files. It does not import Notability’s PDF exports. Notability is a trademark of its owner; Sempere is not affiliated with it.

For a step-by-step move, see the tutorial Move from Notability.

What comes over

  • ink, with pressure and pen styles, and the recognized handwriting Notability stored;
  • PDF page backgrounds, images and typed text boxes;
  • audio recordings, with their transcripts;
  • the note’s details, and tags or notebooks from your Notability folders.

Some things are converted approximately or not at all, and the import report counts them: dashed strokes come in solid, shapes are not converted to shapes, links from strokes to recordings, PDF highlights and template paper are not carried over.

Run it

  1. In the note list, choose Import from Notability… (on the iPhone, in the list’s ⋯ menu; on the Mac, also File ▸ Import from Notability…).
  2. Pick the files, folders or zip files. A backup split over several zip files must be picked all at once.
  3. Choose the options:
    • Attachments (on): PDF pages, images, typed text and recordings. Off imports only ink, recognized handwriting and note details.
    • Keep Photo Metadata (off): leave location and camera data in imported photos.
    • Tag Notes with Their Notability Folders (on).
    • PDF Page Text (on): makes the PDF pages’ text searchable.
    • Read Handwriting That Notability Did Not Index (off): recognizes, on this device, pages Notability never recognized.
  4. Tap Import. Large backups take a while; the window shows the phase and “Importing note n of N”. Cancel stops the import: while it is still reading, nothing is written; while it is writing, the notes already written stay.

Where notes land: if a notebook is selected in the sidebar, everything goes into it. With All Notes selected, notebooks follow your Notability folders.

When it finishes, Show Report lists what was imported, what was not, and any warnings, and can Share… or Save… the whole report as a text file. On the Mac, File ▸ Last Import Report… shows it again until you close the vault.

Running it again

The importer never overwrites a note. Notes already imported are skipped, so you can run it again on a newer backup to bring in only what is new, or to finish an import you canceled.

From the CLI

sempere import notability ~/Downloads/Notability-backup.zip --notebook "From Notability" --dry-run
sempere import notability ~/Downloads/Notability-backup*.zip --recognize missing

--dry-run shows what would happen. --recognize missing reads unrecognized handwriting afterward (macOS only).