[HN Gopher] Why and How I use "Org Mode" for my writing and more...
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Why and How I use "Org Mode" for my writing and more (2022)
Author : sebg
Score : 179 points
Date : 2025-02-24 09:53 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.evalapply.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.evalapply.org)
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Oh hei, HN! Post author here.
|
| Of all the giant blog posts I've written (brevity is not my
| strong suit), this one must have sent me the most traffic...
| Clearly there is a persistent unmet demand for Org Mode
| explanations / experience reports. Please write!
|
| For non-Emacs users:
|
| I've listed a bunch of alternatives that offer useful sub-sets of
| the Emacs version. On my Android phone, I use orgzly. I don't
| sync back and forth, preferring to hand-transcribe anything that
| is worth my while (I type fast enough on my computer). However
| it's good to know that my notes are just plain text, therefore
| always accessible.
|
| Recent-most epic win of using org-mode:
|
| Trivially exported the live demo version [1] of my talk [2] (org-
| babel) to a single web page [3] (reveal.js deck). It was a remote
| presentation, so it was great to be able to share the deck with
| the attendees.
|
| [1] clojure-web-app-workshop-functional-conf-2025.org here:
| https://github.com/adityaathalye/slideware/ (see raw source for
| export directives)
|
| [2] Talk video in this playlist: https://youtu.be/YEHVEId-utY
| (the playlist has video of the example I described in my blog
| post.)
|
| [3] All blog posts are just tiny websites :)
| https://www.evalapply.org/posts/why-and-how-i-use-org-mode/d...
|
| ---
|
| Edit: Discussed previously here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34967802 (164 points, 159
| comments)
| swah wrote:
| Have you tried Obsidian and can tell us if org-mode still holds
| some magic sauce from it?
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Never tried it. What I have "just works" for me. Also I value
| having everything local-first in plaintext.
|
| The ability to get on with life with the _absence_ of global
| organisation is my saviour. While any given org file may be
| well structured, my org files directory is a disaster zone.
|
| I just use rgrep and text search to get around. It's great!
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Long time Org-moder, 1-year Obsidian user here.
|
| I love org-mode with all my heart. I used it to run a
| consulting company for a decade and organize my entire life
| (reminder to mail my mom a birthday card? Recurring org task.
| Task breakdown and schedule for clients? Org.) I used it to
| keep all of my implementation and debugging notes. I've used
| it like Jupyter notebooks with inline code blocks. I've
| written tons of LaTeX math in it.
|
| For what I use it for, Org has a ton of magic sauce that
| Obsidian doesn't have for me. But Obsidian has one feature
| that, sadly, dominates all of that magic: ease of use on
| iDevices, including offline use.
|
| I can sit and work on Obsidian documents on my iPad+keyboard
| on an airplane without Internet access. I can reference my
| documents and update my todo lists from my iPhone without
| needing to SSH somewhere. The sync service is super smooth
| and the (much smaller) set of features is enough for most of
| my daily use.
|
| I miss org-mode very much though and if I were to change jobs
| and spend less time work-travelling I would probably switch
| back to it.
|
| One of the biggest reasons that I was comfortable using
| Obsidian specifically is because the disk format is mostly
| just Markdown (mod the infinite canvas stuff, which is
| documented JSON). Being locally-stored Markdown instead of a
| proprietary format, I feel like there's a reasonable pathway
| for me to reimport all of my notes back into Org-mode in the
| future if I decide to go that way (eg Pandoc)
| kstrauser wrote:
| I dabbled with Plain Org a while back when I was
| considering switching from iA Writer to Org. It can use
| iCloud to sync. Have you tried that, and if so, what was
| your experience like?
|
| I'd really like to use Org but that same limitation kept me
| from it. If I could at least view Org docs on the run, and
| do minor editing to jot quick notes, I think I could make
| the leap.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > If I could at least view Org docs on the run, and do
| minor editing to jot quick notes, I think I could make
| the leap.
|
| I just mentioned this in another comment here, but I
| think you would be interested too. I sync Org mode from
| the desktop to the mobile, and read in orgzly. To record
| things on mobile, I use voice notes. I'm right now
| working on a desktop application to transcribe and make
| voice notes accessible by other means as well. If you're
| interested then my Gmail username is the same as my HN
| username.
| wrs wrote:
| Same here! For me it's sync, PDF viewing, Mermaid and
| Excalidraw plugins, and (yes I'm a 35-year Emacs user
| but...) editing in preview mode.
| globular-toast wrote:
| For me this is a reason to avoid iDevices. I actually have
| an iPad and had no idea how hobbled these things are before
| I got one. I'd never consider doing any serious computing
| on it.
| AlanYx wrote:
| Obsidian is a great app and probably the closest thing
| spiritually to org-mode for those who aren't interested in
| emacs, but Obsidian doesn't (currently) come close to the
| whole package.
|
| Just as some examples: outline-centric without plugins (this
| allows functions like narrowing/hoisting to a particular part
| of the outline that you can't do in Obsidian), substantially
| better export/document authoring, org-babel (think Jupyter
| style notebooks or literate programming) integrated into the
| core concept, functionality integrated into the core system
| rather than siloed into plugins (org-agenda is essentially a
| combo of the dataview plugin and the todo plugin in Obsidian,
| but built to work together, and completely integrated with
| things like timekeeping/clocking for those who bill hourly,
| which is still missing from Obsidian). Plus some of the
| keyboard-centric stuff in org-mode is just really nice, down
| to little niceties like how you can manipulate dates and
| times without clicking around. Then there's all the benefits
| of emacs on top of that.
|
| To some extent a lot of this derives from org's 22 year
| history. It's a very mature system, with loads of
| functionality.
|
| One strength of Obsidian though is canvas mode. There aren't
| great emacs solutions like that at the moment.
| dambi0 wrote:
| Logseq might be worth a look. It supports org-mode files to
| a degree. There's a lot of org functionality. You can just
| about edit the files in emacs directly.
| AlanYx wrote:
| The original logseq developer was a heavy org-mode user
| prior to developing it. Though now that logseq is moving
| to a database backend rather than plain text files, it's
| becoming a different type of solution.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Is that going to be optional? I have been using log seq,
| and I really like that it is text based. I write so
| little that a lifetime of content could easily fit into
| memory and be searched, unindexed without issue.
| strobe wrote:
| I use both, while Obsidian is good and has lot in common but
| for some reason org-mode still feels more useful and
| permanent. If it something important for me personally I most
| likely will put it in 'org' but if I just need write
| something of temporary nature like documentation peace for
| work I might prefer Obsidian for that. Also org-mode
| TODOs/agenda stuff very helpful for triage of tasks and
| prioritization (I think it's just habit that has some
| 'migration' cost so I not really considering it as big
| benefit over other tools)
| dotancohen wrote:
| > I don't sync back and forth, preferring to hand-transcribe
| anything that is worth my while (I type fast enough on my
| computer). However it's good to know that my notes are just
| plain text, therefore always accessible.
|
| I sync Org mode from the desktop to the mobile, and read in
| orgzly. To record things on mobile, I use voice notes.
|
| I'm right now working on a desktop application to transcribe
| and make voice notes accessible by other means as well. If
| you're interested then my Gmail username is the same as my HN
| username.
| simonask wrote:
| I've been interested in Org Mode before, but the thing that
| always kills it for me is a good synchronization solution. Does
| anyone have any tips?
|
| I regularly access and update my notes on at least 5 different
| devices, and I often need to share notes with non-technical
| people, where the barrier of entry needs to be nothing more than
| a single link they can click. Currently, Google Docs serves that
| need, but it's not ideal for writing.
|
| The ideal solution for me would support using a Git service as
| the backing store, but the churn of making commits to synchronize
| has to not get in the way.
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Post author here. I'm not sure there is any one sync solution.
| To share with others, org-export and/or `pandoc -f org -t html`
| may be your friends. Also Github renders a subset org-mode
| text. What it can render may be good enough for your needs.
|
| Alternatively: how about something like this:
|
| - Stick the org source files in a private <Syncthing, or
| Dropbox, or equivalent> folder, so you can privately sync
| across devices.
|
| - Use a file watcher to auto-export selected files to a shared
| version of the folder so you can share rendered content with
| others, with permissions. pandoc is an option but it doesn't
| export all of org. I think it's not a crazy idea to use Emacs
| itself as your command-line exporter. If you want special org
| sauce in the export, maybe pass the command line invocation a
| dedicated init file for export-only use.
|
| - Further, because you are familiar with git, it may be not-
| crazy to run a Github/Gitlab/daemonised "render" action, on
| push to a remote repo. Once again, using the Emacs binary as
| the full-blown exporter.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Org-mobile exists[0], but I have yet to meet anyone actually
| using this protocol in the wild, and requires you to have your
| own server to mediate from, as well as emacs running on your
| phone.
|
| An alternative is to use Git(hub) as the mediator, and here
| Orgzly is a decent Android app with Git support[1]. It just has
| a tendency of clobbering your git log with automatically
| generated commit messages. It has WebDav capabilities too, so
| you could use Nextcloud as the mediator instead.
|
| There's also Syncthing, which is probably what everyone wants:
| all devices haves the same info, you commit to VC what you want
| when you want.
|
| My personal workflow? Accept that my desktop is where I do the
| real planning, and that the mobile is just for quickly looking
| up stuff in my notes. If I have ideas, I can email them to
| myself and process them later when I'm back on my desktop. Is
| it perfect? Far from it. Does it work? yes.
|
| 0: https://orgmode.org/manual/Org-Mobile.html
|
| 1: https://github.com/orgzly/orgzly-android/pull/1037
| donaldihunter wrote:
| I use org-mobile to sync w/ beorg[0] using iCloud sync.
| Between desktop and laptop I use git commits which works fine
| for me because I wan't the commit history anyway. I can
| imagine that git would cause unwanted friction if the goal
| was just syncing.
|
| [0] https://www.beorgapp.com
| agarttha wrote:
| syncthing for all my org files
| internet_points wrote:
| I just use syncthing, with
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncth...
| on Android and the official packages on desktop. On Android,
| I've been using the organice build from
| https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/issues/932# but have also
| installed https://orgro.org/ which is nicer for reading and
| simple edits. I've heard
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/synctrain/id6553985316?platfor...
| is nice for ios
| MichaelDickens wrote:
| I also use Syncthing. It's still not as clean as self-
| contained apps like Google Docs--sometimes there is a bit of
| a delay with the syncing that creates a conflict and I have
| to resolve it manually. But it works well enough.
| mcshicks wrote:
| Tailscale, ssh and emacsclient in terminal mode makes it pretty
| easy to access and update notes from different machines without
| syncing by just say leaving your main laptop on and connected
| to the Internet and using emacs daemon. If you have sshd
| running on all the machines you can use tramp to move files
| around or use git or many other tools. The trickier part is
| using emacs key bindings on say android. Read only sharing with
| PDFs works fine. Co editing is impossible :).
| hitchdev wrote:
| I run single script that does a commit, pull and merge without
| pulling open the editor. It takes a couple of seconds and works
| fine.
| simonask wrote:
| Sure, but that's not really a great/feasible/possible
| workflow on mobile.
| hitchdev wrote:
| It is. I run a very similar script on termux, triggered via
| termux widget on my home screen.
| fhd2 wrote:
| I just use git (manually committing) with GitLab, their web
| previews of org files are mostly good enough.
|
| I also have another set of notes that I sync with my phone and
| laptop via Syncthing, but that stuff isn't really using the
| more interesting org features, just quick and dirty notes. For
| anything serious it's just git.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I used org-mode for more than a decade and I still like it as a
| format a bit more than Markdown.
|
| But the main problem with it is Emacs. I want to use org-mode,
| but I don't need the hassle that is installing a decently
| configured emacs in multiple environments and platforms.
|
| Eventually I just gave up and went full markdown first with
| Joplin and currently with Obsidian.
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Post author here. I agree with the sentiment... Emacs org-mode
| sticks with me because it grew on me over the years. It's
| awesome, but it's also a lifestyle :D
|
| For your (very legitimate, "just gimme a distro") needs,
| perhaps Emacs Writing Studio could entice you back into the
| fold: https://lucidmanager.org/tags/emacs/
| tconfrey wrote:
| Thanks for the pointer to Writing Studio!
|
| Note also that LogSeq is an org-mode based PKM
| (https://discuss.logseq.com/t/logseq-org-mode-
| compatability/8...)
| hitchdev wrote:
| I wrote a command line tool called "orji" coz of this (still in
| alpha).
|
| I wanted to use orgzly or a text editor and just be able to
| write templates (in jinja2) or bash scripts to push data in or
| out of my notes.
| billfruit wrote:
| What about Obsidian app on Android asking for permission to
| access all files on the device?
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Because either apple is too stringent or the obsidian devs
| are too lazy, I see this this as a better alternative to not
| being able to sync your files on an ios device with your sync
| tool of choice. Right now the only two ways to sync your
| obsidian notebook on an iphone or ipad is to use icloud or
| obsidian's paid service. icloud falls short when your ipad is
| your only apple device, and I already have syncing across
| every other device with a different cloud service.
| kepano wrote:
| This is why:
|
| https://help.obsidian.md/android#Storage+permissions
| zackham wrote:
| If you're using org-mode and thinking about customizing it a bit
| more, and/or would like it to serve you in a way that is a bit
| more aligned with GTD, this reference from Bernt Hansen is
| without peer and just an incredible contribution:
| https://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html
| tconfrey wrote:
| "Growing support is easing collaboration via org files."
|
| The same month this article was written (4/22) I tried to make
| the case for org as an interchange format for productivity tools
| [1] and pointed to most of the same tools supporting org.
| (Disclosure, my browser extension, BrainTool[2] is listed in the
| article). I still love the idea of a local-first, plain text
| model for sharing personal data across productivity apps, but
| three years on its not clear to me that the momentum has been
| maintained. Are folks still building new things on top of org?
|
| [1] https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-
| Or...
|
| [2] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/braintool-go-
| beyond...
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Post author here... My dream: a grammar or specification for
| org text. So that someone can make a self-contained parser
| library (I'm not smart enough). So that others can embed it in
| all their tools, and so that someone can make an LSP for org
| text.
|
| IMHO, the integration of org-mode into Emacs is a double-edged
| sword. Great for me, because I get batteries-included writing
| support. /However/ terrible for distribution. The source code
| of the canonical implementation is the specification.
| Unfortunately, it is hardwired to the Emacs binary. That fact
| alone makes org text verboten to most of the known universe.
| Even if that weren't true, the absence of a standard makes it
| incredibly difficult for outsiders to maintain feature-parity
| of their own implementations with the canon, and with each
| other.
| tconfrey wrote:
| Completely agree, on both counts. Users often ask me how they
| can edit their BrainTool.org file outside the extension.
| There's no way I can in good conscience point the average
| knowledge worker toward installing an emacs distro!
|
| FWIW I use orgajs (https://github.com/orgapp/orgajs). Its
| well-supported and gives me a pretty complete AST. Highly
| recommend if you're working in JS.
| internet_points wrote:
| > The source code of the canonical implementation is the
| specification.
|
| https://orgmode.org/worg/org-syntax.html is the
| specification.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| The problem is a lot of the semantics is dependent on one
| of a myriad of user's configs. As a simple example, TODO
| keywords, tag inheritance, etc.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| You could specify what's vanilla default in the org
| packages.
|
| For that example, there's a file-local way to specify
| custom TODO keywords[^0]. Maybe that can get into the
| standard, but I'd be Ok with with a primitive, vanilla
| specification for org-mode first as striving to support
| everything would ensure no projects form around an emacs-
| free org-mode anytime soon.
|
| ---
|
| [^0]: https://orgmode.org/manual/Per_002dfile-
| keywords.html
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| My hacky solution for this when working with others has been
| using git post-receive/commit hooks to execute the org
| document (babel, pandoc, emacs html export, etc), so anybody
| with any editor can, if they understand the format, make
| changes without having to have emacs.
|
| I heavily abuse commit hooks in my hacky CI/CD pipelines
| though, so ymmv.
| internet_points wrote:
| > three years on
|
| I have been using org-mode for nearly two decades. Org-mode
| itself has existed for 22 years (beating markdown by 1 year!).
| For something as important as an archival format, I wouldn't
| base my decisions on the vagaries of the latest trends.
| tconfrey wrote:
| org is timeless for sure! Personally I've been using emacs
| since the 80's. But as the developer of a personal knowledge
| management application I was hoping that an ecosystem of
| specialized, easy to use, tools based on org would emerge.
|
| BrainTool is a browser extension for managing tabs and
| bookmarks. It saves your data in an org file. One feature is
| to allow an item to be marked as a TODO. For me personally I
| then integrate my BrainTool.org file into my overall org
| workflow and see that TODO in my org-agenda. But ideally a
| naive BrainTool user would be able to see that task in a tool
| like Todoist or whatever.
|
| For a while there it seemed like there was some momentum!
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| The problem with org mode (and magit to a somewhat less degree)
| is that it is tied to emacs. It will never be adopted by 99% of
| the developer community (or writing community at large).
|
| I say this as an emacs user who uses org for my company notes.
| mkesper wrote:
| And I think a lot of it is because of defaults. Whenever I open
| an emacs without my usual configuration of doom-emacs I have to
| admit it looks dated. Add to that default keyboard shortcuts
| not working and you've alienated practically everyone taking a
| look at it.
| subsection1h wrote:
| > _I have to admit it looks dated._
|
| I assume this is because most Emacs users, especially Emacs
| devs, disable the menu bar, tool bar, tab bar, scroll bar,
| etc.
|
| > _default keyboard shortcuts not working_
|
| Yeah, I think a new Emacs installation should prompt the user
| to choose between something like "Common keyboard shortcuts"
| and "Classic Emacs shortcuts". It would take me only a few
| minutes to set up all the common keyboard shortcuts for a new
| Emacs installation, but I think it should be just one
| setting.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > It will never be adopted by 99% of the developer community
| (or writing community at large).
|
| Something that will never be adopted by 99% of folks is totally
| fine.
|
| Most of my SW has less than 1% the adoption of org mode users
| (and thus less than 99.99% of the dev community will use it).
| Should I be concerned? Of course not!
| mplanchard wrote:
| I keep dreaming about writing a standalone org-mode app, but
| given how much of people's workflows are likely to be deeply
| tied to custom elisp that calls stuff from emacs' library or
| other emacs packages, it seems like a fool's errand.
| codexb wrote:
| The article comments on it briefly, but doesn't really answer the
| question -- "Why not just use Markdown?" It's already popular.
| There's already tons of support for it. What does org-mode give
| us that markdown doesn't?
| wrs wrote:
| Once you pick one of the many "extended Markdowns" (one
| downside of MD is that there's no agreement on what it actually
| is), they're essentially equivalent.
|
| But they're not easily _interchangeable_ , so what you're
| really choosing is not the syntax you want to use, but the
| environment and ecosystem of tools you want to live in. For
| example, compare org-mode in Emacs (decades of plugins, open
| source, TUI-oriented, very nerdy) to Obsidian (Markdown, pretty
| good plugin selection, closed source, GUI-based, approachable).
| d0mine wrote:
| There is much more to org-mode than just elegant markup. Here's
| a brief overview to get started:
| https://orgmode.org/features.html (linked the article).
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Well, I feel my whole post is my "why org-mode" swan song :D
|
| If I had to pick just one reason: Org-mode's much more regular
| --- and singular, unlike the many flavours of markdown ---
| syntax appeals to my sensibilities more. I linked to a post,
| which I agree with: https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-
| markup-only/
| BeetleB wrote:
| Because markdown is a markup, and org mode is an app (with
| behavior).
|
| Can I run source code blocks within a markup document?
| jrm4 wrote:
| FWIW, I ended up doing a lot of org-mode-like things by starting
| with https://zim-wiki.org a VERY long time ago; I use it for
| notes, scheduling, publishing my own website, and even slides
| with the s5 thing.
|
| Somewhere in there, I gave org-mode 2 or so years and eventually
| gave it up entirely; it just really plays SO un-nicely with
| literally everything else.
|
| Anyone else looking for this sort of thing, I'd probably point to
| Obsidian first, but I'll probably stick with zim for the time
| being.
| stn8188 wrote:
| I also love Zim! Don't get me wrong, Org-mode is cool and
| everything, but for a lot of what I do I need to just very
| quickly drop screenshots and a GUI is just easier. I also have
| a Zim-based website (https://wiki.shielddigitaldesign.com) and
| used it to track all my tasks on my master's thesis.
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