How to chat with your notes

Notes pile up quietly. A few lines after a call, a list of ideas on the train, a reading note on a book, a page of thoughts before a hard decision. Years later the notes app holds thousands of them, and a question like “what have I written about pricing?” or “what did I conclude last time we considered hiring?” has an answer in there somewhere, spread across a dozen notes with different titles.

This guide covers how people usually look back through their notes, and how to gather typed, spoken and handwritten notes in Fabric so you can hold a conversation with them and get answers that point to the notes they came from.

How people usually look back through their notes

Keyword search in Apple Notes, Google Keep, Evernote or Notion is the usual method. It finds notes that contain the word you type. Notes written quickly tend to use whatever words came to mind at the time, so a note about pricing might say “what to charge” or “rates” and slip past the search.

Some people keep their notes findable through structure: tags, linked notes, a numbered system or a method like evergreen notes. These work well for people who keep them up. The structure has to be maintained by hand, and the notes taken in a hurry are often the ones that never get filed.

Pasting notes into ChatGPT gets a good answer for whatever you paste. The limit is how much you’re willing to copy across each time, and voice memos and paper notebooks rarely make it into the conversation at all.

Step 1: Get your notes into one place

Write new notes directly in Fabric, or paste text into it and it becomes a note. Fabric’s editor is where you’ll be reading and refining the answers later too, so it helps to have your notes and the conversation side by side.

Fabric has import functions for Evernote and Notion, and Notion pages can also come in through a connection, which needs a paid plan. Paper notes can be photographed with the free handwriting scanner, which turns each page into a structured note and keeps the photo alongside.

Spoken notes count too. Start a voice note in any Fabric app when you’re walking or driving, and Fabric transcribes it and produces a write-up when you stop. Meetings on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet can be transcribed from the desktop app with no bot joining. Transcription needs a paid plan.

Step 2: Leave the filing to Fabric, or add a folder

As notes arrive, Fabric creates embeddings so they can be found by meaning, writes a summary of each one, and suggests tags. You can also set up smart collections that fill themselves based on content, such as one for anything about product ideas.

None of this requires folders, and the assistant can search your whole workspace. A folder is still useful when you want a conversation limited to one set of notes, such as a journal, a research project or a client relationship.

You can add a comment or tags to anything you save. That helps with the terse notes that make sense on the day and puzzle you a year later, such as a list of four names with no heading. A comment like “possible advisors, from the March offsite” gives the assistant something to match against.

Step 3: Ask your notes a question

Open the AI assistant and ask. To keep it to one set of notes, open that folder first, and the assistant is automatically limited to it; or right-click the folder and add it to the assistant’s context.

Questions that work well with notes are the ones you’d struggle to answer by keyword. “What reasons have I given for and against moving to annual pricing?” “Which book notes mention habit formation?” “What did I worry about before the last launch, and did any of it happen?” “What ideas have I had more than once?” Answers cite the notes they drew on with clickable references, and for voice notes and meetings the references include timestamps.

Keep going with follow-up questions. If the assistant finds three notes about pricing, ask what changed between the earliest and latest, or ask for the exact sentence you wrote in one of them.

Step 4: Turn the conversation into a better note

Chatting with notes often produces a note worth keeping: a summary of everything you’ve thought about a topic, or a list of recurring ideas. Save the answer as a note and it joins the rest of your notes, ready for the next conversation.

The assistant can also edit notes directly. Ask it to merge three overlapping notes into one, tidy a rough voice note write-up, or add a section from another note. Each change appears for you to accept or reject.

If you’d also like to reach your notes from ChatGPT or Claude, the Fabric MCP server lets those tools search Fabric and create or edit notes. How to give ChatGPT memory of your notes walks through why people set this up.

Frequently asked questions

Can I chat with all my notes at once?

Yes. Open the AI assistant without choosing a folder and it searches across your Fabric workspace and connected apps. Open it inside a folder to limit it to those notes.

Can I move my notes from Evernote or Notion?

Fabric has import functions for Evernote and Notion. Notion can also be connected, which needs a paid plan.

Does it work with voice notes?

Yes. Voice notes are transcribed, and the assistant answers questions about them with timestamps. Transcription needs a paid plan.

Can I include notes I wrote on paper?

Yes. The handwriting scanner turns a photo of a page into a structured note, and it’s free on every plan.

Do I need to tag or organize my notes first?

No. Fabric creates embeddings and summaries automatically, and search works without any organizing. Note-taking basics covers habits that make notes easier to use later.

Can I use my notes as a second brain with AI?

Yes. You can capture notes without filing them and ask the assistant to bring related ideas together when you need them. Building a Second Brain explains the method behind the idea.

Which AI model answers questions about my notes?

You choose. One subscription covers models from the major labs, including Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok and Qwen.

Can I chat with my notes on the free plan?

Yes. Notes and the handwriting scanner are included on the free plan, along with limited AI use. Connections and transcription need a paid plan.

Can I capture notes on my phone?

Yes. The iOS and Android apps support typed notes, voice notes, handwriting scans and the share sheet for saving text and links.