Collections: Everything You Marked, in One Place

Now we'll move to Collections. Every highlight, every checklist box, every date you wrote, every picture and every link, gathered across all your notes and sorted by kind. Collections turn a semester of notes into lists you can read in one sitting — every formula in Accounting, every task still open, every date coming up.

How to get there

Collections has no toolbar button and no menu item. It opens from the Highlights shelf inside a folder in the Library: open the Library (⌥⌘0), open a folder, and click a pen tile — say Formulas · 12. Collections opens on that pen's list, scoped to that folder.

The header ①

Library (a left chevron) returns to the Library's top level. If you arrived from a folder, that folder's name follows — click it to go back exactly where you were. Then the title Collections.

The list of collections ②

One row per collection that has something in it — a collection exists because there is something in it, never because the app has a feature:

• One row per pen that collects, titled with the pen's name (Highlight for the plain pen), with a highlighter icon.
• Tasks (a checklist icon) — every - [ ] box.
• Dates (a calendar icon) — every date Cocoa found in your writing, such as 2026-09-14 or "September 14".
• Images, Links, and Bookmarks (your dog-eared pages).

If nothing has been collected anywhere, the view reads Nothing Collected Yet — Highlight something, or write a checkbox, and it will gather here. With rows but none chosen: Pick a Collection.

Inside a collection ③ ④

Rows are grouped by the note they come from (Dates group by Today, Tomorrow and so on). A highlight row shows the marked words in the pen's color with the sentence around them; a task row has its box; a date row has the date and an Add to Calendar button at its right end.

The controls bar ④:

• The scope pill — Everywhere (a tray icon) or a folder's name with its icon. Click the × inside it to widen back to everywhere.
• Search within — a text field that filters the rows; a small ⊗ clears it.
• The sort menu.
• The visible count at the right.

Click a row and the note opens with that mark pulsing on the page — the same as Reveal in the Note in the row's right-click menu, which also offers Copy Text (the marked words) and, on a date row, Not a Date to dismiss a date Cocoa detected wrongly.

• Ticking a task box here writes the tick back into the note.
• Add to Calendar puts a date into your calendar and the header reads Added to Calendar. If macOS has not allowed it, Cocoa says: Cocoa does not have permission to add events. Grant it in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Calendars.
• The Images collection is a grid of thumbnails; double-click one, or select it and press Space, for Quick Look; right-click for Quick Look and Reveal in the Note.

When a collection is empty it reads Empty; when filters hide everything you see the system's "No Results" view.

Export ⑤

While a collection is showing, an Export button (a square with an arrow) sits in the window toolbar. Its menu: Export as Markdown…, Export as PDF…, Save as a Note… (the visible rows become a new note named after the collection), and Print…. It is disabled when nothing is visible.

The Highlights shelf, again

Back in the Library, each pen tile on a folder's Highlights shelf is a door into this view scoped to the folder, and its count is the number of marks. Hover a tile: "Everything marked Formulas inside this folder. Click a line there to jump to its page."

Maya reviews a semester

In the Library, inside Accounting II, Maya clicks Formulas · 14. Collections opens, scoped to Accounting II, every formula from every chapter in a list. She types "equity" in Search within to see the three about equity, clicks the first and lands on its page in Chapter 10 with the formula pulsing. Back in Collections she clicks Tasks, ticks "Practise problem set 3" — the box in the note is ticked too — and on Dates she presses Add to Calendar beside the exam date.

Summary

• Collections gathers marks by kind: one list per collecting pen, plus Tasks, Dates, Images, Links and Bookmarks.
• Open it from a pen tile on a folder's Highlights shelf in the Library.
• Scope, search, sort; click a row to jump to the mark; tick tasks; add dates to Calendar.
• Export the visible rows as Markdown, PDF, a new note, or print them.

Common mistakes

• Hunting for Collections in the menus or toolbar — it lives behind the pen tiles inside a folder.
• Expecting a pen with Collects off to appear — only collecting pens get a list (chapter 6).
• Wondering why a date appears — Cocoa finds dates in your text; Not a Date dismisses a false one.

Best practices

• Scope to a folder while revising one course; widen to Everywhere for cross-course tasks.
• Use Save as a Note… to turn a pen's collection into a study sheet you can annotate.
• Keep task lines short so the Tasks collection reads like a to-do list.

Keyboard shortcuts used

Related features to learn next

• Chapter 9, Study Mode and Flashcards.
• Chapter 6, Highlighters and Pens — which pens collect.
• Chapter 13, Import, Export, Backups and Sync — exporting whole notes.