Collections is Mem’s equivalent to tags used in other note-taking applications. This introductory guide will explore what collections do and how to use them in Mem.
What is a Mem collection?
A Mem collection is a way to group related notes together in one collection. A single note can be a member of multiple collections.
The collections in Mem make it easier to mix ideas and knowledge, allowing the generation of new ideas from your notes in Mem.
Ideally, you want to maintain your notes with a manageable amount of structure as notes can have relevance to notes in other areas, and modern note-taking or knowledge management frameworks such as PARA and Zettelkasten embrace this.
But you must have some structure to your notes and collections to allow quick retrieval of other related notes; backlinks and collections can be used to provide such connections.
Collections allow you to group related notes on a subject together. For example, I have just written a note on consciousness. I realise that I have written some notes on that subject, so I created a collection on consciousness. I also think the note has some relevance to Artificial Intelligence, so I added it to that collection as well.
I can then access that note quickly by opening that collection and looking through all notes relating to that subject. It allows one note to cover multiple areas of your interests.
How do Mem collections compare to tags in other note-taking applications?
Mem collection was originally called Tags, and Mem changed its name to Collections during the summer of 2023.
A collection in Mem has the same underlying concept of tags in other note-taking applications such as Obsidian and Logseq. It is nothing more than a way to group related notes together.
How do you create collections in Mem?
In this section, we will go through the process of collecting a collection in Mem.
- Open all Collections
- Click Add New collection
- Give the Collection a meaningful name
- Add a description
Mem will then suggest notes you want to add to the collection. You can add these notes by clicking the add button.
How do you add a new note to a collection?
In this section, we go through the process of adding a note to a collection. The process will be the same for both new and existing notes,
While working on a note, you can type the hash ‘#’ key and a list of suitable. If the collection you wish to add the note doesn’t exist, you can create a new collection for that note.
While testing, I encountered a bug when I added a new note by typing it in the collection. Even though the functionality is still there.
You can also add a note from the collection note by searching for the note you want to add and adding it from the search result. This worked, so you can use this as a workaround if you encounter the same problem.
How do you remove a note from a collection?
I doubt you will need to remove a note from a collection that often, but here are the steps you need to take to remove the note.
You can remove a note from a collection by deleting any mention of the collection from the note.
Deleting a collection in Mem
You can delete the collection from inside the collection note. I would be cautious while doing this. In fact, I would advise against it in most cases. Thankfully, the Mem application does show a warning before requesting you to confirm the deletion.
Summary
You should now understand what a collection in Mem is and how to use collections in Mem to help organise related notes.
I recommend our guide on creating a Zettelkasten in Mem.