How to make old diaries and notebooks searchable

1. Photograph or scan the pages. Photograph the pages in order, or scan the notebook as a PDF. In the iPhone app, use “Old notebook” on the camera; the document scanner opens again after each round.
2. Bring in an old notebook. In the web app under Scans: pick the notebook, optionally fill in “Roughly when”, such as 2019–2020, and choose all photos or PDFs at once. They go up in the order of their file names.
3. Let it read, then search. Axsuro reads the pages in the background and sends one notification when the notebook is done. Then search it with ⌘K, ask Ask or leaf through the book.

A page from today should do something: todo: becomes a task, cal: an event. For a diary from 2019 that would be wrong. A task from back then is not a task today, and an event from back then does not belong in your calendar.

That is why old notebooks have their own way in. Archive pages are read like any other page, word for word, with headings, #projects, @people and sketches. But no tasks, events or emails are made, and nothing waits for “Confirm”. Marked lines stay on the page, “From the archive”. If you still need one, you turn it into a task by hand.

So that “On this day” and searching by time work, every page gets a date. Axsuro takes, in this order:

1. the date written on the page,
2. otherwise the date of the page before, since the pages are in order,
3. otherwise the range you gave under “Roughly when”,
4. otherwise the day you uploaded.

Guessed dates are marked “≈”, and the page says where the guess came from. If one is wrong, change it on the web with “Set the date”. A tip: for diaries that rarely carry a date, fill in the range under “Roughly when”.

• Search: ⌘K finds every line that was read, in all notebooks, old and new.
• Ask: ask in plain words, such as “When was I last in Trieste?”. Ask searches by words and by meaning, across languages too, and answers only from your notes, with a link to the page.
• The book: every notebook opens as a book, each page redrawn in a handwriting font close to yours. The photo of the original page stays with it.
• On this day: Home shows a page from exactly one year ago, by its date, not by the day you uploaded it.

What is about today, such as your week or open questions on Home, leaves archive pages out on purpose. A diary from 2019 does not crowd your Monday.

Archive pages have their own allowance, once per account, and never take pages of the month away:

• Free: 50 archive pages
• Plus: 300 archive pages
• Pro: 1,000 archive pages
• Business: 1,000 per member, shared by the team

Scans shows how many you have used. Photos work as JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC up to 15 MB, PDFs with up to 50 pages per file; split larger scans. All plans are on pricing.

Your pages are stored in Frankfurt, read in the EU, encrypted in transit and at rest, and never used to train AI models. You share a notebook only if you want to. Export everything as one file or delete your account at any time under Settings → Data & privacy.

To be honest: the pages do leave your phone for this. How Axsuro handles the new pages you write from now on is in the guide Digitise handwritten notes.

• How to digitise handwritten notes and keep writing on paper
  How to digitise handwritten notes and whole notebooks, old pages and PDFs included. Then search, ask, organise and export everything you wrote.
• How to digitise your bullet journal without typing
  Bullet journal to digital: photograph the page, drawn boxes become tasks, cal: an event, and habit trackers show streaks and rates with Plus. No typing.
• Research notes for your dissertation: from paper to searchable
  Research notes on paper for a dissertation or thesis: every line searchable, Ask answers with the source page, formulas as LaTeX, notes on printed PDFs.
• Make old diaries, notebooks and family archives searchable
  Bring in old diaries, letters and notebooks at once: Axsuro reads every page, guesses the date and makes it all searchable, with nothing to confirm.