laurent22/joplin · error · Error

No notebook has been specified.

Error message

No notebook has been specified.

What it means

In App.loadItems, when looking up a single note by title (no wildcard), the query is scoped to a parent notebook via loadFolderNoteByField(parent.id, 'title', pattern). If no parent notebook is available (currentFolder() is null and no options.parent), it throws 'No notebook has been specified.'. The message is i18n-translated.

Source

Thrown at packages/app-cli/app/app.ts:109

		pattern = pattern ? pattern.toString() : '';

		if (type === ModelType.Folder && (pattern === Folder.conflictFolderTitle() || pattern === Folder.conflictFolderId())) return [Folder.conflictFolder()];

		if (!options) options = {};

		const parent = options.parent ? options.parent : app().currentFolder();
		const ItemClass = BaseItem.itemClass(type);

		if (type === ModelType.Note && pattern.indexOf('*') >= 0) {
			// Handle it as pattern
			if (!parent) throw new Error(_('No notebook selected.'));
			return await Note.previews(parent.id, { titlePattern: pattern });
		} else {
			// Single item
			let item = null;
			if (type === ModelType.Note) {
				if (!parent) throw new Error(_('No notebook has been specified.'));
				item = await (ItemClass as typeof Note).loadFolderNoteByField(parent.id, 'title', pattern);
			} else {
				item = await ItemClass.loadByTitle(pattern);
			}
			if (item) return [item];

			item = await ItemClass.load(pattern); // Load by id
			if (item) return [item];

			if (pattern.length >= 2) {
				return await ItemClass.loadByPartialId(pattern);
			}
		}

		return [];
	}

	public setupCommand(cmd: BaseCommand) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 2654b33620)

Solutions

1. Select a notebook first: 'use <notebook>'.
2. Pass options.parent explicitly in code.
3. Create a notebook if none exist: 'mkbook <name>'.
4. Look up the note by id instead of title (id lookups do not require a parent).

Example fix

// before
//   const note = await app().loadItem(ModelType.Note, 'shopping'); // throws
// after
//   const note = await app().loadItem(ModelType.Note, 'shopping', { parent: myFolder });

const parent = options?.parent ?? app().currentFolder();
if (type === ModelType.Note && !parent) {
  throw new Error('Specify a notebook before looking up a note by title.');
}

try {
  await app().loadItem(ModelType.Note, title);
} catch (e) {
  if (/No notebook has been specified/.test(e.message)) {
    await app().switchCurrentFolder(defaultFolderId);
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Looking up a note by title while no notebook is current and no explicit parent is passed — e.g. running 'cat mynote' in a fresh session before 'use'.

Common situations: Same as the wildcard variant: no notebook selected, all notebooks deleted, or scripting without setting a parent.

Related errors

• Cannot find "%s".
• More than one item match "%s". Please narrow down your query
• Cannot find "%s".
• No notebook selected.
• Cannot find "%s".

AI-assisted analysis of laurent22/joplin@2654b33620 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c934299271da99cc. Report an issue: GitHub.