Getting Started

Ready to set up Basic Memory? Start with the quickstart guides:

Choosing Where Notes Are Saved

By default, Basic Memory saves notes in a project called main in ~/basic-memory. To save notes elsewhere:

Use Your Existing Notes Folder

Ask your AI assistant directly:

Create a new project called "my project" in the "/Users/yourname/Documents/Notes" directory

Then:

Set the default project to "my project"

Or use the command line:

# Point Basic Memory to your existing notes folder
basic-memory project add "my project" <path to your project>

# Make it your default location
basic-memory project default "my project"

Want to use Obsidian? Just open your folder location as a vault. See the Obsidian Integration guide.

Multi-Project Setup

Basic Memory supports multiple projects for organizing different knowledge bases (work, personal, research, etc.).

How it works:

When you start a conversation, the AI will:

1. Check your available projects
2. Suggest the most active project based on recent activity
3. Ask which project to use for this conversation
4. Remember your choice throughout the session

Example:

You: "Let's work on documentation"

Claude: I see you have 3 projects: main, work-notes, personal
Your most active project is work-notes
Should I use work-notes for this task?

You: "Yes, let's use work-notes"

Creating projects:

# Command line
basic-memory project add "work-notes" ~/Documents/work

# Or ask your AI assistant
You: "Create a new project called 'work-notes' in ~/Documents/work"

For users who primarily work in one project:

Enable Default Project Mode in ~/.basic-memory/config.json:

{
  "default_project": "main",
  "default_project_mode": true
}

With this enabled, the AI uses your default project automatically when no project is specified.

Staying Updated

To update Basic Memory when new versions are released:

# Update with uv
uv tool upgrade basic-memory

# Or Homebrew
brew upgrade basic-memory

Next Steps