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How I use org-roam

· 7 min
org-roam ui

While Org-mode is fantastic in its core functionality, there is a lovely little extension that creates a way to build a wiki for all personal knowledge, ideas, writing, work, and so much more: org-roam. A “clone” of ROAM research, if you are familiar with logseq or obsidian, this will have you feeling right at home (albeit, actually at home inside emacs).

It has taken some time to figure out how I wanted to use org-roam, but I think I have cracked the code. I will discuss how I’ve been capturing, filing away, and taking action on everything that pops into my head.

As a small overview, Org-Roam gives you the ability to create notes (big whoop). The power comes in the backlink to any previous note that may be in your system, similar to how Wikipedia links between articles. As I write in any org-roam document (node), I see suggestions of past notes I have taken, giving the option to immediately create a link back to them. This is fine on it’s own, but you start to see inter-linking between ideas: which becomes massively helpful for research and creating new connections of information. Generally, one would be blind to in other methods of note taking.

Org-roam uses an sqlite database (which some critique), as well as an ID system in which everything (files, org headers) have a unique ID. This ID is what forms the link between our notes.

Let’s discuss how I’m using this.

Capturing#

As with my org-mode flow, the goal is to not only capture, but to reduce friction of the capture to almost nothing.

I have capture templates for the following files in my general org-mode file:

What I was lacking was a way to integrate with org-roam and create backlinks across the notes I was taking on everything.

Enter the new capture system.

I use SPC n j (mapped to org-roam-dailies-capture-today) to hit a daily org-roam file (~/org/roam/daily/2026-04-10.org for example) which is my capture file for everything for the day. I write everything in this file. I mean everything:

I then take 5 minutes at the end of every day and file away these items into org-roam nodes if they are “seeds” (in the digital garden sense), actionable items, things I want to look into at some point, or just leave them in the daily file to be archived for posterity.

Whenever I want to write something on the computer, emacs is the place I do so, in which I have autocomplete, spelling check, and macros right at my finger tips. I hit a keybind that universally reaches out to emacs and opens the org-roam-dailies-capture-today buffer if I am not on workspace 1 (emacs) and capture the thought/writing/email/text/content, and move on with my day.

What this also allows it the use of my capture system via termux on my phone. I simply leave my ~/org/roam/daily/date.org file open every morning in termux running in emacsclient on my workstation, and go about my day. This means all notes live in one place, I don’t generally have to go into “note to self” in signal or xmpp and move things around, and org-roam works out of the box for backlinking and clean up. Is it ideal? No, but it is still better than the various mobile orgmode apps I have tried. I treat the phone just as a capture node, all organizing and refiling happens on my bigger screen at end of day.

Hidden benefit: Ultimate grep#

The major benefit of this methodology is that we have content which is greppable forevermore. If I write, it is written in emacs. Anything more than a sentence or two is in my daily file. I don’t care what it is, I can grep it for all time, version control it, and it is ready to expand upon in the future.

Refiling#

By the end of the day, I may have dozens of captures in my daily file. I sit down, open the file up, and review. If the item is actionable or has a date/deadline associated with it, then it is filed to inbox.org/calendar.org. If it is an idea that is a seed of something larger, it is filed into its own org-roam node that can then grow on its own. If something needs to be filed under an existing roam-node, that occurs here as well, and backlinks organically take shape as I write. Finally, if the item is none of these things, it just lives in the daily file as an archive that can be revisited later with ripgrep as stated above. I have SPC / bound to project-wide consult-ripgrep for this, which I use frequently for finding anything.

Refiling is simply accomplished by:

;; Refile to org-agenda and roam nodes
(setq org-refile-targets
      '((org-agenda-files :maxlevel . 4)
        (org-roam-list-files :maxlevel . 4)))


;; Refile to org roam nodes
'org-roam-refile

Which will give you files and org headings under which to refile everything.

Linking#

As we grow our notes database, we will start to see that we have autosuggestions offered via cape and corfu.

They look like so:

[[id:9597060c-4401-46f5-98ed-b537dd1a6d5a][note]]

allowing a direct link to previous notes’ IDs, which are portable across the filesystem, so you can move files around to logically work in a heirarchy if you so choose. The standard advice is to keep a flat file system in which all notes are in one directory, but I like organization too much and have created nested directories for this. These links and IDs are handled via the 'org-roam-db-sync function that can be set to fire automatically on file changes.

Graph view#

Oh the fabled “neuronal link graph” that was popularised by Obidian - how could we forget about that? org-roam-ui opens a D3 rendered graph that looks nice, but I have not really found use for it other than pretty screenshots to show how “deep(ly autistic)” I am.

Conclusion#

I find this to be the easiest way to maintain a note taking system that actually grows with the author, while staying sane and keeping everything organized. The notes that we create allow us to understand deeply, and to make connections that are otherwise missed. As in my discussion with Prot, writing everything down has greatly impacted my thinking and allowed growth in areas that are deeply meaningful.

Org-roam (and holistically org itself) is once again, just text files. So, you can very easily take any .org file and back it up and hold onto it for all time, as you will never have any proprietary lock in. The database is just an sqlite database, which is the most portable and easily malleable database in existence. The two interlink to give you peace of mind were you ever to leave emacs (haha, you won’t).

If you don’t want the “heaviness” of org-roam’s database structure, you could use Prot’s denote package that is a more simplified (yet still highly powerful) method. I just like the autosuggestions and speed of roam, but your mileage may vary.

So there you have it, the way that I am using org-roam to create a mind map/second brain and keep notes on everything I come across on a daily basis. How are you using org-roam, or do you have a note taking system you swear by? Post below or send me an email!

As always, God bless, and until next time.

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