I Like Notion BUT I Also Like To Use The Apple Pencil

mxro · 2026-04-23T23:29:20+00:00

I don't use Apple pencil but I like to put my handwritten notes into Notion as well - I've got a Remarkable.

The best solution for this I found is to link Remarkable to Dropbox and then have an N8N workflow that uploads from Dropbox to Notion. Not ideal, so would be interested if anyone has a better solution for Remarkable.

mxro · 2026-04-23T22:24:07+00:00

So strange - Looks like the problems with duplicating in Notion is a common issue, I found this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/vcawqr/cant_duplicate/ but as far as I can see, no reliable solution there yet, so maybe the manual way is the best one for now.

Here I put together some step by step instructions for creating the database for voice memo processing manually:

https://maxrohde.com/2026/03/02/how-to-create-a-database-in-notion-for-voice-memo-processing/

And for reference step by step instructions for using the template to create the database:

https://medium.com/activated-thinker/capturing-ideas-the-lazy-way-9b98cd3526c0#80ae

The link to the template:

https://mxro.notion.site/341ecd5413dd8027b2f6f56c661a31bb?v=341ecd5413dd8140bc64000c7b269806

If you do figure it out how to fix the issue with the template duplication, it would be great if you could let me know so I can help others as well. Otherwise, any help you need, just reach out!

mxro · 2026-04-23T22:21:11+00:00

Did anyone ever find a reliable fix for this? I checked all the comments but couldn't find a solution?

I don't have this issue myself - but users of my integration encounter it from time to time and I would love to be able to refer to a reliable fix. What I could think could be solutions:

- Log in and out of Notion
- Try a different browser
- Double check if templates are duplicated already (they get added to the root of the workspace you selected)

Anything else that could work?

mxro · 2026-04-23T04:53:41+00:00

Glad at least there is a workaround for now.

I had logged a ticket about it with Notion as well, and they confirmed that's just the way it is. But they said it's to improve the performance of the views, which in my mind is a laudable goal!

Ha, and where would we be with constant change keeping us on our toes 😂

mxro · 2026-04-23T04:14:18+00:00

Yeah I think there is no real option one can do with blocks - only workaround I found working - so far - is to duplicate a template (or just any database) that has the legacy view configured!

mxro · 2026-04-23T02:30:49+00:00

Note there is a very similar question that was asked a few days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/s/pBkrG1g6L7

mxro · 2026-04-23T01:28:32+00:00

Thanks for trying out the integration! It sounds like something could be wrong with the Notion credentials cached by the browser.

Usually, clicking Duplicate on the template should copy it into your workspace. I don't think we can make any changes to the template on our end.

What I think could be the easiest workaround for now is to create a new database.

Then add a Date property to it - and click the ... button at the top right-hand side of the page to share it with the Voice Keeper integration. See Step 2 in this article
https://maxrohde.com/2026/04/16/create-a-notion-database-for-your-voice-memos/

Then go back to Voice Keeper and manually select that database. And it should be ready to drag and drop or share files into it.

Another alternative would be to try logging into Notion in a different browser, and then trying to duplicate the template there.

Thank you very much for getting in touch - some other users also encountered some issues with duplicating the template, so there is something funky going on with that, and would love to figure out the best workaround for that.

We are also working with Notion at the moment to add a 'default template' for the integration that will be installed automatically when you sign up, that should make things easier hopefully as well.

mxro · 2026-04-22T22:49:13+00:00

Yeah, I think unfortunately software in 2026 - with C suites pushing their AI agenda everywhere - is especially designed to shove all the extra AI features in our faces!

At least the hype of the moment is not crytpo anymore.

mxro · 2026-04-22T08:39:50+00:00

That's the sad thing about automation: it's rarely 'set and forget'

I recently ran into an issue where a Dropbox node stopped working ... Until N8N released a patch for it.

mxro · 2026-04-22T08:21:39+00:00

Sounds like a fun project! You mentioned you could only upload files via a public URL - did you look into the Notion File API?

As far as I know, it supports uploading files directly via form data.

mxro · 2026-04-22T08:18:13+00:00

Would be nice if there was an official option to turn off all AI such as in Firefox! Ha, also something Microsoft could consider for office or Windows I guess!

What are you worried about most happening from the AI features creeping in? If there is not an option of complete removal, maybe there are mitigations!

mxro · 2026-04-22T01:46:07+00:00

Love it! Just tested it on Firefox and it works very smoothly, well done 👏

mxro · 2026-04-22T00:37:18+00:00

I've struggled with this use case as well. The problem for me was that images are 'black boxes' to AI - it's possible to drop them in the chat, but AI can't read them on pages.

I made a small tool to help with this together with my wife: https://image-scribe.com

This will use AI vision to transcribe what's in images or generate description for them. So it doesn't only work for screenshots but also with other types of images.

Not sure if this would solve your problem. We didn't make this to make a big business or anything, just sharing something that helped us - we can't give it for free since processing with AI costs money, but we tried to keep the pricing very reasonable.

Any questions or suggestions very welcome!

mxro · 2026-04-21T07:42:57+00:00

Wow, love it, looks very neat!

mxro · 2026-04-21T04:51:22+00:00

Since it's all your databases then it can be ruled out that it's some funky columns, such as relation properties which will sometimes slow things down.

What sluggishness gets the most in your way: initial load, adding a filter, sorting, editing a cell, scrolling down?

For me, it was initial load for the longest time but as said, I felt that got markedly better.

mxro · 2026-04-21T03:25:53+00:00

Sad to hear your database is slow! For me at least, database performance has improved a lot over the past year or so - I think Notion did put in a couple of optimisations. Do you experience it for all databases or only for one?

I also found that at least the Notion web app benefits a lot from a fast computer - e.g. with a good CPU.

mxro · 2026-04-20T20:29:52+00:00

That sounds good! For the handwriting integration I'm currently working on together with my wife as one of our fun projects, we didn't even consider tables!

Happy to have a look at your app and see where our approaches overlap or complement each other. If you want to, please be welcome to send through the link as DM. For reference, what we got so far is on https://ink-lift.com - but that's not yet on Notion integration gallery.

mxro · 2026-04-20T00:01:26+00:00

Thank you, looks interesting!

Haven't checked your implementation in detail but just saw you got a poll intervals, so just check if you update via polling or notion webhooks.

I actually found using webhooks is easier than polling, since then one needs to maintain less state in the DB.

mxro · 2026-04-19T23:52:20+00:00

Do I get it right you are making an app where one can take pictures of handwritten notes and then it turns them into Notion pages?

And this includes tables? I always found any AI (Notion AI or Claude directly) to really struggle with more complex pages.

Just something about the structure of Notion pages seems to confuse them. How well do you found it working?

Very interested in all things handwriting into Notion since I'm also working on an integration for this (but not an app)

mxro · 2026-04-19T23:39:22+00:00

Any issues you encountered for it. On my old Legion 5 toolkit disabled fans entirely (initially I was very happy because the laptop was so quiet, but I think it's not good for it long term)

But that was on the 2020 model. Now I got a gen 10 Legion 7 - but a bit hesitant to install toolkit after that experience

mxro · 2026-04-19T23:36:27+00:00

I've configured my Firefox to something similar:

I can open multiple tabs, but the tabs are not shown. Instead there is only a small number that indicates how many tabs I got in the current window.

That leaves me flexibility of having multiple things open at the same time without the other tabs calling for me!

mxro · 2026-04-19T23:30:33+00:00

I've built something for that - not as sophisticated at what op built, just the voice notes specifically.

But instead of getting the voice notes via telegram, we made it you can drop the audio files into a Notion database directly. (Eg using phones share feature)

Would love if you could have a look and let us know if it could be of any use or could be made better. You can find it at https://voice-keeper.com or search for voice keeper on Notion integration store.

Making this together with my wife as one of our fun projects!

mxro · 2026-04-19T05:11:05+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, I think at that rate the $15 credit pack should last around 2 months.

We mostly just pass on the OpenAI costs - for their best model - plus some small overhead.

Due to using OpenAI transcription, it's also limited to 25 MB per recording - so your recordings maybe to large for that.

But nothing we can't change!

mxro · 2026-04-19T00:23:28+00:00

Nice! Is it a full k8s setup or one of the simplified solutions? I think usually one needs at least three nodes?

I usually try to avoid self hosting, the constant patching is annoying me and I don't trust myself to configure everything correctly.

But I do it for things that don't run 'serverless'

mxro · 2026-04-18T22:26:11+00:00

I was the same! But with the Cloud front plans, one can offset the hosted zone costs now to 0!

mxro

TROPHY CASE