Troubleshooting

macOS says it cannot verify Synapse

Builds are ad-hoc signed and not notarized yet. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway next to the message about Synapse. You only need to do this once per installed version.

“The application can’t be opened” on an Intel Mac

Make sure you downloaded Synapse-<version>-x64.dmg, not the arm64 one. The Intel build exists from 1.3.0 and has not been tested on Intel hardware yet: if it still fails, open an issue or build from source.

A recent vault is marked unavailable

The folder was moved, renamed or deleted. On the starter screen, use Locate… to point to its new location, or Remove to drop it from the list. Synapse never creates the missing folder again by itself.

A conflict banner appears

The note changed on disk while you had unsaved edits in Synapse, for example because a sync service or another editor wrote it. Synapse does not overwrite either version. Choose:

• Load disk version to take the file as it is on disk, or
• Keep my version to write your edits over it.

If the file was deleted outside Synapse, the banner offers Restore my version or Discard.

Links point to the wrong note

When two notes have the same name, a link resolves to the shortest path, preferring the linking note’s folder. Use a longer link such as [[Folder/Note]] to be explicit.

A note shows HTML as text

Raw HTML in notes is not rendered, by design. Use Markdown instead.

Reset preferences

Quit Synapse and delete ~/Library/Application Support/Synapse/settings.json. Defaults return on the next launch. To reset one vault, delete <vault>/.synapse/settings.json. Notes are not affected.

Report a problem

Open an issue on GitHub with the Synapse version, your macOS version and the steps to reproduce. For security issues, follow the security policy.