CherryTree is designed for developers, system administrators, and students who want to organize technical notes on a computer rather than depend on a phone app or automatic online sync. Its central idea is a notebook made from a tree of nodes, allowing a topic to be divided into branches and subtopics at any depth. This makes it practical to keep reference material, project documentation, and code snippets together in a structure that can be rearranged as work changes.
Each node can contain rich text or plain text with syntax highlighting for a selected programming language. Rich-text notes can combine formatted writing with images, tables, code boxes, attached files, links to other nodes, and LaTeX equations. A node can also serve as a code file, while branches can be moved through the tree by drag and drop. These options let users separate longer explanations from standalone code while retaining links between related material.
Organizing and storing a notebook
CherryTree saves a notebook as a single SQLite or XML file, or as multiple files and folders. Keeping the tree in one document can make it easier to carry a technical notebook as a self-contained file, and single-file documents can be password-protected. For large notebooks, SQLite is the suggested document type; if encryption is needed, choose the password-protected option when creating the file.
The storage approach also defines an important boundary: CherryTree does not sync notes automatically and has no mobile app. A document file may be kept in a cloud folder for access across computers, but it should be opened on only one computer at a time. For users who need to work offline on a single PC, this file-based arrangement keeps the notebook under their control; it is less suited to workflows that depend on simultaneous access or phone-based editing.
CherryTree is available for Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux, and macOS. On Windows, the 64-bit installer with LaTeX support is the direct installer option, and users whose notebooks need LaTeX equations should account for that support when choosing their setup. The software is released as open source under the GNU GPL v3 or later, and the CherryTree listing identifies the program and its Windows installer context.
Using and sharing notes
When material needs to be shared outside the notebook, CherryTree can export a node, a branch, or the complete tree to HTML, PDF, or plain text. Exporting only a node or branch can be useful when a recipient needs a focused piece of documentation rather than the whole notebook. The available formats also provide ways to reuse notes in contexts that do not use CherryTree’s own rich-text storage.
That rich-text storage is specific to CherryTree rather than Markdown, so users who need Markdown as their native note format should take that distinction into account. The interface is also dated in appearance, although the core workflow centers on the tree, the selected node, and its content. CherryTree is written by Giuseppe Penone and Evgenii Gurianov, and its offline, hierarchical design is particularly relevant when technical information benefits from a structured outline and a local document file.