Appearance
Highlight
Highlighting marks the parts of a note you'll come back to. It's the thing you do on a second read, not a first draft.
Adding a highlight
- Type it — wrap text in double equals:
==like this==. The highlight appears as you close it. - Select and press
Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+H. - Select and tap the highlighter in the toolbar that appears over your selection.
Any of those gives you the default amber.
The other three colours
Tap and hold the highlighter button and three more colours appear. They exist so a colour can mean something:
| Ink | Suggested meaning |
|---|---|
| Amber (default) | Important — the thing you'd underline |
| Moss | Positive, keep, agreed |
| Wisteria | A theme or topic that keeps recurring |
| Lacquer | A problem or a risk |
Nothing enforces those meanings. They're a starting point.
The swatches are behind a hold rather than sitting in the toolbar because the toolbar is already busy, and most highlights are the default one.
To remove a highlight, select it and press the same shortcut again, or use the ✕ in the swatch row.
Highlights work everywhere in a note
A highlight is a text style, not a block, so it composes with everything else: inside callouts, inside list items, on top of bold or italic text, across a link.
How it's stored
Amber highlights are written as ==text== — the same syntax Bear, Obsidian and Apple Notes use. They stay readable in any markdown editor and survive export to Obsidian as real highlights.
The three named colours have no equivalent in any markdown dialect, so those are stored as a small HTML tag inside the note instead. They still round-trip perfectly within MLW, and in other markdown apps the text stays intact and readable — it just won't be coloured.
If you want your notes to stay 100% portable markdown, stick to the default amber.
On mobile
Highlights render on mobile too, in all four colours, in both the note editor and the Notes pane on Today. To add one there, type ==text== by hand — the hold-for-colours toolbar is web-only for now.