Import any outliner into TreeNote with OPML

Workflowy and Dynalist both offer OPML from their built-in export menus, with nothing to install. Elsewhere, look for a generic Export in the item menu, the document menu or settings — OPML is usually one of several formats offered there rather than a separate feature.

Some tools export your whole account as one file; others export a single document or list, so you end up with several. Neither is better, but knowing which you have decides whether the next step happens once or fifteen times. Name the files after the documents while you still remember which is which.

Open Import & Export in the app menu, choose Import OPML and select the file. A new document appears with every level of nesting and the order of siblings preserved — a project five levels deep arrives five levels deep, not flattened.

Look for a note that should be in the note field, an item that should still be ticked, and something that had a date — the first two should be there and the third will not be. Finding that out on a document you recognise is much cheaper than finding it out later on one you do not.

Each file lands as its own document, so the folder structure is something you build here. ⌘⇧M moves items between documents and ⌘K jumps between them.

TreeNote also imports text straight from the clipboard: tab-indented lines become nesting, 1. becomes a numbered list and - [ ] becomes a real checkbox. For a tool with no OPML export at all — or for a list too short to be worth a file — this is the whole migration.

The canonical list, and the one the tool-specific guides cite rather than restate. It is a property of the file format, so it is the same in both directions — these are also the fields an OPML export out of TreeNote will not carry.

Five rows came across and five did not. Putting the second five back, in the order that repays the effort fastest.

Five fields cross, five do not, and this page told you which before you clicked. Free, and no card.