Troubleshooting 

    When something misbehaves, the log file usually records why. For anything key-related, start with kimun doctor:

    kimun doctor

    It reports what your terminal can deliver and what becomes of every key binding. Run it in the terminal you use Kimün in; see CLI → Doctor.

    Ctrl+Enter Acts Like Plain Enter 

    Most terminals can't tell Ctrl+Enter from Enter unless the kitty keyboard protocol is active. Kimün requests it automatically, but the terminal has to support it and have it enabled:

    • WezTerm ships with it off. Enable it in ~/.wezterm.lua:

      config.enable_kitty_keyboard = true

    • Kitty, Ghostty, foot support it by default.

    • On terminals without the protocol, use Ctrl+N. It follows links the same way as Ctrl+Enter.

    Ctrl+B Doesn't Make Text Bold 

    Ctrl+B is the leader gateway. For formatting, press it and then t b for bold, t i for italic, or t s for strikethrough.

    This is deliberate. Ctrl+I and Tab are the same byte (0x09) in ASCII, which is not something a terminal setting can change, so outside the kitty keyboard protocol Ctrl+I can only indent. Instead of having Ctrl+B and Ctrl+S work directly while Ctrl+I did nothing, all three formatting commands moved to the leader's +text group, which works in every terminal.

    If you want a chord anyway, bind one; see Keybindings. A binding on Ctrl+I will indent instead of italicise unless your terminal supports the kitty protocol. Kitty, Ghostty, foot, WezTerm with enable_kitty_keyboard = true, and Windows (whose console reports keys instead of bytes) support it. GNOME Terminal, Terminal.app, xterm, urxvt, and tmux/screen without extended keys do not. The same byte-level limit is why Ctrl+Enter needs the protocol too.

    Backspace Moves Focus Instead of Deleting 

    If pressing Backspace in the editor jumps focus to the drawer, your terminal is sending the older of the two backspace conventions. Backspace and Ctrl+H are the same byte (0x08) unless the kitty keyboard protocol is active, and Ctrl+H is bound to focus left, so Kimün reads the key as the chord.

    The byte alone can't tell the two apart, so you choose which one Kimün uses:

    ctrl_h = "backspace"    # Backspace deletes; the Ctrl+H chord is unreachable

    Under the default auto, Kimün picks backspace by itself when the tty's erase character is ^H. The footer says so the first time you open a note, and focus left then needs a new key or ctrl_h = "chord".

    If you use focus left, rebind it to another key; see Key Bindings.

    Two other fixes, either of which keeps both keys working:

    • Make your terminal send 0x7F. In Konsole, open Settings → Edit Current Profile → Keyboard and pick a key-bindings set whose backspace is ^? (the "Default" table). kimun doctor prints the current erase character. You can also run cat -v and press Backspace: ^? is fine, ^H is the problem.
    • Use a terminal that supports the kitty protocol (Kitty, Ghostty, foot, WezTerm with enable_kitty_keyboard = true, recent Konsole). There the two keys are distinct and no setting is needed.

    See ctrl_h for the full list of values.

    Middle-Click Paste or Drag-to-Select Doesn't Work 

    Kimün captures the mouse for panel dividers, list scrolling, and click-to-focus. While it does, your terminal's own mouse gestures are suppressed, including middle-click paste and drag-to-select-and-copy. A terminal either reports the mouse to the application or handles it itself; it cannot do both at once.

    • Per gesture: hold Shift to get the terminal's behaviour for one action. Shift+middle-click pastes and Shift+drag selects. This works in most terminals, including xterm.
    • Permanently: set mouse = false under [global] (or untick Preferences → Display → mouse) to give the mouse back to your terminal. This takes effect on the next launch. See Configuration → Mouse.

    Log Files 

    Kimün writes a log file on every run. Release builds record only warnings and errors. Debug builds log everything.

    Log file location 

    PlatformPath
    macOS~/Library/Application Support/kimun/kimun.log
    Linux$XDG_DATA_HOME/kimun/kimun.log (or ~/.local/share/kimun/kimun.log if XDG_DATA_HOME is not set)
    Windows%APPDATA%\kimun\kimun.log

    The file is created automatically the first time Kimün runs. Each run appends to it and there is no rotation, so delete it by hand if it grows large.

    Reading the log 

    Open the file in any text editor. Each line is one event:

    2026-04-08T10:23:01.456Z  WARN kimun: could not open last workspace: path not found
2026-04-08T10:23:05.789Z ERROR kimun: fatal error: broken pipe

    Crash reports 

    If Kimün crashes, the panic message and a full stack trace are appended to the same log file. Look for a line starting with [PANIC]:

    [PANIC] panicked at 'index out of bounds: the len is 3 but the index is 5', src/...
   0: kimun::app::...
   1: ...

    When reporting a bug, please include the relevant section of kimun.log.

    Fallback location 

    If Kimün cannot write to the platform directory (for example, because the home directory is unavailable), it falls back to the system temporary directory:

    PlatformFallback
    macOS / Linux/tmp/kimun.log (or wherever $TMPDIR points)
    Windows%TEMP%\kimun.log

    Reporting Issues 

    Open an issue with the relevant section of kimun.log, including any [PANIC] lines. If search returns wrong results, kimun workspace reindex <name> rebuilds the index from scratch, which fixes most index problems (see Workspaces).