As of the end of October 2025, we will be deprecating the Notepads feature from within Cursor.
Why did Notepads exist?
Notepads were an early attempt at building reusable packages of critical context: coding best practices, pre-requisite info for the agent, prompt templates and more. They let users inject these notes and processes into conversations or Composer via simple referencing.
Why are we deprecating Notepads?
Cursor has since introduced new, specialized features - Rules, Commands, Memories, and improved Agent features for context discovery - that fully supersede Notepads. These capabilities provide deeper context management, better automation, team-wide standardization, and Git-tracked versioning. Notepads will be removed in the next version to focus on these best-in-class tools, though you may access them with 1.7.x or earlier versions.
How to Migrate Your Data
Note: You have until the end of October 2025 to migrate your data stored in Notepads.
1. Project & Team Guidelines, Coding Standards, Onboarding Docs
Move these to:
Project Rules: Store these as separate rule files in .cursor/rules within your project, or use AGENTS.md for simple instructions.
Team Rules: For organization-wide standards, team admins can set up enforced rules in the Cursor Dashboard.
2. Reusable Personal Instructions, Workflow Snippets
Move these to:
User Rules: Save your personal instructions in Cursor Settings → Rules.
Memories: Store recurring information and solutions that you want the AI to recall in context.
3. Operational Checklists, Workflow Automations, Standard Processes
Move these to:
Commands: Convert each checklist or workflow (e.g., code reviews, bug triage, onboarding steps, deployment processes) into a Markdown file in .cursor/commands (for project-specific) or ~/.cursor/commands (for personal/global use).
For team-wide automation, define Team Commands via the Cursor Team Dashboard.
Trigger commands instantly in chat with /command-name.
4. Documentation, File/Folder References
Move these to:
Markdown Files: Place documentation in standard markdown files and reference them with the @ symbol.
@condor Is there any way to recover my Notepads? I’ve been using them to keep high-level project contexts, including PRDs. I didn’t notice any prior warning before upgrading to the latest version, and unfortunately, I don’t have a backup of those notes — they’re quite important for the ongoing development of my projects.
It would be really helpful if future deprecations could include an in-app warning (for example, within Cursor), as users may not always check the forums for such updates.
And of course I have to go to the forum every day to find out that my Notepads have been taken away from me and I have to migrate the data from them in time, because, of course, Cursor app DOESN’T TELL ME ANYTHING about this change.
Notepad was a feature I loved and talked highly about, it was quick and git didn’t recognize it, I had docs, api’s, insights from team convos etc. C’mon cursor team, bring Notepad back!
@Artemonim the issue was that it was also always included on AI requests and newer features handle it more fine grained. Overall should reduce token consumption and improve handling with latest implementations.
I just asked Cursor to recover them for me since I didn’t want to go through the trouble of downgrading.
Prompt:
Cursor deprecated Notepads and I lost mine. Can you help me recover them?
Here's what I need you to do:
1. Search for notepad data in my Cursor workspace storage databases:
- macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/
- Linux: ~/.config/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/
- Windows: %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage\
2. Look in each workspace folder for state.vscdb files (SQLite databases)
3. Query each database for notepad data:
SELECT value FROM ItemTable WHERE key='notepadData';
4. Extract all the notepads you find and create two files in my current workspace:
- recovered_notepads.md (human-readable markdown format)
- recovered_notepads_raw.json (raw JSON backup)
5. Show me a summary of what you found (how many notepads, from which workspaces).
The notepad data is stored as JSON with this structure:
{
"notepads": {
"<id>": {
"name": "Notepad Name",
"text": "Notepad content...",
"createdAt": timestamp
}
}
}
Please format the markdown file nicely with:
- Each notepad as a section
- The notepad name as a heading
- Creation date if available
- The full notepad text
The Notepad feature in Cursor was incredibly useful — I used it daily for quick coding notes. It was one of the key features that made Cursor stand out from other AI tools like VS Code and Windsurf. Please consider restoring it to its original form.
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