My Anytype wishlist

Last year, Anytype quickly became my favorite note-taking app. I had been using Obsidian as my “second brain” for quite some time, and I wasn't looking for a replacement when I initially stumbled upon Anytype. But Anytype's workflow, licensing, and implementation pulled me away from Obsidian in the later part of the year. No matter how hard I try to experiment with other tools or return to Obsidian, Anytype keeps pulling me back.

That being said, Anytype isn't perfect, and there are a few things I would love to see from the platform. These are the top 12 things, in no particular order, I'd like to see from Anytype in the future.

An Integration and Plugin Library

The biggest thing I am missing from Obsidian is third-party integrations. If anything was going to permanently send me back to Obsidian, it would be the ability to pull in Readwise highlights, autofill movie and book metadata, and even take advantage of various large language models. Anytype has officially released its API, but we are still waiting on official integrations like these at the time of publication.

Monochrome Icons Similar to Notion's

I am a sucker for minimalist design. In most cases, the less color there is, the better. And though Anytype's overall design is pretty clean as it is, the inclusion of a monochrome icon set in place of standard emoji would take the design to the next level. Sure, you can upload each icon individually if you find an icon pack you enjoy, but the problem with this is that they aren't dynamic based on Anytype's theme. This means if you go between light and dark mode regularly, like I do, the icons will not update accordingly. So, in my eyes, a clean, minimalist, dynamic icon pack akin to something like what we see in Notion is a must

Ability to Alphabetize Collections in Widgets

I admit this one may be a bit niche, but I have created a custom organizational system for my personal note-taking. In Anytype, that means I heavily use collections to recreate the standard folder structure many of us are accustomed to from apps like Obsidian and Notion. To more easily navigate those collections, I have a widget pinned in the left-hand sidebar of the app. The problem with this is that objects in these collections aren't alphabetized in the widget. They appear to be organized based on creation date. Simply allowing us to organize the objects in collection widgets alphabetically would make finding our notes easier and more streamlined.

Recurring Tasks/Notes and Notifications

This is pretty self-explanatory. I'd love to use Anytype as my primary task management app. Without recurring tasks and reminders, it can't fully fill that need for me yet. It works well for packing lists, shopping lists, Kanban boards, etc., but for day-to-day tasks, it's just not there yet.

Obsidian's Templater Functionality

One of Anytype's strengths is templates. The ability to create any object with a fine-tuned template based on its type is crucial to Anytype's workflow. But what these templates lack is the ability to autofill data based on existing parameters or factors. For example, using the Templater plugin in Obsidian allows users to auto-generate titles, links, dates, etc., upon note creation. This would mean all of my daily notes could have unique titles based on the date they were created, rather than having the same title across them all or the need to manually rename them. In theory, we could also auto-create links to sets based on various relations, like note creation or last edited dates. Pair this functionality with the first item in this wishlist, and the sky is the limit for what we could do with Anytype templates.

Mobile Widgets to Quickly Navigate to Designated Objects

One reason I switched to Anytype from Obsidian is the mobile app experience. No, Anytype isn't perfect on mobile, but, out of the two, I find the experience to be superior. That being said, I'd love the addition of home screen widgets for easy access to various objects throughout Anytype. I don't use widgets excessively, but I know many people do.

Document Scanner with OCR

For many of us, our notes aren't just digital — they start as physical documents. Imagine being able to quickly snap a picture of a receipt, a handwritten brainstorm, or a page from a book, and have it instantly integrated into your Anytype workspace. A built-in document scanner, complete with OCR (Optical Character Recognition), would help bridge the gap between our physical and digital lives. It could truly reduce the friction of getting real-world data into users' second brains. As someone who jumps between physical and digital journaling and note-taking, like myself, this would be incredible.

Handwriting Support with OCR

In a similar vein, while I'm a fan of typing, there's a certain freedom and speed that comes with handwriting, especially for quick sketches, diagrams, or brainstorming sessions. Integrating robust handwriting support, particularly on tablet devices, would open up new avenues for how we interact with our notes. But it's not just about writing; the real power would come from integrated OCR that converts that handwriting into searchable text. This would combine the best of both worlds: the natural flow of pen and paper with the organizational and search capabilities of a digital notes app. Think of meeting notes where you quickly jot down ideas, which then become searchable text within Anytype.

Anytype's flexibility with relations and types is powerful, but sometimes you just need to find something fast based on a combination of keywords or tags. While you can filter within collections, a global multi-tag search function would significantly enhance discoverability. Picture this: you're looking for a “meeting note” about a “project update” from “last week”. Being able to input multiple tags or keywords into a single search bar and have Anytype intelligently surface relevant objects would be incredibly efficient. This would cut down on time spent navigating and help users quickly pinpoint exactly what they need, especially as their knowledge base grows.

Canvas View (Mind Map/Whiteboard Functionality)

Sometimes, linear notes just don't cut it. For brainstorming, project planning, or visual thinking, a freeform canvas view would be ideal. Imagine a blank space where you can drag and drop existing Anytype objects (notes, images, links), draw connections between them, add sticky notes, and create mind maps or flowcharts. This visual workspace would allow users to see the bigger picture, understand relationships between ideas, and organize information spatially rather than just hierarchically. It would transform Anytype from a structured note-taker into a dynamic thinking and planning tool, perfect for visual learners and complex projects.

Make the First Line in Note Objects the Title

This is a subtle but significant quality-of-life improvement. When viewing note objects in collections or queries, the title is just the contents of the note until the UI runs out of space. Compare that to many traditional note-taking apps, and the first line of content is the title, making for a much quicker and more intuitive way to identify notes when navigating around your space. Objects like pages have a designated title field, and that's fine, but the standard notes object does not, which is also fine. Simply treating the first line before the initial indentation as the title would streamline the aesthetics and make finding relevant notes easier. It's a small change, but it would remove the friction every time you jot down a quick thought, making Anytype feel even more fluid and responsive.

Formula Visualizations (Charts & Graphs from Relational Data)

Anytype's relational database capabilities are incredibly powerful, allowing users to track almost anything with custom types, relations, and properties. However, the data often remains in a tabular format. Imagine being able to transform that raw data into meaningful visual insights with integrated charts and graphs. If you're tracking habits, finances, project progress, or research data using relations and formulas, the ability to generate a line graph of your progress, a bar chart comparing categories, or a pie chart showing distribution would be phenomenal.

Conclusion

Clearly, not everything in this list is “make or break”; otherwise, I wouldn't be using Anytype as of right now. On the other hand, even though some of these features are personal preference, I believe a few of them would not only take Anytype to a new level, but they could actually keep the tool from falling even further behind the competition.

Thankfully, some of these features are already on Anytype's roadmap, so maybe we can see a few of them trickle in over the coming months.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Do you disagree with anything I mentioned? Let me know in the comments below or on one of my social channels.

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