Interface

The sidebar

The sidebar is the main navigation in Tana. It sits on the left side of the screen as a flat list of destinations: Today, Tasks, People, Browse, and your spaces. A bottom section groups Search, Activity, and Account. There are no tabs.

On wider screens the sidebar is always visible and can be resized by dragging its right edge. On narrower screens it appears as an overlay when opened.

Today

The Today view. Your starting point each day: a greeting that flips through the day, the events rolling from Now to Next up, Upcoming, and Past, and quick access to create, meet, or search.

Tasks

The global Tasks view. The My tasks tab shows everything assigned to you, and Team tasks groups every task by assignee. See Tasks for how the view is organized.

People

Your team, sorted by recent interaction. Shows:

• Constellations: Groups of people you frequently interact with (3 to 5 people). Click to see everything you share with that group.
• Individual members: Each person shows an online indicator (green dot when active). Click to see shared documents, or right-click for "Start Call."

Drag a task onto a person to assign it to them.

Browse

Your workspace structure:

• Private: Your personal tasks and private spaces
• Shared: Organization types and shared spaces

Each space can be expanded to show the types defined in it. Click a space to open its home page, or click a type to see all items of that type.

Spaces

Your spaces appear directly in the sidebar below Browse so you can jump to any space home in one click. See Spaces.

Bottom section

Search, Activity, and Account live at the bottom of the sidebar, separated from the main destinations. Each opens the corresponding view or menu.

Dark theme on Today and meetings

Today and meeting routes render in the dark theme regardless of the rest of your workspace, so events and calls stay legible and consistent.

Create menu

The create menu is accessible from the pencil icon in the sidebar toolbar, or from the "+" button on space home pages and dates in Today. It is a searchable palette with these options:

• Meeting, Doc, Canvas, Task, Chat, Type, Space, Skill
• Custom types: Any types you have defined, grouped by space

When used from a space context, created items are scoped to that space and the Space option is hidden.

Tasks open as inline cards rather than navigating away. Everything else navigates to the new document.

Quick chat

Press Cmd+LCtrl+L on the desktop app to open a quick chat window. Type a message, optionally add participants, and press enter. The chat is created and AI responds automatically.

Press Cmd+Shift+LCtrl+Shift+L to open quick chat with voice dictation active. Your speech is transcribed directly into the message input.

Quick chat is the fastest way to ask the AI anything without leaving what you are working on.

Search

Click the magnifying glass in the sidebar toolbar or navigate to the search page. Type a query for full-text search across your workspace.

Narrow results with filters:

• Space: Show items from a specific space
• Type: Filter by document type or custom entity type (supports multiple types)
• Editor: Show items edited by a specific person

Without a query, the filters act as a browse mode showing recent items that match your criteria.

Activity

The activity feed shows notifications for events in your workspace:

• Added to a document or meeting by someone
• Assigned a task
• Incoming call (someone is waiting in a meeting)
• Chat message received

Each notification shows who triggered it, what it is about, and when it happened. Click to navigate to the source. Unread notifications show a blue dot, and a blue dot on the Activity entry in the sidebar bottom section signals unread activity overall.

Use "Mark all read" to clear unread indicators.

Settings

Open settings with Cmd+,Ctrl+, or from the account menu in the sidebar footer.

Settings sections include:

• Profile: Your name and account details
• Usage: Your AI spend against the monthly cap and rolling 5-hour cap, shown as percentage progress bars with relative reset captions ("Resets in 3 days"). No dollar amounts. In environments where usage caps are not enforced, a gray info callout above the bars notes the bars are informational.
• Calendars: Connect Google Calendar or Outlook
• Integrations: Connect GitHub, Slack, Linear
• MCP: Configure AI assistants to connect to Tana
• Coding tools: Choose which coding tools are available to AI chat
• Advanced: Experimental features and developer tools, including the Call Sounds toggle that gates the join, leave, raise-hand, and group-chat tones in meetings.
• Organization: Name, default content language, and other org-wide settings
• Members: Invite and manage team members (admin only)

The account menu also lets you switch between organizations, view pending invitations, and sign out.

Desktop features

The desktop app adds features not available in the browser:

• Tabs: Open multiple documents in separate tabs within one window
• Split view: Work with two documents side by side. Use Cmd+Option+ClickCtrl+Alt+Click on any link to open it in the split pane.
• New window: Use Cmd+Shift+ClickCtrl+Shift+Click on a link to open it in a new window.
• Meeting detection: The desktop app can detect active Zoom, Teams, and Meet calls for external meeting capture.

Sync

Tana syncs in real time across all your devices. The sidebar footer shows sync status. A cloud-off icon appears if authentication has expired and you need to sign in again. If a connected calendar silently stops syncing, an amber ! indicator with the tooltip "Calendar needs reconnect" appears next to the sync status in the user account row; reconnect from Calendar settings to clear it.