Recording

Session Notes

Using Chirps session notes to track recordings, keep markdown field notes, and sync them with your recording folders.

What Session Notes are for

Session Notes gives you an in-app way to keep track of a recording day while you are still in the field. Instead of switching to another notes app, you can open the notes file directly inside Chirps and write observations, site details, weather notes, bat activity summaries, detector placement notes, or anything else that should stay with that day’s recordings.

The feature is designed for survey and bioacoustics workflows where file names alone are not enough. Your notes live next to the recordings, so the folder itself becomes a compact field record rather than just a list of WAV files.

Automatic creation

Chirps creates a managed markdown file named session-notes.md inside the day folder when the first recording for that day is saved.

The file starts with a simple structure:

  • A Session Notes header with the folder date
  • A Files section listing the recordings currently in that folder
  • A Notes section for free-form session-level notes

If you open the file later, Chirps re-checks the folder and keeps the managed file list in sync with the actual recordings.

Keeping the file list in sync

The Files section is not a static snapshot. Chirps regenerates it from the WAV files currently present in that folder.

  • New recordings are added to the list automatically
  • Renaming a recording updates the filename entry in the notes file
  • Deleting a recording removes it from the list if there were no notes attached to that filename
  • If that filename already has notes, Chirps keeps the notes and marks the filename with [deleted]

This is deliberate: routine cleanup should not destroy field notes that may still matter later.

Editing inside Chirps

Open the recordings browser and tap the markdown note entry to open it in Chirps. The app includes its own markdown editor, so you do not need to leave the app just to annotate the session.

The editor is intended for quick field use:

  • Open the notes directly from the same folder as the recordings
  • Edit plain markdown text in-app
  • Return to the recordings list when finished

This makes it practical to add notes immediately after a detection, during a route stop, or while reviewing files in Data Review.

Working with additional markdown files

You are not limited to the managed session-notes.md file.

If you add other .md files to the same recording folder, Chirps shows them in the recordings browser as markdown notes and lets you open and edit them in the same in-app editor. This works well for keeping separate files such as:

  • site summaries
  • trap or transect notes
  • species-specific observations
  • follow-up tasks for later review

Those extra markdown files can be created elsewhere, for example in Files on iPhone or iPad, or later on macOS. Once they are in the folder, Chirps can continue editing them.

iCloud and cross-device workflow

Because the notes are stored as normal markdown files inside the recording folder, they travel with that folder. In the default Chirps iCloud workflow, the session notes and any additional markdown files sync alongside the recordings, so they are available on your other Apple devices and on macOS.

That means you can:

  • capture notes in Chirps on iPhone or iPad
  • review or extend them later in Finder or another markdown editor on macOS
  • add extra markdown files on Mac and continue editing them back in Chirps

Chirps treats the managed session notes file as special because it maintains the recording list automatically, but the file itself remains a standard markdown document.

Suggested field workflow

  1. Record normally during a survey session.
  2. Let Chirps create the day folder and session-notes.md automatically.
  3. Add quick notes against individual filenames in the Files section.
  4. Use the Notes section for broader context about the session.
  5. If you later rename or remove recordings, let Chirps keep the file list aligned without losing meaningful notes.

This keeps the folder usable both as raw data storage and as a lightweight field log.