The last post covered Trails. This one covers what to do once you have a sidebar full of them: naming, grouping, icons, and the small organisational moves that make the sidebar somewhere you can actually live.
None of this is required. The browser works fine without doing any of it. The patterns below are what people land on after a few weeks of using Horse, written down so you don't have to discover them by accident.
Five things people do with their sidebar
1. Group Trails by subject or task
If you keep work and personal threads in different parts of the sidebar, switching between them is just a glance, not a hunt.
Here’s how to group your pages and Trails:
Mouse users:
- Simply drag-and-drop your Trails and pages to where you need them
Keyboard users:
- ⌘ + ⇧ + arrow keys on Mac
- Ctrl + Shift + arrow keys on Windows / Linux
2. Name your Trails by project or task
A Trail's title defaults to the title of its first page, which isn't always the name you'd recognise it by later. Renaming it to something like "tax stuff" or "Sunday research" makes the sidebar scannable.
Mouse users:
Select the ‘set name’ option in Menu or under ••• next to the page or Trail
Keyboard users:
- ⌘ + ⇧ + L on Mac
- Ctrl + Shift + L on Windows / Linux
3. Give Trails icons
Emojis and icons next to a Trail are easier to spot than text. Most people end up with a small visual code without ever planning it. A folder for projects, a coffee cup for personal stuff, a screen for work.
Here’s how to add custom icons:
- Click on the blank square next to your page or Trail, and select your preferred emoji. You can also remove the icon in the same way.
- Alternatively, right-click or click on ••• on the relevant page or Trail and select Set Icon.
4. Use Side-Trails and Sub-Trails for parallel work
The Trailhead is the parent. Sub-Trails sit underneath, nested. Side-Trails branch sideways instead: same Trailhead, different line of enquiry. Drag pages out to start a Side-Trail when something tangential comes up; let Sub-Trails build themselves when you click links inside an existing Trail.
5. Use a Trail as a to-do list
Some people use a Trail as a checklist for the day. Drag pages into the order you'll do them. Put dates or emoji in the names if that helps. Closing a page when you're done is the "tick". And if you closed something by mistake, ⌘ + ⇧ + T (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + T (Win/Linux) brings it back.
Next
The next post covers Areas, Folders, and Notes. The next layer up, for when one sidebar starts holding more than one life.
All posts in this series:
