1 – Export Notes from Bear
Start by exporting your notes from Bear in your preferred format. When you choose to export your notes with attachments, Bear creates a separate folder for the attachments of each individual note. While this can be inconvenient, it is fairly easy to clean up after importing into Notebooks.
How Notebooks Handles Attachments
Notebooks stores attachments separately as well, but instead of creating a dedicated folder for each document, it uses a single hidden folder for all attachments within a book. This folder is called NBImages and is normally not displayed in Notebooks.
2 – Import Your Bear Notes
Before importing the exported Bear files, make sure that Link Management is enabled in Notebooks:
Settings > Editing > Links
Now import or drag the exported Bear files and folders into the desired book in Notebooks. After the import, you will see your notes along with the attachment folders created by Bear.
3 – Consolidate Attachments
You can now move the attachments from the individual Bear folders into a single common folder. This can be done either directly in Notebooks or in Finder on a Mac while Notebooks is running.
Because Link Management is enabled, Notebooks automatically updates the references in your documents, allowing them to find their attachments even after the files have been moved.
Once all attachments have been collected in a single folder, rename that folder to NBImages (doing this in Finder is usually easiest). Notebooks will then treat it as its hidden attachment folder and no longer display it in the list of books, leaving you with a much cleaner library.
Alternatively, you can create an NBImages folder before you start and move all attachments directly into it.
We recommend trying the process with a small number of notes first to become familiar with the workflow before importing your entire Bear library.