As you can tell, I’m a big fan of Notion. It’s one of the most popular productivity/note-taking apps on the market today. It’s great for students, solopreneurs, knowledge workers, and content creators like yours truly.
Notion provides you the flexibility to design your own to-do lists, habit trackers, notes, and so on. By providing so many features and functionality, all while auto-saving to the cloud, it comes at a cost. That cost is page speed.
While the Notion team has been working hard to improve the app speed over the last couple of years, there are still a few things you can do on your end to help speed it up too. In this post, I’ll share with you my top tips on how to make Notion run faster.
Reduce Image File Size
As page content is stored on the cloud, reducing your image file sizes is a quick win. When I say reduce image file sizes, this applies to both cover images and images that you embed on a page.
By cover page, I mean the Unsplash integration that comes standard in Notion. Occasionally some of the images that get downloaded are HUGE. Some Unsplash users tend to upload their full-resolution images which can result in 50mb+ images being stored on your Notion page! So try removing your cover image if you find that specific pages are loading slower than others.
Alternatively, download the image and crop it to size. Once you’ve cropped it, you should also use an image shrinking tool. The best (and free) tool that I use for this is TinyPNG. Funnily enough, I use this for all my web images, including when I make tutorials for Excel Me!
Try Stick To Desktop Version Whenever You Can
I find that when I’m traveling and on a slower internet connection, the web version of Notion tends to lag a bit. It feels slower than the desktop version as the desktop version comes with a cache that stores a bit more content “offline”. Not a true offline mode by the way!
Some users on older desktops/laptops have also reported that using that they get better speed performance with the desktop version.
Good Old Fashion Reset
Like any IT issue, a good hard reset (or slap of the computer 🤪) can help. To do this for Notion, you’ll need to reset your app cache. Here are the instructions are instructions for your relevant machine:
Windows
- Make sure Notion is closed
- In File Explorer, go to C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming (replace USERNAME with your Windows user login). If you’re trying to navigate to this folder and can’t see it, try showing hidden folders.
- Delete the “Notion” folder
Mac
- While in Notion, open the menu bar and select “Reset App and Clear Local Data”.
If you’re using Web Notion, then reset your Cookies/Cache/Site Data information for your respective browser.
Interesting read – Can Notion Be Accessed Offline?
Archive Old Content
As with all software, it’s a good idea to back up your data from time to time. If you have been hoarding your information on Notion for some time (🙋♂️ guilty!) it’s a good idea to start archiving and deleting content that you no longer need.
Do you really need that page you created 2-3 years ago and never looked at it again?
You can export all of your data so you can keep a local copy in case you ever want to access it.
How To Export Your Notion Content
Notion has made this quite straightforward.
- Click on Settings & members on the sidebar
- Settings menu under Workspace
- Scroll down to Export content
- Click on Export all workspace content
- Select what you need, click Export
If you need some extra info on exporting your data, check out Notion’s own guide.
Tips To Work Faster In Notion
Another way to improve your Notion experience is if you learn how to do things quickly within Notion. Here are a few examples:
- Learning the Notion keyboard shortcuts. Similar to Excel, there are plenty of shortcuts within the App and I don’t mean memorize them all. Pick the top 5-10 things you do consistently in Notion and just start with those.
- Create templates for recurring activities. For example, I use Notion as my weekly planner. I’ve set up a template for each day of the week so when I’m getting started each day, I just click on the day of the week, and voila a majority of my views are populated for the day. Check out the tutorial on How To Save A Page As A Template In Notion.
- Working with two windows. This is handy for times when you have all your research notes on one page and your essay on another. It can be quite annoying flicking between pages constantly and the navigation on Notion doesn’t lend itself to making this seamless. There are a couple of ways of setting up two windows. First, open Notion desktop app and an instance in your web browser. Alternatively, right-click on a page in Notion and click on “Open in new window”.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, these tips have made your Notion workspace run faster. If you have any other ideas, I would love to hear from you, and please drop a comment down below! Don’t battle the laggy feeling alone!
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