This is the reason why I want want workspaces in a next version of Bear 2.0.
I need them to have different databases for work, private, sensitive info, language studies and culinary information.
Each workspace with its own set of tags, synchronisation, password protection and the choice to be synced with my iPhone and iPad or not.
Bear 2 users who don’t like several workspaces can restrict themselves to the use of only one workspace.
I’m not that bothered about seeing workspaces in Bear, but for those who are, I think the way the new Arc browser handles workspaces looks quite cool. I think if you start to add too many it could get a bit unwieldy. But I can’t think people would actually need loads of workspaces in Bear anyway. Maybe five or six at the very most? I guess it depends on how you use them.
Short video attached of workspaces in action…
+1 for the request to add workspaces. I cannot add anything else that has not yet been said as to the benefit of workspaces. But from my perspective, this would be a one of my top new feature request.
I support this request already a long time.
Bussiness notes and private notes already deserve their own workspace.
I also need to keep my work notes separate from personal notes.
+1 for Workspaces here. I don’t like having work, school, and personal notes mixed together. Tags get SUPER complicated when I try to nest them, and/or just clutter up the sidebar. It’s almost like: the more you use Bear, and add tags for things, the less “minimal” it feels. Adding workspaces would really help here.
Commenting to add another vote!
Tags are a wonderful system in Bear and it is one of the primary reasons I use it. However…because of the way I use Bear, it’s gotten a bit messy. I write novels, so each have their own main tags then their sub-tags and because they each share the same organization tags, they all have tag duplicates with the exception of their main tag (ex: novel1/characters, novel2/characters). I’ve implemented a A.C.C.E.S.S file organization system but it’s split between some components of this system being main tags to refer back to all of the novel tags, and some being sub-tags in each main novel tag. As an example, I have a Main Atlas to act as a directory to all of the main novel tags, then each of those have their individual Atlas to link to their contents.
I’d like to use Bear for life stuff, too–work, school, etc, but it does what I need it to do for writing so well, that I use it for that purpose only as to not confuse my different “workspaces” together. I delegate Apple’s system app, Notes, to work and school. It’d be cool to be able to make new Bear projects so I can use that instead.
Adding my strong vote to this as well. Have a strong need to separate my work and personal life notes. I often share my screen on Bear at work in meetings and don’t want my personal life notes showing on the sidebar while I do so. Also, in the evening when I’m done working and am looking at notes, I don’t want to even see work things there; too much stress and cognitive load! I also use Apple Notes for my personal life for this reason.
For the OP and those who really want completely separate workspaces I have a question.
If I wrote a simple command line program that allowed you to switch between one of several different Bear databases, would that interest you? Would it minimally meet your workspace needs? Would you use it?
If I built it I would make it open-source (free to use.) I am just wondering if anyone would care enough for me to consider building it.
How would this work when syncing to iCloud and to other Macs, iPad or iPhone?
I did not read the whole thread so pardon me if this had already been suggested.
Just let us choose what tags to display in the system-wide Focus Mode settings.
When Work focus mode or Personal focus mode is activated, the sidebar would just hide all the tags except the ones that I specified in the system settings for this focus mode. Much like OmniFocus now allows you to select what folders to show, or like Agenda allows you to select categories to show.
Of course, this would not make the data completely separated (Todo, Today or Untagged views might not be affected and show everything, and you will still be able to open any content via quick open).
But this would solve need of a significant amount of people who mainly want to temporarily hide the irrelevant stuff from the view, either to focus or during an online presentation of the screen.
And it feels like a pretty easy feature to implement (I might be wrong here, it just feels like it) and it also doesn’t overcomplicate things because it eliminates the need for a significant architecture changes or even UI changes (the only UI change needed is a visual indication that focus mode is on and some of the content is hidden).
@roar — Were you asking me about “syncing to iCloud and to other Macs, iPad or iPhone?” based on my comment just above yours?
If yes, I realize that what I was thinking probably would not work with syncing at all. I only use Bear on my Mac, not in the cloud nor on iOS devices so I was not thinking about them when I posted.
It might be possible to make it work with syncing, but at the moment I would not be willing to commit to that since I do not know how they implement their syncing nor their databases on iOS devices.
Multiple workspaces/databases is very needed.
The main need is for privacy – you can’t have a personal journal mixed in with a work journal because they have different privacy demands. For a personal journal you want to have confidence that you can be as genuine as possible without any fear that what you are typing is going to leak out into a work context. Niether do you want to client details mixed in with a personal journal that one day you need to go in a remove.
Tags can’t achieve this because they don’t offer isolation. Vaults or folders, potentially could – as long as there are some export/delete features added as well.
For this reason the only way to use multiple notes applications or not not use Bear. Currently I use Bear for personal notes and Obsidian for work notes. But I would drop Obsidian in an instant if it could all be in the one application.
I’m a huge fan of Bear. And I am a great fan of the idea of keeping things simple, and avoiding additional functionality. (And I appreciate “simple” doesn’t mean “easy to do”, in fact often the opposite.)
As I have more and more content in Bear, I have come to appreciate the need for Workspaces. For example, when using wikilinks I now have the problem of too many suggestions coming up - things I’ve written, drafts, notes, personal stuff, work stuff…
In the spirit of keeping things simple (from the functionality point of view, not necessarily implementation) I think there are just two things I would like to see for workspaces:
This is my vision also. On a Mac all workspaces, each with their own security.
On iPhone or iPad the choice which workspace is being synchronized.
The new web version has enabled me to use Bear on my Linux PC at work, which is brilliant.
Whilst I can readily access my notes, snippets and save bookmarks on the go, I find myself needing to utilise another application (Obsidian) to manage my work-related notes. This is primarily because I prefer to keep my personal and professional content separate, particularly when I need to share my screen during presentations.
A workspace feature would be absolutely splendid, so I would like to add my vote in favour of this addition. 
+1 for this feature.
I find myself needing to seperate as well, work, personal and then some more private stuff. Any update with regards to a decision on whether this will be implemented or not?