GNU ELPA - org-mem

Activating the mode creates an in-memory database by default.

(org-mem-roamy-db-mode)

Test that it works:

(emacsql (org-mem-roamy-db) [:select * :from files :limit 10])

For more tips, see section SQL API.

You can't put 2,000 files in org-agenda-files, but most contain nothing of interest for the agenda anyway, right?

Turns out I have only about 30 files worth checking, the challenge was always knowing which files ahead-of-time. Now it's easy:

(defun my-set-agenda-files (&rest _)
  (setq org-agenda-files
        (cl-loop
         for file in (org-mem-all-files)
         ;; Exclude *.org_archive or *archive/2025.org or similar
         unless (string-search "archive" file)
         when (seq-find (lambda (entry)
                          (or (org-mem-entry-active-timestamps entry)
                              (and (not (org-mem-entry-closed entry))
                                   (or (org-mem-entry-todo-state entry)
                                       (org-mem-entry-scheduled entry)
                                       (org-mem-entry-deadline entry)))))
                        (org-mem-entries-in file))
         collect file)))
(add-hook 'org-mem-post-full-scan-functions #'my-set-agenda-files)
(org-mem-updater-mode)

While Org can warn about dangling clocks through the org-clock-persist setting, that requires loading Org at some point during your session. Which means that if it is a matter of concern for you to forget you had a clock going, that you effectively have to put (require 'org) in your initfiles, just in case.

(Actually you're told to call (org-clock-persistence-insinuate) which does load Org for you, but you might forget that if you put it in a (use-package org :config ...) form and lazy-load it.)

Now the following is an alternative:

(defun my-warn-dangling-clock (&rest _)
  (let ((entries (seq-filter #'org-mem-entry-dangling-clocks
                             (org-mem-all-entries))))
    (when entries
      (warn "Didn't clock out in files: %S"
            (seq-uniq (mapcar #'org-mem-entry-file entries))))))
(add-hook 'org-mem-initial-scan-hook #'my-warn-dangling-clock)
(org-mem-updater-mode)

If you want to force-update the cache in synchronous code, you should now (since version 0.28.0) be able to do it like this.

(org-mem-updater-update t)

To do a full reset:

(org-mem-reset t)
(org-mem-await "Manually resetting..." 60)

We use two types of objects to help represent file contents: org-mem-entry objects and org-mem-link objects. They involve some simplifications:

• An org-mem-link object corresponds either to a proper Org link, or to a citation fragment like @key1 in [cite:@key1;@key2;@key3].
  • Check which it is with org-mem-link-citation-p.
• The content before the first heading also counts as an "entry", with heading level zero.
  • Some predictable differences from normal entries: the zeroth-level entry obviously cannot have a TODO state, so org-mem-entry-todo-state always returns nil, and so on.
  • Check with org-mem-entry-subtree-p.
    • Or if you're looking at the list of entries output by (org-mem-entries-in-file FILE), the first element (the car) is always a zeroth-level entry, no matter if it's empty or not. The rest (the cdr) are subtrees.

  • Some functions behave specially if the zeroth-level entry is empty, such that the first proper Org heading is on line 1: (org-mem-entry-at-lnum-in-file 1 FILE) then returns the entry for that heading instead of the zeroth-level entry. Ditto for (org-mem-entry-at-pos-in-file 1 FILE).

    That is hopefully intuitive. Opinions on API design are very welcome!

Updated [2026-02-26 Thu].

Getters taking no arguments

• org-mem-all-entries
• org-mem-all-entries-with-active-timestamps
• org-mem-all-entries-with-dangling-clock
• org-mem-all-files
• org-mem-all-files-expanded
• org-mem-all-files-with-active-timestamps
• org-mem-all-file-truenames
• org-mem-all-id-links
• org-mem-all-id-nodes
• org-mem-all-ids
• org-mem-all-links
• org-mem-all-roam-reflinks
• org-mem-all-roam-refs
• org-mem-entry-at-point

Getters operating on an entry object

• org-mem-entry-active-timestamps
• org-mem-entry-active-timestamps-int
• org-mem-entry-children
• org-mem-entry-clocks
• org-mem-entry-clocks-int
• org-mem-entry-closed
• org-mem-entry-closed-int
• org-mem-entry-dangling-clocks
• org-mem-entry-deadline
• org-mem-entry-deadline-int
• org-mem-entry-file
• org-mem-entry-file-truename
• org-mem-entry-id
• org-mem-entry-keywords
• org-mem-entry-level
• org-mem-entry-lnum
• org-mem-entry-olpath
• org-mem-entry-olpath-with-file-title
• org-mem-entry-olpath-with-file-title-or-basename
• org-mem-entry-olpath-with-self
• org-mem-entry-olpath-with-self-with-file-title
• org-mem-entry-olpath-with-self-with-file-title-or-basename
• org-mem-entry-pos
• org-mem-entry-priority
• org-mem-entry-properties-inherited
• org-mem-entry-properties-local — Alias org-mem-entry-properties
• org-mem-entry-property
• org-mem-entry-property-with-inheritance
• org-mem-entry-pseudo-id
• org-mem-entry-roam-aliases
• org-mem-entry-roam-refs
• org-mem-entry-scheduled
• org-mem-entry-scheduled-int
• org-mem-entry-stats-cookies
• org-mem-entry-subtree-p
• org-mem-entry-tags
• org-mem-entry-tags-inherited
• org-mem-entry-tags-local
• org-mem-entry-text — Always nil unless org-mem-do-cache-text is t
• org-mem-entry-title
• org-mem-entry-title-maybe
• org-mem-entry-todo-state
• org-mem-id-links-to-entry
• org-mem-links-in-entry
• org-mem-next-entry
• org-mem-previous-entry
• org-mem-roam-reflinks-to-entry

Getters operating on a file name

• org-mem-entries-in-file — Alias org-mem-file-entries
• org-mem-entries-in-files
• org-mem-entry-at-lnum-in-file — Near-alias org-mem-entry-at-file-lnum
• org-mem-entry-at-pos-in-file — Near-alias org-mem-entry-at-file-pos
• org-mem-file-attributes
• org-mem-file-char-count
• org-mem-file-coding-system
• org-mem-file-id-strict
• org-mem-file-id-topmost
• org-mem-file-keywords
• org-mem-file-known-p
• org-mem-file-line-count
• org-mem-file-mtime
• org-mem-file-mtime-floor
• org-mem-file-ptmax
• org-mem-file-size
• org-mem-file-title-or-basename
• org-mem-file-title-strict
• org-mem-file-title-topmost

Getters operating on a link object

• org-mem-id-link-p
• org-mem-link-citation-p
• org-mem-link-description
• org-mem-link-entry
• org-mem-link-entry-pseudo-id
• org-mem-link-file
• org-mem-link-file-truename
• org-mem-link-nearby-id
• org-mem-link-pos
• org-mem-link-supplement
• org-mem-link-target
• org-mem-link-type
• org-mem-roam-reflink-p

Getters that return entries

• org-mem-all-entries
• org-mem-all-entries-with-active-timestamps
• org-mem-all-entries-with-dangling-clock
• org-mem-all-id-nodes
• org-mem-entries-in-file — Alias org-mem-file-entries
• org-mem-entries-in-files
• org-mem-entry-at-lnum-in-file — Near-alias org-mem-entry-at-file-lnum
• org-mem-entry-at-pos-in-file — Near-alias org-mem-entry-at-file-pos
• org-mem-entry-by-id
• org-mem-entry-by-pseudo-id
• org-mem-entry-by-roam-ref
• org-mem-entry-children
• org-mem-id-node-by-title
• org-mem-id-nodes-in-files
• org-mem-link-entry

Getters that return links

• org-mem-all-id-links
• org-mem-all-links
• org-mem-all-roam-reflinks
• org-mem-id-links-from-id
• org-mem-id-links-into-file
• org-mem-id-links-to-entry
• org-mem-id-links-to-id
• org-mem-links-from-id
• org-mem-links-in-entry
• org-mem-links-in-file
• org-mem-links-of-type
• org-mem-links-to-roam-ref
• org-mem-links-to-target
• org-mem-links-with-type-and-path
• org-mem-roam-reflinks-into-file
• org-mem-roam-reflinks-into-files
• org-mem-roam-reflinks-to-entry
• org-mem-roam-reflinks-to-id

Getters that return file names

• org-mem-all-files
• org-mem-all-files-expanded
• org-mem-all-files-with-active-timestamps
• org-mem-all-file-truenames
• org-mem-entry-file
• org-mem-entry-file-truename
• org-mem-file-by-id
• org-mem-file-known-p
• org-mem-link-file
• org-mem-link-file-truename

Misc

• org-mem-all-ids
• org-mem-all-roam-refs
• org-mem-entry-at-point
• org-mem-id-by-title

Some API for actually activating & using org-mem as a library:

• org-mem-await
• org-mem-reset
• org-mem-updater-update

You can use this to end your dependence on org-roam-db-sync. Set the following to let org-mem overwrite the "org-roam.db" file.

(setq org-roam-db-update-on-save nil)
(setq org-mem-roamy-do-overwrite-real-db t)
(org-mem-roamy-db-mode)

Now, you have a new, all-fake org-roam.db! Test that org-roam's org-roam-db-query works:

(org-roam-db-query [:select * :from files :limit 10])

If it works, then various packages that depend on org-roam's DB should also work without issue. However, you'll have to be content with them pulling in org-roam even if you never turn it on.

N/B: because (equal (org-roam-db) (org-mem-roamy-db)), the above is equivalent to these expressions:

(emacsql (org-roam-db) [:select * :from files :limit 10])
(emacsql (org-mem-roamy-db) [:select * :from files :limit 10])

If you write a package that actually only needed to use org-roam's DB and not its other utilities like org-roam-capture, you should be able to stop requiring org-roam, and do e.g.

(defun my-db ()
  (cond ((fboundp 'org-roam-db) (org-roam-db))
        ((fboundp 'org-mem-roamy-db) (org-mem-roamy-db))
        (t (error "Enable either org-roam-db-autosync-mode or org-mem-roamy-db-mode"))

and then rewrite all your (org-roam-db-query ...) forms to:

(emacsql (my-db) ...)

In theory, anyway ;-)

Please report any issues!

Error "attempt to write a readonly database" can happen when when you run multiple Emacs instances. Get unstuck with M-: (org-roam-db--close-all).

Use M-x org-mem-list-db-contents.

Or the new M-x org-roam-db-explore, with exactly the same UI.

Suppose you use age.el to keep files encrypted.

This needs extra config to tell org-mem's subprocesses how to open them. The following should do the trick:

(setq org-mem-inject-vars '(age-default-identity age-default-recipient age-program))
(setq org-mem-eval-forms '((require 'age) (age-file-enable)))
(add-to-list 'org-mem-suffixes ".org.age")

Files over TRAMP are excluded from org-mem's database, so as far as org-mem is concerned, it is as if they do not exist.

This limitation comes from the fact that org-mem parses your files in many parallel subprocesses that do not inherit your TRAMP connections. It is fixable in theory.

The body text of specific entries may be encrypted by org-crypt. If so, org-mem cannot find links nor timestamps inside.

No support yet for buffer settings from #+SETUPFILE:.