Memoir

A calm, private notes app that runs on ordinary cPanel hosting.

Memoir is a lightweight, single-owner note manager for people who want their notes on their own domain. It needs PHP and MySQL—no Docker, Node.js, Composer, SSH, or VPS required.

Features

• Folder-based notes, pinning, advanced search, icons, and accent colors
• Rich-text editing with image paste, drop, and upload
• Autosave, recoverable version history, and useful keyboard shortcuts
• Wiki-style internal links, backlinks, and unlinked-title mentions
• Automatic/on-demand workspace backups with validated one-click restore
• Daily update checks with verified, backup-first one-click installation
• Responsive writing workspace with tablet/mobile navigation and focus mode
• Thirteen color themes, customizable accents, and locally hosted Inter fonts
• Browser-based installer built for cPanel/shared hosting
• Optional SMTP settings
• Installer lock, CSRF protection, upload restrictions, and stored-HTML sanitizing

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or newer
• MySQL 5.7+, MariaDB 10.3+, or a compatible newer version
• PHP extensions: pdo_mysql, fileinfo, mbstring, and dom; curl and zip enable one-click updates
• Apache 2.4+ with .htaccess support (recommended)
• Write access to the app root during installation and to storage/ and uploads/

Install from a ZIP on cPanel

1. Download the latest release ZIP from GitHub. Prefer a release asset over the automatic “Source code” archive when both are available.
2. In cPanel → File Manager, open public_html, create your chosen folder (for example memoir), upload the ZIP, and extract it.
3. Make sure index.php, install/, assets/, templates/, lib/, and storage/ are directly in that folder—not inside an extra memoir-main/ directory.
4. In cPanel → MySQL Database Wizard, create a database and user, assign the user with ALL PRIVILEGES, and keep the full cPanel-prefixed names.
5. In Select PHP Version or MultiPHP Manager, select PHP 8.1+ and enable pdo_mysql, fileinfo, mbstring, and dom.
6. Visit https://example.com/memoir/install/ and complete the guided setup.
7. Sign in with the owner account you created.

The installer creates the tables, writes config.php, and creates storage/installed.lock. You do not need to import SQL manually.

Automatic backups are request-driven for shared-hosting compatibility: the first authenticated request after the configured interval writes the next JSON snapshot under storage/backups/. Keep storage/ writable and protected from direct web access.

Folder and URL examples

Subfolder installation:

Files: public_html/memoir/
App URL: https://example.com/memoir
Installer: https://example.com/memoir/install/

Subdomain installation:

Files: the document root configured for notes.example.com
App URL: https://notes.example.com
Installer: https://notes.example.com/install/

Do not include /install/ in the application URL field.

Permissions

Most cPanel hosts work with 755 for directories and 644 for files. Memoir must be able to write the application root once to create config.php, and must keep storage/ and uploads/ writable. Avoid 777 unless your host explicitly requires it.

Updating

Memoir checks the official GitHub repository once per day while the app is in use. Open Settings → Updates to check immediately. If a stable update is available, Update now downloads the dedicated release ZIP, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, creates a server-side workspace backup, and installs it. config.php, storage/, and uploads/ are always preserved, and changed code files are rolled back if installation fails.

One-click updates require the PHP curl and zip extensions and write access to the application files. When either is unavailable, the Updates panel links to the release for manual installation. For a manual update, back up config.php, storage/, uploads/, and the database, then replace only the application files from the named memoir-vX.Y.Z.zip release asset. Never use an automatic GitHub “Source code” archive or overwrite config.php.

Security notes

• Always use HTTPS in production.
• Keep PHP, the database server, and Memoir updated.
• Use a dedicated database user and a strong, unique owner password.
• Do not commit or publish config.php, storage/, or uploaded files.
• The included Apache rules block direct access to configuration/storage and prevent script execution inside uploads/. If your host ignores .htaccess, reproduce those protections in its web-server configuration before use.
• SMTP credentials are stored in the database so Memoir can use them; protect database backups accordingly.

Please report vulnerabilities privately as described in SECURITY.md.

Troubleshooting

/install/ returns 403 Forbidden

Confirm the release contains install/index.php and that the install folder and file are readable (755 directory, 644 file is typical). A missing index file makes Apache reject directory listing. Memoir redirects an already-installed site to sign-in instead of showing a 403.

The installer reports a database error

Use the complete cPanel-prefixed database/user names, confirm the user has been assigned to the database with all privileges, and try localhost unless your host documents a different hostname.

Images do not upload

Check that uploads/ is writable, PHP file_uploads is enabled, and your host’s upload_max_filesize and post_max_size allow the file. Memoir accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF images up to 8 MB.

Setup was interrupted

If config.php was created, restore it or remove it only when intentionally starting over. Use an empty database for a clean reinstall. Never delete a live configuration or database without a backup.

Development

Clone the repository into a PHP-capable document root, create an empty MySQL database, then open /install/. There is no build step.

Page markup lives in Smarty templates under templates/ (see templates/README.md for the conventions). The engine is vendored under lib/smarty, so there is still nothing to install; compiled templates are cached in storage/templates.

Run syntax checks before contributing:

php -l bootstrap.php
php -l app/view.php
php -l install/index.php
php -l login.php
php -l index.php
php -l api.php
php -l updater.php
php -l logout.php

See CONTRIBUTING.md for project principles, security rules, manual test coverage, and the pull-request checklist.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Ctrl/Cmd + N — new note
• Ctrl/Cmd + K — global search
• Ctrl/Cmd + S — save immediately
• Ctrl/Cmd + B — bold
• Ctrl/Cmd + I — italic
• Esc — close a dialog

License

Memoir is open-source software released under the MIT License.