When to use

Fractal comments in Workflowy are perfect when you want to go deeper on a single idea without cluttering the main outline. Use them to:

• Add context or thinking behind a bullet
• Hold mini-discussions or brainstorming threads
• Keep research notes or drafts connected to the source idea
• Collaborate with others without breaking the flow of the main list

About fractal comments

Fractal comments allow you to create comments inside Workflowy and reply to them to have discussions.Comments can branch infinitely. You can reply to someone's entire comment or just to a specific point they've made. This allows you to have rich, deep discussions about very complex topics in a simple and manageable way. You can do anything inside a comment that you can in a normal Workflowy bullet like zooming in, nesting items, adding images, and even changing the layout.

**Note:**To start using comments, you need to invite users to a share via email or secret link. Those users need to have Can editor Admin permissions in order to have conversations.

Create a comment

You can start a conversation by mousing over any item in a share and clicking the ‘Discuss’ icon to the right of it. Comments are not sent automatically and no‑one can see your reply until you publish it. Unpublished comments are automatically saved as drafts.

Reply to a comment

You can reply to any comment to start a conversation, whether you're mentioned or not. You can also reply to individual points in a person’s comment to create branching conversations. When you create a reply, the person that created the comment will be automatically mentioned in your draft reply with @ .

Start a new thread

You can also start a new thread where one already exists. Above every discussion there will be a +New button you can click to start a completely new thread.

View unread comments

When you have unread comments, a blue notification dot will be displayed in the menu bar. If you have the left sidebar open, you’ll also see a comments counter. When you’re zoomed into an item, you will also see a blue comment counter to the right of it that lets you know how many unread comments are contained within the zoomed in section. Each of those items will also have a single blue dot to indicate where the unread comments are located. You can click any of these counters or blue dots to enter Comments mode, which displays a navigation bar directly below the menu bar. You can then use the arrows in the comments bar to navigate through your unread comments.

View an item’s comments

Any item that has comments will have a Show comments icon to the right. Clicking this icon displays all comments, which is one way to view comments that have been marked as read or comments where you were not mentioned.

Mark comments as read

Comments are left as unread by default; viewing them will not automatically mark them as read. Replying to comments automatically marks them as read. This makes it easy to return to them later if you're not ready to deal with them at that time.

View drafts

Comments are not shared until you publish them. Until then, they're automatically saved in the sidebar in a section called Drafts. This section will only be visible if you have any drafts.

Mention someone

You can mention anyone outside of a comment by simply typing @ and then their username. They will receive a notification just like when you mention them in a comment. This is useful for getting someone's attention or assigning tasks to them without starting a discussion.

Filter comments by person

You can view the comments related to a specific person using the filter in comments mode. This allows you to view all comments made by that person for the specified time range, and all comments where that person was mentioned. Users in this filter are grouped by the parent item where that user has access.

Comments on mobile

Fractal comments are also available on the mobile app. You can access comments by clicking the comments icon in the bottom menu bar. A blue notification dot on this icon indicates unread comments.