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Show Notes
Show notes are your episode's shared prep doc: talking points, links, questions, and anything else worth having in front of you when you record. You, your team, and your guests can edit them together, and every change syncs automatically in real time.
Show notes sync automatically because collaborators see edits live. Switching tabs does not resave unchanged notes. If a server save fails, a toast and a Retry sync message appear. Keep the page open. If the problem is temporary (a lost connection, or show.fm being busy or updated), show.fm tries again on its own; you can also select Retry sync. If the save was refused (for example, the podcast is paused or you no longer have access), it isn't retried automatically: fix the cause, then select Retry sync. A recovery toast confirms that server syncing has resumed.
If your notes were changed in a way this page can't follow (show.fm was updated, or support reset the notes), the editor stops and asks you to Reload. Your text stays on screen, and if anything wasn't saved yet, Copy my notes copies it before you reload.
Open the show notes
- Open the episode and go to the Show notes tab.
- If none exist yet, click Create show notes.
The Overview tab's Show notes row shows a Not started badge until show notes exist, and its edit time once they do.
How the page is laid out
The notes are the one white sheet on the page, because that is where you type. Everything else is reference or conversation:
- The notes, in the middle: Host-only (open first) and Shared, the notes sorted by who can read them. Beside the tabs, the faces and a short sentence say who can read the open note, and the last edit is at the foot.
- Your guests, on the left: a list of guests, then the chosen guest's brief and the notes shared with them, with their access link at the foot. See The guests dock.
- Episode chat, down the right edge of the window. See Show notes and chat together.
| Notes | Who can read them |
|---|---|
| Host-only | Your team only. Guests never see them |
| Shared | Your team and every guest |
| A guest's own | Your team and that guest only, in the guests dock |
The dot and the word at the end of each toolbar say whether your notes are syncing live (Live), catching up (Syncing) or waiting for a connection (Offline). There is no Save button. Faces with a green ring beside it are other people in those notes right now.
On a phone, or when the page is narrow (a small window with the chat open), the notes and the guests take turns. Switch between Notes and Guests at the top.
Formatting and links
Every notes editor has one toolbar row: Text style (normal text or a heading), bold, italic, underline, lists, link and divider. In a narrow panel the row makes room rather than wrapping: Text style shrinks to an icon, the sync status to a dot, and the least used buttons move into the More menu (the three dots) at the end of the row. Tab reaches the toolbar once, then the arrow keys move along it.
You can also format as you type. Start a line with # and a space for a heading, - for a bullet list or 1. for a numbered list, type --- for a divider, or wrap words in ** for bold and * for italic. Hover over any toolbar button to see its keyboard shortcut and Markdown, or open Formatting shortcuts from the More menu (or press Cmd+/ on a Mac, Ctrl+/ elsewhere) for the full list.
Web addresses turn into links as you type or paste them, and pasting a link over selected text links that text. To add one yourself, select some text and press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K) or the link button.
Click a link to put the cursor in it: a small card shows where it goes, with:
- the address itself, which opens it in a new tab;
- Copy, Edit (change the text or the address) and Remove.
From the keyboard, Alt+Enter (Option+Enter on a Mac) opens the link at the cursor and Cmd+K edits it. Cmd+click (Ctrl+click) opens a link straight from the text. In notes you can only read, a plain click opens the link. Only web (https) and email links are allowed.
Show notes and chat together
Show notes are one of the episode's six tabs, so the Episode chat stays beside them while you write. Everything you agree in chat can go straight into the notes without leaving the conversation.
On a wide screen the chat runs down the right edge of the window, top to bottom. Drag its left edge to make it wider or narrower, or fold it with the button in its header. Folded, it becomes a slim rail with the unread count and who is online; click anywhere on the rail to open the chat again. show.fm remembers whether it is open and how wide on this device. On a smaller laptop screen the chat opens over the page from the same rail, and on a phone from the Chat button.
The guests dock
The guests dock on the left lists everyone on the episode, with how they came (Booked, Joined Sam's booking, Added directly) and what their access link does (not invited yet, link shared, invited or link active). A small dot beside a name shows their research: green when it's ready, red when it failed, pulsing while it runs. A ring means someone else is editing their notes right now. Keys 1 to 9 pick a guest (unless you're typing), and the arrow keys move along the list.
The chosen guest has two tabs:
- Their brief: everything show.fm holds about them, read-only. See The guest brief.
- Notes with the guest: the notes only your team and that guest can read. A guest gets these once their booking is confirmed or they accept their invitation.
Their access link sits at the foot of the dock. See Guest access links.
Fold it to faces
To give the notes more room, fold the dock with the panel button beside Guests, or drag the divider between the dock and the notes most of the way to the left. Folded, the dock is a column of faces with their number keys: click a face (or press its number) to open the dock on that guest, or click the panel button above the faces.
The first time you open Show notes the dock starts folded, with a hint beside the faces: Your guests are here. Click Got it, or open the dock, and it doesn't appear again on that device.
Drag the divider to make the dock wider or narrower, or focus it and use the arrow keys. show.fm remembers on this device whether the dock is open, how wide it is and which tab you last used.
On a phone
Tap Guests at the top for the list. Each guest shows how they came, their access link and their research. Tap a guest to open them: All guests goes back, and the arrows beside the count move to the previous or next guest. Copy link copies their access link, and the menu beside it opens their access page or regenerates their token.
The guest brief
A brief shows, in this order:
- What the guest wants to talk about, the points they want to cover and anything they'd rather avoid, from their booking answers.
- Their other booking answers. Long answers fold to three lines; Show more opens them.
- Notes from the guest, left when they booked.
- About the guest: the bio and links they published on their Guest Network profile.
- Their AI Research: the summary and suggested questions first, then everything else (overview, background, angles, glossary, gaps and the cited sources) under Full research.
The brief never changes your notes by itself. To use part of it, choose Add to Host-only notes and pick Answers and research, Answers and profile or Research only. Web and email addresses in it, such as the guest's profile links and the research sources, arrive as links you can open. It always goes into Host-only notes, because a guest can read their own notes and Shared reaches every guest. Copy questions copies the suggested questions and Download saves the whole brief as a Markdown file.
Who each brief covers:
| Guest | What their brief shows |
|---|---|
| The person who booked | Their answers, their notes, their profile and their research |
| Someone added to another's booking | Their own profile only. They never show the booker's answers |
| A guest you invited directly | Their profile |
| A guest whose booking was declined or canceled | Their profile, labelled, listed last |
| Research kept after a booking is removed | The research, labelled as kept from a removed booking |
Your private notes about a guest and their ratings stay on the guest's profile page. They are never part of the brief, for anyone.
Hosts, Producers and Co-hosts on the episode see the same brief. Guests never see it. A guest who books later appears on their own when you come back to the window; research that finishes appears within a few seconds. If the brief may be out of date, a Refresh link says so.
Research is run, re-run and deleted from the guest's Brief tab on the Guests tab. See Booking Forms for how research works.
Recording view
Recording view, at the end of the episode's tab row on Show notes (on a phone, beside the meeting link), clears everything but your guests and your notes for the recording itself. When the tab row is tight it shows as an icon; hover over it for its name.
- The app menu, the top bar, the episode header and its tabs slide out of view.
- The episode chat folds to its rail on the right. Open it from the rail if you talk in chat while you record; it folds again the next time you open the recording view.
- Host-only notes come to the front, since that's where your prep lives and nothing typed there reaches a guest. Shared is one click away.
- The guests dock stays as you left it, and keys 1 to 9 still pick a guest.
- A slim bar at the top keeps the episode's name, when it records and the meeting link, with Copy and Join buttons.
- Print or save PDF lays out every guest's full brief, research included, followed by your Host-only notes.
Press Esc or click Exit to go back. The recording view has its own address, so reloading the page or sharing the link keeps it open, and your browser's Back button leaves it.
The meeting link
Once a booking is confirmed, the episode header shows where the recording happens: the platform, such as Zoom or Riverside, with Copy and Join. It sits under the episode title on every tab and in the recording view's bar. An in-person recording says so. Until there is a link, Hosts and Producers see No meeting link yet, which opens the Guests tab where the meeting is set.
Guest access links
Each guest's link to the guest portal sits with that guest: at the foot of the guests dock, or beside their name on a phone. It is safe to share: it opens nothing until the guest confirms their email with a code we send them. Copy it when a guest asks for it just before you record.
In the dock, the copy button beside Access link copies the link. Click Access link to see the link itself, when the guest was invited and when they last signed in. Hosts and Producers can also Regenerate the guest's access token there, which signs them out of any earlier session straight away.
Create show notes
New episodes usually get show notes automatically from your podcast's default templates (you choose them during episode creation). For episodes without show notes:
- On the show notes page, click Create show notes.
- The Create show notes dialog appears. Show notes are created with shared, host-private, and per-guest sections; pick a different template per section if you don't want the podcast defaults.
- Click Create show notes.
Templates are managed on your podcast's Templates page. See Templates.
Tags in show notes templates
Show notes templates can use magic tags. show.fm fills them in once, when the episode's notes are created, and saves the result as ordinary text you can edit. After that the notes are yours: they never change on their own, and editing the template later only affects notes created afterwards.
Web and email addresses you write into a template become links you can open, and so do the tags that fill in a link: {meeting_url}, {guest_portal_link}, {host_email} and {guest_email}. Other tags stay text, so an address in something a guest typed, such as their name, never becomes a link. For the same reason an address with a tag in its domain, such as https://{guest_first_name}.substack.com, stays text; a tag later in the address, such as https://example.com/guests/{guest_first_name}, is fine. A link in a template only stays a link if it is a web (https) or email address.
These tags fill in when the notes are created:
| Tag | Filled with |
|---|---|
{episode_number} | The episode's number. A confirmed booking gets its number before the notes are created. |
{recording_datetime}, {recording_date}, {recording_time} | The recording slot in your podcast's time zone, for example "Monday, October 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM" |
{recording_timezone} | Your podcast's time zone, for example "Europe/London" |
{guests_full_names}, {guests_first_names}, {guests_count} | The guests confirmed on the episode at that moment, as a readable list such as "Steve Burge and Raquel Landefeld" |
{guest_full_name}, {guest_first_name}, {guest_email} | In a guest's own section, that guest. In the shared and host-only sections, the first confirmed guest. |
{podcast_name}, {podcast_description}, {episode_title}, {meeting_url}, {guest_portal_link} | The podcast (its description as plain text), the episode's title when the notes were created, and the booking's meeting and guest portal links |
Other tags in the Magic Tags List belong to emails and automations and are left as tag text in show notes.
Which guests are named
Only confirmed guests are named, apart from each guest's own section, which always uses that guest's name. A guest whose booking or invitation is still pending is never named in the shared or host-only sections, or in another guest's section.
- From a booking: the guests on the confirmed booking, including additional guests who accepted their invitation before you confirmed.
- On an episode you create yourself: each guest you add gets their own section straight away, and it uses their name. They're named in the shared, host-only and other guests' sections only if they had accepted their invitation when the notes were created, so a brand-new episode's guest list tags usually stay as tag text.
- When a guest joins later, for example through another booking into the same recording, they get their own section, and it names everyone confirmed by then. The shared, host-only and earlier guest sections keep what they already say, so update the guest list there yourself if you want it to match.
When a tag can't be filled in
If there's no value yet, such as an episode without a number or a list with no confirmed guests, the tag stays in your notes as its tag text with a yellow highlight. Replace it by hand; it won't fill itself in later.
Sections and who sees what
Show notes are split into sections with different visibility:
| Section | Where it is | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Host-only | The notes, first tab | Your team only; guests can't see this |
| Shared | The notes, second tab | Your team and all guests |
| One per guest | The guests dock, Notes with the guest | Your team and that guest only |
Above the notes, the faces of the people who can read the open tab sit beside a sentence that says the same in plain words, so there's never a doubt about who can read what you're typing. Under a guest's notes, the line Only your team and the guest can read this does the same.
Working together in real time
- Everyone edits the same document at the same time. Changes appear live and save automatically; there is no save button.
- It doesn't matter who opens the notes first, or whether people open them at the same moment or on different devices: everyone works on one copy, so text never appears twice.
- Faces with a green ring at the end of a notes toolbar show who else is in those notes right now. A ring beside a guest in the dock means someone is editing the notes with that guest.
- Guests edit through their guest portal; they don't need a show.fm account. See Invite Guests and the guides for guests.
Episodes made through a booking link include its calendar host in People and chat mention options. If no calendar host remains on the team, the link's creator is used where they are still a team member.
Chat alongside the notes
The episode chat runs beside the notes: down the right edge on a wide screen, from a rail on a smaller one, and from the Chat button on a phone. Use it to discuss the notes without editing them. See Messaging.
What's Next?
- Invite guests to the episode
- Set default show notes templates for your podcast
- Publishing on another host? Show notes are ready to copy from the Publish handoff.