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What is Lotion?

Lotion is an unofficial, Electron-based desktop client for Notion.so, focused on Linux. Notion has historically not prioritized native Linux support:

"Hey we don't want to release on platforms that we cannot ensure the quality – the team is still small and we don't use Linux ourselves" — Notion (@NotionHQ)

Lotion fills that gap with a modern multi-tab UI, theming, spell check, and the kind of desktop integration you'd expect from a native app.

New to Notion? Sign up here and try it out.

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Features

Window & tabs

• Frameless window with custom 32px title bar and integrated tab bar
• Multi-tab with click-to-switch, drag-and-drop reordering, pinning, dynamic titles, and favicon support
• Tab overflow: tabs shrink Chrome-style; once shrunk, mouse-wheel scrolls horizontally with subtle fade indicators showing hidden tabs
• Navigation controls (back, forward, refresh) integrated into the tab bar
• Session restore (opt-in) — quitting with tabs open restores them on next launch
• Native window decorations (opt-in) — swap the custom frameless tab bar for your DE's window chrome + standard menu bar (single tab per window in this mode)

Theming

• 10 built-in themes: Default, Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox Dark, Monokai, Noir, Catppuccin Mocha / Macchiato / Frappe / Latte, Sakura
• System-theme sync: picking a light theme (Sakura, Latte) auto-flips Notion's "use system setting" appearance to light; dark themes flip it back to dark
• Unified theming — the tab bar matches whatever theme you pick
• Custom CSS support — drop your own theme into ~/.config/Lotion/themes/<name>.css

Other

• Spell check — right-click misspelled words for suggestions; multi-language support (toggle from logo menu)
• External links open in your default browser
• Zoom: Ctrl + + / Ctrl + = / Ctrl + - / Ctrl + 0 work across keyboard layouts (Spanish, German, etc.) — not just US

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Themes

Click the Lotion logo (top-left) → Theme to pick one. Light/dark mode flips automatically to match the theme intent.

Catppuccin Mocha — tab bar and page content share the palette

Custom themes

Drop a CSS file at ~/.config/Lotion/themes/<name>.css. To target Notion's content, override its --c-* custom properties on the right selectors:

/* Example: a teal-accented dark override.
   Notion declares --c-* on .notion-dark-theme (on <body>), so the
   override has to land on that selector (not just :root) — and
   !important wins over Notion's own redeclarations. */
:root,
:root.dark,
:root.light,
body,
body.notion-body,
.notion-dark-theme,
.notion-light-theme,
.notion-app-inner {
  --c-bacPri: #0f1419 !important;          /* page background */
  --c-bacSec: #0a0f14 !important;          /* sidebar / cards */
  --c-bacTer: #1c252e !important;          /* hover / elevated */
  --c-icoPri: #e8e8e8 !important;          /* primary text + icons */
  --c-icoSec: #45ada8 !important;          /* accent text + icons */
  --c-palUiBlu600: #45ada8 !important;     /* Notion's primary blue → your accent */
}

Then pick your theme from the logo menu, or pick Reload Custom CSS to re-inject after edits. Look at any file in assets/themes/ for a complete template.

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Installation

Arch Linux

Status: the lotion-bin package isn't on the AUR yet. Build it locally from the PKGBUILD shipped in this repo — it downloads the official .deb artifact, so you get the same binary that ships in our GitHub release without running npm install.

git clone https://github.com/puneetsl/lotion.git
cd lotion
makepkg -si

The lotion command is installed to /usr/bin/lotion, and a desktop entry shows up in your launcher.

See PKGBUILD.md for how the packaging works, or knol/AUR_SUBMISSION.md if you want to maintain it on the AUR.

Debian / Ubuntu (.deb)

Grab the .deb from the latest release and install:

sudo apt install ./lotion_1.6.0_amd64.deb
# (apt handles missing dependencies automatically)

Fedora / RHEL (.rpm)

sudo dnf install ./lotion-1.6.0-1.x86_64.rpm

Portable / other distros (.zip)

Download Lotion-linux-x64-1.6.0.zip (or arm64) from the latest release, extract, and run the lotion binary inside.

macOS

The release ships Lotion-darwin-x64-1.6.0.zip (Intel) and Lotion-darwin-arm64-1.6.0.zip (Apple Silicon).

macOS will complain about the app being damaged or from an unidentified developer. This is because Lotion isn't signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate (the program costs $99/year — if you'd like to help, sponsor on GitHub). The app is fine; macOS just adds a quarantine flag to anything downloaded via a browser, and Gatekeeper refuses to validate the unsigned signature. Two ways past it:

# A) Strip the quarantine attribute from the .zip before extracting:
xattr -cr ~/Downloads/Lotion-darwin-arm64-1.6.0.zip
# Then extract and double-click as normal.

# B) Or, after extracting, strip it from the .app:
xattr -cr /Applications/Lotion.app

Alternatively, right-click → Open (not double-click) the first time to bypass Gatekeeper interactively. After that first launch macOS remembers your decision.

Windows

The release ships Lotion-1.6.0.Setup.exe and Lotion-win32-x64-1.6.0.zip (also an ia32 build). Windows SmartScreen may flag the installer as "Unrecognized" for the same reason (no code-signing certificate); click More info → Run anyway. Primary target is Linux — Windows is best-effort.

From source (development)

git clone [email protected]:puneetsl/lotion.git
cd lotion
npm install
npm start            # runs in dev mode
npm run make:linux   # builds .deb / .rpm / .zip into out/

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Keyboard shortcuts

The zoom shortcuts use the = key rather than the + symbol, so they work consistently across keyboard layouts.

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Configuration

User data and preferences live in:

• App config: ~/.config/Lotion/config.json
• Themes (user overrides): ~/.config/Lotion/themes/<name>.css
• Custom CSS injection: ~/.config/Lotion/custom.css
• Logs: ~/.config/Lotion/logs/main.log
• Cache: ~/.cache/Lotion/

Most preferences are toggled from the logo popup menu (top-left), including theme selection, spell check, "Restore Tabs on Startup", and "Use Native Window Decorations".

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Development

lotion/
├── src/
│   ├── main/                       # Electron main process
│   │   ├── controllers/            # AppController, WindowController, TabController
│   │   ├── managers/TabManager.js
│   │   ├── store/                  # Redux store + slices (tabs, windows, app)
│   │   ├── index.js                # Main entry: menus, IPC, app lifecycle
│   │   └── spellCheckMenu.js
│   └── renderer/
│       ├── preload.js              # Main preload (context bridge)
│       └── tab-bar/                # Custom tab bar (vanilla JS)
│           ├── index.html
│           ├── renderer.js
│           └── preload.js
├── assets/
│   ├── themes/                     # Bundled theme CSS (Dracula, Nord, ...)
│   ├── icons/                      # Multi-size app icons
│   └── lotion.desktop              # Linux .desktop entry
├── config/config.json              # Build-time config (Notion base URL)
├── i18n/                           # Locale strings
└── PKGBUILD                        # Arch lotion-bin package

Stack: Electron 41 + Electron Forge 7 (build/packaging), Redux Toolkit (state in the main process), vanilla JS for the tab bar (no React in the renderer), React 18 available for future UI work.

Tab architecture: each tab is a WebContentsView parented to a single BrowserWindow. The tab bar lives in a separate WebContentsView at the top of the window. Redux state in the main process is the source of truth; the renderer subscribes via IPC events.

Useful scripts

npm start             # dev mode
npm run package       # build app bundle (no installer)
npm run make:linux    # build .deb + .rpm + .zip for Linux
npm run make          # build all platform targets

Debugging the theme system

If a future Notion update changes CSS variable names, dump the current set:

LOTION_DUMP_VARS=1 npm start
# Then check ~/.config/Lotion/logs/main.log for [CSS DUMP] lines

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Contributing

PRs welcome. The flow:

1. Fork → branch from master
2. Make changes, test on Linux
3. Commit and open a PR

Bug reports, theme submissions, and small UX polish are all good first contributions. See open issues for ideas.

For AUR package maintenance: see knol/AUR_SUBMISSION.md.

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Uninstall

# Arch
sudo pacman -R lotion-bin

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt remove lotion

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf remove lotion

# Portable: just delete the extracted directory.

# Also remove user data (optional):
rm -rf ~/.config/Lotion ~/.cache/Lotion

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Acknowledgments

• sysdrum/notion-app — inspiration and early reference implementation
• Notion-enhancer community (now archived) — pioneered CSS theming for Notion

License

MIT (see LICENSE). For personal and educational use — please respect Notion's terms of service.

Disclaimer

This is an unofficial Notion client. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Notion Labs, Inc.

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Support

• Report a bug
• Discussions

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_{Also from the author: Memodiction.com — a dictionary that helps you remember words.}

Made for the Linux community.