Toggles are the hidden power of writing in Notion. There are a few blocks which have “toggle” in the name, and in this lesson we’ll explore how they work and how you can use them best.
A toggle is basically a collapsible block that can have other blocks nested under it, which we can either open or close to reveal those blocks. Toggles are great for hiding non-critical content in a page, and making long pages easier to read and comprehend.
Copy link to headingToggle lists
Toggle lists are very similar to other list types, but instead of being numbered or having a checkbox as their identifier, have little triangles that serve as toggles. Whenever you indent a toggle list, all indented items can be collapsed under the parent item.
[GIF Showing toggle list behavior]
You can also mix and match toggle lists with other list types. For example, you can have your top level list entries as toggles and then all indented entries as checkboxes that you can check off.
[GIF, toggle + to do list mixed]
Copy link to headingToggle headings
Another type of blocks with toggle capability are toggle headings. They look pretty much the same as regular headings, but they can be toggled just like a toggle list. These are absolutely great for breaking up long documents and making their sections, divided by headings, collapsible and thus easier to read through.
[GIF Toggle heading]
Toggle headings work pretty much exactly the same as normal headings, meaning that they also appear in the table of contents.
I love toggle headings, even though they’re a pretty recent addition to Notion, I managed to fall in love with them pretty quickly and we use them a lot in complex and long documents.
Copy link to heading
Impact on word count
Toggle type blocks don’t have an impact on word count as long as all of them are open. The moment you collapse a toggle block, all of the text nested under it, thus invisible, at the moment, will not be included in your page word count.