# About Local Annotations

Amaya can store annotation data in a local file system (often called "local annotations") or it can store annotations remotely, accessed through the World Wide Web (called "remote annotations").

You do not need a server to create local annotations. Local annotations are stored under the user preferences directory, in a special directory called annotations, and can be seen only by their owner (according to the system access right setup). This directory contains three kinds of files:

- annot.index: Associates URLs with the files containing the metadata of the annotations.
- index + random suffix: Stores the metadata of the annotations related to a given URL. The metadata is specified with RDF.
- annot + random suffix.html: Contains the body of an annotation, stored as XHTML.

At any time, you can convert a local annotation to a shared one by choosing Post annotation from the Annotations menu. Once this is completed, the local annotation is deleted because it has been moved to an annotation server.

## See also:

- About Stored Annotations