compare / apple-notes

tnotes vs Apple Notes

Apple's built-in rich-text notes app, synced through iCloud across iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web; zero setup, no files you can point a tool at.

Apple Notes is the app that is already on the device. It stores rich text with attachments, checklists, tables, scanned documents, drawings, and since recent releases audio recordings with transcripts and inline math. Notes sync through iCloud without configuration, a note can be locked with a password or Touch ID/Face ID, and with Advanced Data Protection turned on the whole Notes dataset is end-to-end encrypted so Apple cannot read it either.

Organisation is folders, smart folders, and #tags typed anywhere in the text. In current versions you can link one note to another by typing >> and picking a title; the link keeps following the note if it is renamed. macOS Tahoe 26 added File > Export To > Markdown and File > Import Markdown, so text can leave and enter the app without going through PDF. There is no file you can open in another editor: the data lives in a database inside the app’s container and iCloud.

tnotes is the inverse: only text, only .md files, only on macOS and Linux, in a terminal. It has [[links]] with backlinks, #tags including nested ones, and a CLI that scripts and agents drive. It has no attachments, no drawings, no phone app. People who use both keep Apple Notes for capture on the phone and move durable text into a folder.

Feature comparison

✓ yes · ~ partial or via the file system · ✗ no

Using Apple Notes and tnotes together

tnotes cannot read Apple Notes’ database, and Apple Notes cannot watch a folder. What works is a one-way export into a tnotes root.

macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later. Select a note and choose File > Export To > Markdown; save into your notes folder. The guide documents one note at a time; multi-selection has been reported to work in recent builds but is not documented, so check before relying on it.

mkdir -p ~/Documents/notes/apple
# export from Notes.app into that folder, then
tnotes ~/Documents/notes/apple
tnotes ls --folder apple --json | jq '.[].title'

Older macOS, or bulk. Notes has no bulk Markdown export before Tahoe, but its AppleScript dictionary exposes each note’s body as HTML. Open-source exporters such as apple-notes-exporter and Mac App Store apps (Exporter, Notes Exporter) walk the accounts and write HTML or Markdown files, with attachments beside them. From HTML, pandoc finishes the job:

brew install pandoc
for f in ~/Documents/notes/apple/*.html; do
  pandoc -f html -t gfm --wrap=none "$f" -o "${f%.html}.md" && rm "$f"
done

Limits to know:

• One way only. Editing the .md in tnotes does not change the note in Apple Notes; re-exporting overwrites your edits unless you export to a separate folder.
• #tags are inline text in Apple Notes and survive as text, so tnotes picks them up. >> note links do not become [[links]]; they export as plain text or a Markdown link, depending on the exporter.
• Expect locked notes to need unlocking before an exporter can read them; they are encrypted with your passphrase, not the account key.
• tnotes takes the title from the first line and names the file after it; an export whose first line is the note title yields sensible file names.
• Images, scans, audio and drawings are files next to the Markdown at best; tnotes lists only .md.

The reverse direction is also one way: File > Import Markdown on macOS 26 imports a folder of .md files (with an option to preserve the folder structure) into an Imported Notes folder.

FAQ

Sources

Apple Notes facts checked on 2026-09-22 against:

• Apple Notes User Guide: Import, export, and print notes on Mac
• Apple Notes User Guide: Add links in Notes on Mac
• Apple Notes User Guide: Use tags in Notes on Mac
• Apple Platform Security: Secure features in the Notes app

Other comparisons

• tnotes vs Dendron
• tnotes vs Joplin
• tnotes vs jrnl
• tnotes vs Logseq
• tnotes vs nb
• tnotes vs Neorg