I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes.
Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file.
Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No databases, no daemons, no config files. Install via Homebrew.
Happy to take suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into along the way.
I love Apple Notes, but I also love writing in vim; looks like I can finally reconcile those two things thanks to your project. Nice work!
> questions about the quirks
I've used a decent amount of AppleScript to automate things on my Mac, so I know it's a powerful tool but not easy to just jump into, even when you're already familiar with that bizarre syntax. What kinds of quirks did you run into?
>Happy to take suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into along the way.
Got up out of bed from doomscrolling to play with/implement this! My less-technical partner tends to reach for Apple Notes and I have offered/threatened to make something, but they've kept (begrudgingly) relaunching VSCode after a "oof, I know it was just real quick." Thanks for the inspiration/headstart.
This is awesome! I’ve been looking for a way to batch export my notes out of Apple notes, will this work for that purpose?
I totally agree with you that most notes apps miss the mark. I’m working on one now which I hope satisfies the same requirements as Apple notes(dead simple, iCloud sync, free) but has some things I want (improved search, first class markdown support).
I’ve been using it as my daily driver for a while, but it’s not quite ready for other users yet. I wrote a bit about it in my year in review[1] under the section “Not Another Notes App!”.
The big benefit is that you get to use the Apple Notes app. I prefer Apple Notes on my phone, to be honest. I haven't used Obsidian's app on iOS in over a year.
I personally put all my work-related dev notes in Obsidian, and all my life-related quick notes in Apple Notes.
Obsidian still does not support iOS widgets. I use the app, but it's honestly still a major annoyance, since I cannot add to-dos with one swipe as I would be able to do with Apple Notes.
Question: is there a way to make this automatic on state changes? I had an issue recently where a child accidentally overwrote my huge Apple notes and I couldn’t undo the change, or restore my history
I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes.
Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file.
Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No databases, no daemons, no config files. Install via Homebrew. Happy to take suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into along the way.
I love Apple Notes, but I also love writing in vim; looks like I can finally reconcile those two things thanks to your project. Nice work!
> questions about the quirks
I've used a decent amount of AppleScript to automate things on my Mac, so I know it's a powerful tool but not easy to just jump into, even when you're already familiar with that bizarre syntax. What kinds of quirks did you run into?
>Happy to take suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into along the way. Got up out of bed from doomscrolling to play with/implement this! My less-technical partner tends to reach for Apple Notes and I have offered/threatened to make something, but they've kept (begrudgingly) relaunching VSCode after a "oof, I know it was just real quick." Thanks for the inspiration/headstart.
“Fun”. In the latest MacOS, Apple Notes supports markdown export (https://support.apple.com/en-md/guide/notes/not201900c07/mac), but not through its AppleScript dictionary.
So yes, it seems you do need Pandoc to do html-to-markdown and vice versa.
This looks cool, so obviously I have questions!
Does it support pushing to personal/home/this-is-my-note.md, or does everything wind up in the Notes root?
It appears notes have to start out externally in order to "stash pull" them, is that the case?
thanks!
How hard would it be to extend this to support bulk export of Apple Notes?
Sounds very useful! Does it handle images in both directions ?
This is awesome! I’ve been looking for a way to batch export my notes out of Apple notes, will this work for that purpose?
I totally agree with you that most notes apps miss the mark. I’m working on one now which I hope satisfies the same requirements as Apple notes(dead simple, iCloud sync, free) but has some things I want (improved search, first class markdown support).
I’ve been using it as my daily driver for a while, but it’s not quite ready for other users yet. I wrote a bit about it in my year in review[1] under the section “Not Another Notes App!”.
1. https://emmettmcdow.com/posts/2025-in-review
Came here to find out exactly this!
This is an awesome tool. Would love to get started in 2026 with all my notes (without an id) being synced to a markdown folder / repo
Maybe consider a name change. There is another very popular app with the same name which does some other stuff...
on my iphone the readme ascii art title gets truncated to just "STASI" :-)
been looking for something like this! will definitely check it out.
I think the name is not unique enough
Yeah there's a popular self hosted media server designed for... other purposes
Nice idea, although I fear it will break due to AppleScript. I might take some time to investigate doing it all as a Swift CLI.
How is this different to Obsidian which has a nice UI, supports importing Apple Notes and iCloud Sync works and is free.
I was about to say "Obsidian is free as long as you don't use it for work."
But it turns out that that is no longer the case. https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/
Obsidian is now actually free for everyone.
The big benefit is that you get to use the Apple Notes app. I prefer Apple Notes on my phone, to be honest. I haven't used Obsidian's app on iOS in over a year.
I personally put all my work-related dev notes in Obsidian, and all my life-related quick notes in Apple Notes.
Obsidian still does not support iOS widgets. I use the app, but it's honestly still a major annoyance, since I cannot add to-dos with one swipe as I would be able to do with Apple Notes.
Widgets are in the current insider build, so they should be available to everyone soon.
Awesome will try this for sure!
I will have to try this.
Question: is there a way to make this automatic on state changes? I had an issue recently where a child accidentally overwrote my huge Apple notes and I couldn’t undo the change, or restore my history
I lost a lot of work