Available for macOS
MinkNote keeps your notes, journals and projects in one place on your Mac. Private by design, with your writing stored as plain text files you own.
macOS Sequoia 15 or later required
MinkNote stores your notes as standard Markdown files on your Mac. No proprietary formats. No database lock-in. Open your notes with any editor, today or years from now.
MinkNote is designed for keyboard-first navigation. Move instantly between journals, notes, and the editor without touching the mouse. Your ideas stay in motion.
MinkNote gives your writing and projects a clear structure without making you build a system first. Start simple, organise things naturally, and add more structure as your project grows.
MinkNote adapts to whatever you’re working on. Plan a project, keep a journal, capture a meeting or organise your studies, without reaching for a different app every time.
The more you write, the more valuable your collection becomes. MinkNote helps you turn individual notes into an organised body of knowledge you can connect, explore and build on over time.
Your notes become more than individual files. They become your personal knowledge workspace.
Native to the Mac, thoughtfully organised and private by design, with your writing stored in files you own.
Your notes are plain text files you own on your Mac.
Open, switch, and organise multiple projects without moving your files.
Structure your notes with journals and folders that reflect how you think.
Choose between Standard and Journal notes, depending on whether time matters.
Switch seamlessly between Markdown and rich text, with a live preview when you need it.
Show the formatting toolbar when you need it, and hide it when you don't.
Create and edit Markdown tables with the flexibility you expect from a full editor.
Drag, drop, and paste images directly into your notes.
Move notes between journals and folders while keeping images and attachments together.
Use tags and favourites to quickly group, highlight, and revisit what matters most.
Three focused search options help you find exactly what you need, right when you need it.
Move between journals, notes, and the editor using simple keyboard shortcuts. Stay focused and keep your hands on the keys.
Free to download. No account. Your files stay yours — always.
Download for MacMinkNote is a writing app for Mac. It keeps your notes, journals, documents and projects in one place, with tools to organise, link and search everything as your collection grows. Your writing stays on your Mac as plain text files you own, with no account and no cloud service.
Markdown is a simple way of adding formatting to plain text files. Unlike formats such as Microsoft Word documents, Markdown files can be opened and edited by a huge range of apps.
You don't need to know Markdown to use MinkNote. Just write normally and use the formatting toolbar for headings, lists, links, bold text and more. MinkNote handles the Markdown for you.
If you do know Markdown, you can edit it directly for more precise control over how your content is formatted.
No. You can write and format your documents using MinkNote's rich text editor without learning Markdown syntax. Markdown is the open file format used underneath, which means your writing remains portable and readable by other apps.
No. Markdown is MinkNote's native writing format, not the purpose of the app. MinkNote adds projects, journals, folders, tags, links, search, rich editing, images and other tools for organising and working with a growing collection of information.
Anything that benefits from writing and organisation: personal notes, journaling, project documentation, research, long-form writing, study material, reference libraries and personal collections. You can keep things simple, or build something more structured over time.
Yes. MinkNote is free to use with one fully editable journal, including as many folders and notes as you like. Pro unlocks editing across multiple journals and projects, giving you more freedom to organise your files wherever you choose. Your content always remains accessible, whichever version you use.
Yes. MinkNote is local-first and does not require an internet connection to work. Your files live on your Mac. If you choose to store them in iCloud Drive, macOS can handle syncing between your devices, but MinkNote itself does not require a cloud service.
Yes. Store your MinkNote files in iCloud Drive and they can sync between your Macs using iCloud. MinkNote itself does not require an account or provide its own cloud service.
Yes. MinkNote stores your writing as standard Markdown files, so you can open and edit them with other Markdown or plain-text editors. Your content is not trapped inside MinkNote.
Nothing happens to them. They remain standard Markdown files in regular folders on your Mac. There is no export step and no proprietary format to escape from. You can copy, move, back up or open them with other compatible apps whenever you want.
It can be. MinkNote's projects, journals, folders, links, tags and search make it well suited to personal knowledge management, but you do not need to adopt a PKM system or methodology. It works just as well as a simple place to write and keep things organised.
Not a silly question at all! MinkNote follows the same strict security guidelines as the Mac App Store: everything is sandboxed. You don't have to click any "trust this developer" dialogs, and MinkNote doesn't require Full Disk Access.
The way it works: MinkNote can read and write to any folder you choose, but you specify that folder yourself via the Open Panel dialog. The action button carries the system label "Grant Access", which means you allow the app to read/write to just that one directory. MinkNote remembers which directories you've granted access to, so you only need to do this once per folder.
If you're comparing feature lists, Obsidian is clearly more mature. It's been around longer, has a large community, and offers a very broad set of capabilities.
Where MinkNote aims to be different is in how it feels to use on macOS. MinkNote is a fully native Mac app and follows many platform conventions that macOS users expect. Keyboard navigation (moving between journals, between notes, switching focus with Tab / Shift+Tab) is built in and consistent in a way Obsidian doesn't replicate.
Another difference is philosophy. In Obsidian, many core behaviours rely on third-party plugins. While that ecosystem is powerful, it can feel heavyweight or harder to reason about from a security and maintenance point of view. MinkNote intentionally keeps more functionality built in.
Finally, Obsidian is Electron-based, a perfectly valid choice, but it does use more system resources than a native app, something many Mac users are sensitive to.
That said, Obsidian absolutely has features MinkNote doesn't yet, and many are on the roadmap. The goal with MinkNote isn't to compete on breadth, but to offer a calmer, more Mac-native experience.
MinkNote requires macOS Sequoia 15 or later. Both Intel and Apple silicon Macs are supported.
MinkNote is currently focused on the Mac. iPhone and iPad support is planned once the Mac app reaches feature completeness, allowing documents to move seamlessly between Apple devices.
In the meantime, you can open your Markdown files with any compatible iOS app. I’ve had good results with 1Writer, which costs $5. I’m not affiliated with its developer.
Download for Mac