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.
> 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?
So yes, it seems you do need Pandoc to do html-to-markdown and vice versa.
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!
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!”.
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
been looking for something like this! will definitely check it out.
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.
I personally put all my work-related dev notes in Obsidian, and all my life-related quick notes in 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 lost a lot of work