MarginNote 4: AI Notes·MindMap
Read & Flashcards All in One
Free · In‑App Purchases
MarginNote is the PDF study tool for deep readers. One excerpt is a PDF highlight, a mind map node, and a flashcard — one capture, three places. This is the Card Axis architecture, so you stop ferrying content between a PDF reader, a notes app, and a flashcard tool. A decade of iteration. 188K+ App Store ratings.
【Four Featured Mechanics】
▸ Card Axis — One excerpt, three renders. Document highlight, mind map node, and flashcard are the same card seen from three angles.
▸ Title Link — Old notes auto-surface in new documents. When a familiar concept appears in what you're reading, your past annotation lights up on the page.
▸ Extended Note — Long-press anywhere on a PDF to open writing space. No anchored text required; three display modes (inline / margin / collapsed).
▸ Immersive Mode (4.4) — Three-state toggle: Read / Write / Recall. UI folds away. Recall blurs excerpts with Gaussian blur — tap to reveal only after you've actually recalled.
【AI Capabilities (introduced in 4.2)】
AI book breakdown · AI OCR templates · AI translation · AI Q&A · AI flashcard generation
Our stance is AI as assistant, not replacement — every suggestion can be saved as your own thinking node, never thinking for you.
【Apple Intelligence (iOS 26+)】
Recall Mode hints can run on-device via Apple Intelligence — pick "Apple AI" or "cloud LLM" in Settings. With Apple AI selected, three tiers of help — Neighbor Coordinate · Reasoning Prompt · Key Distinction — are generated by Apple Foundation Models right on your device: no network calls, no AI credits used, your notes never leave your device. Even if you've selected cloud LLM, going offline auto-falls back to Apple Intelligence (provided your device supports it) — so libraries, planes, and exam-day silent rooms never break your hint loop.
【Full Workflow】
Fast OCR · Study Sets (PDF / EPUB / video / audio) · direct read from Zotero / cloud drives / USB · 10 mind map styles · book recomposition · dual-document compare · concept maps · handwriting layers
【FSRS Spaced Repetition】
Built on the open-spaced-repetition project's algorithm (paper accepted by ACM SIGKDD; Anki has used FSRS as its default scheduler since v23.10). Push short-term memory into long-term.
【Built For】
Anyone re-reading a single document until it sticks — med school (USMLE / MCAT) · law school (LSAT / bar exam) · grad prep (GRE / GMAT / CFA) · researchers · language learners (IELTS / TOEFL) · serious readers.
【All Apple Platforms】
iPhone + iPad + Mac under one Apple ID. iCloud syncs Study Sets, notes, and review progress. Native Apple Pencil support on iPad.
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Questions? Email service@marginnote.com
Terms: https://dist.marginnote.com/MarginNote_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf
Privacy: https://dist.marginnote.com/MarginNote_Privacy_Policy.pdf
This update focuses on improvements to AI Breakdown (Extract Questions), Condense, the Immersive mode reading experience, and backup security.
AI Extract Questions Upgrade
- AI Breakdown now includes a standalone Extract Questions entry, allowing you to quickly extract and split exercises and exam papers.
- Extract Questions will try to create cards as complete questions, grouping question stems, sub-questions, options, materials, and answer explanations together, reducing missed questions, duplicate cards, and incorrect extraction.
- Improved recognition of Chinese/English question numbers, chapter question numbers, consecutive number items, and exam sub-questions.
Enhanced cross-page question handling, text recognition effectiveness, and stability.
- A quick entry for Extract Questions has been added to Immersive mode, supporting selection of the entire document or by table of contents range for question extraction.
Version Library & Space Management
- Added a space management entry in Version Library that can scan for and release safely recoverable space, displaying the actual freed amount after release.
- Before restoring a version history, the backup data integrity is now checked. If the cloud sync is incomplete, the restore will be stopped to avoid accidentally deleting current content.
- When exiting a study set with unsaved changes, an automatic version history is now generated more quickly.
Immersive Reading Experience
- Added a document side navigation bar in Immersive mode. You can drag it to quickly jump pages, with the page number displayed while dragging. The bar auto-fades when reading.
Condense & Selection Optimizations
- Condense results have been upgraded to three levels: One Sentence, Key Points List, and Detailed Summary, meeting different scenario needs. You can directly switch levels, and press to copy the condensed result.
- In recall mode, condensed results now support progressive hints to help recall collapsed condensed content.
- The selection handle for assistive excerpt now includes a Continuous / Single selection switch. Continuous selection is the default; switching to single selection makes a tap directly select a single block, restoring the assistive excerpt selection behavior from v4.4.1.
- The continuous block selection tool now has a "Clear & Reselect" button, letting you reselect without exiting the mode.
Other Optimizations & Fixes
- Added a "Tap page edge to turn page (Legacy)" toggle in Settings; it is off by default to reduce accidental page turns.
- The minimize button hit area for AI/Research floating windows has been enlarged for easier tapping.
- Added a "Auto-open title link on hover" toggle in title link settings.
- Fixed an issue where mind map menu shortcuts were not working.
- In Immersive mode, the excerpt tool range hint now appears only once.
- Fixed issues where the text box would accidentally exit editing in Apple Pencil mode and text would become blurry in split view or when zoomed in.
- Fixed premature line breaks after restoring text box styles.
- Fixed an issue where tapping to select a block could accidentally select a large area.
- Fixed difficulty in tapping PDF selection/excerpt adjustment handles with large windows or at high zoom levels.
- Fixed a potential crash when exiting a study set instantly.
- Fixed the issue of the Feedback & Customer Service page being interrupted by background network fluctuation pop-ups.
- Continuous optimization of other experience and stability
Subscriptions
In-App Purchases
The developer, Beijing Yunsi Software Technology Co., Ltd, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Used to Track You
The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies:
- Identifiers
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
- Diagnostics
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Beijing Yunsi Software Technology Co., Ltd
- Size
- 340.9 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
English and 4 more
- English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- 14 days Free Trial $0.00
- Upgrade to PRO from MN3(iOS) $4.99
- 14 days Free Trial $0.00
- Unlock PRO Forever (New) $12.99
- MarginNote Max Annual $16.99
- Unlock MAX Forever (New) $51.99
- Subscription to MAX (Annually) $12.99
- Unlock MAX based on PRO (New) $40.00
- Subscription to MAX (3 months) $4.99
- Upgrade to MAX from MN3(macOS) $19.99
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2026 Beijing YunSi Software Technology Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

