Exporter: Notes to Markdown
Export notes, contacts, backup
Only for Mac
Free · In‑App Purchases
Export Apple Notes, Messages (iMessage), Contacts, Screen Time, Bear, and Logseq as Markdown or HTML. Back up your data, use it with AI tools, or just own it as plain text files, with no lock-in.
- export from Apple Notes, Messages, Contacts, Screen Time, Bear, and Logseq
- every iMessage conversation becomes a markdown file: a heading per day, reactions on the message they belong to, edited messages with their history, replies as real links, and the photos people sent, converted so they actually display
- every contact card becomes a markdown file with phones, emails, addresses and groups; chats link to people, and people list their conversations
- every day of Screen Time becomes a markdown file: app usage, websites, notifications, and screen sessions. macOS deletes this data after a few weeks; your export keeps every day forever
- real-time sync: auto-exports when anything changes, even in the background, with launch at login and menu bar mode
- Markdown with YAML front matter: title, created/modified dates, folders, nested tags, word counts, and deep links that reopen every note in its source app
- works great with Obsidian: dates show up as real date properties, pre-built bases, and a companion plugin with sync status inside your vault
- built-in MCP server: your notes, contacts, and conversations as context for Claude, Cursor, and VS Code, with one-click connect
- HTML export preserves full formatting
- all attachments exported alongside your notes
- organize exports by folders or tags, and pick exactly which conversations export
- free on every source: 100 Apple Notes, 100 contacts, 10 conversations, 10 days of Screen Time. Re-syncing what you've exported stays free forever. Unlock each with a one-time purchase. Bear and Logseq are completely free, with no subscription, ever.
more I write many stories in Apple Notes. I have converted many of my stories to html using Notes Explorer. The images are in their own sub-directory and not embedded into the html (which is a good thing). They are also saved in a format which web browsers like so they can be 'read aloud' (which is a great thing for my long 40k+ stories).
I write many stories in Apple Notes. I have converted many of my stories to html using Notes Explorer. The images are in their own sub-directory and not embedded into the html (which is a good thing). They are also saved in a format which web browsers like so they can be 'read aloud' (which is a great thing for my long 40k+ stories).
Every source now has tabs, not just Apple Notes. Bear adds Recent, Pinned, Archived and Files beside its tags. Messages splits People from Groups and can show only what you have not read. Contacts gains Groups and Companies.
Screen Time gets a list of days for the first time, so the ten free days are ten days you chose rather than ten the app picked for you. Sort by Busiest to find the ones worth keeping.
Nothing exports until you ask it to. Connecting a source and choosing a folder no longer starts a sync on its own, and real-time sync begins only after your first manual sync of that source.
Notes Exporter now also speaks Czech, Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, Vietnamese and Hungarian.
3.22 1d ago
Notes Exporter now speaks German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic and Traditional Chinese, on top of the languages it already had. It follows your Mac's language automatically, and you can pick another one from the footer or in Settings.
Four new ways to find a note: Shared, Pinned, Recent and Popular sit next to Folders and Tags. Popular ranks by how often you actually open a note.
Setting up is guided now: the welcome card walks you through connecting, choosing where the files go, and the first sync, one step at a time. Nothing exports until you ask it to, so your free notes stay yours to spend.
3.21 2d ago
Notes Exporter now speaks Japanese, French, Simplified Chinese and Korean. It follows your Mac's language automatically, and you can pick another one from the footer or in Settings.
A new welcome screen on first launch explains what the app does, what is free, and what the one-time unlock costs.
Small fixes across the source cards.
3.20 3d ago
- New source: Screen Time. Every day becomes a markdown file — app usage, websites, notifications, and screen sessions. macOS deletes this data after a few weeks; your export keeps every day forever. 10 days free, one-time unlock for the rest
- Fixed a crash and a flickering scroll bar that appeared when macOS is set to always show scroll bars — the bar no longer steals width from the layout
- The rating row no longer sits deeper than the other rows
3.19 5d ago
Fixed a crash when opening a folder in the notes list. If the app quit on you while you were browsing folders, that is gone.
Prices now appear in your own currency. Notes Exporter is also considerably cheaper in many countries: Apple's automatic conversion had been charging some regions more than customers in the United States pay, and that is now corrected.
The notes list no longer stalls while Apple Notes is syncing in the background.
3.18 6d ago
Pick your conversations: the Messages card now lists every conversation with a checkbox — untick the ones you don't want exported. New conversations stay selected by default, and skipping a conversation never costs you a free slot.
Message sync is much faster: photos convert on all cores and the next conversation loads while the current one is written. The free counter now ticks live during a sync.
Fixed: on some Macs the app showed 0 Apple Notes even though Notes was full — a quirk in long-lived Notes libraries. This update reads them correctly.
New: notes database diagnostics in Settings shows whether the app can read your Notes library, and problem reports now include that summary automatically — so if something is wrong, one report is enough.
3.17 Aug 30
New source: Messages. Every conversation becomes one markdown file — a heading per day, who said what and when, reactions netted onto the message they belong to, edited messages with their earlier versions kept as footnotes, replies as real links, and the photos and videos people sent copied out next to the text (iPhone HEIC photos are converted so they actually display).
Connect Contacts too and the two link up: a chat links to the person's card, and their card lists the conversations you have with them.
Your 10 most recent conversations are free; all of them for a one-time $4.99.
Notes Exporter now keeps a local index of everything you've connected, which is what makes a sync touch only the conversations that changed — and it lets the built-in MCP server's search find a person by name across your notes, contacts and chats at once.
3.16 Aug 30
New source: Contacts. Every card becomes a markdown file — name, phones, emails, addresses, birthdays, social profiles, relationships and groups as properties, the note as the body — and stays in sync as you edit in Contacts. Files land next to your notes, so Obsidian, Dataview and the built-in MCP server see people and notes together. 100 contacts free, all of them for a one-time $4.99.
Also: the command line learned --source contacts, connected sources sort to the top, and the export log shows every source.
3.15 Aug 26
Fixed: exporting by tag now keeps your selection. Previously a full resync could silently change which tags were selected — the tags you picked are now remembered correctly across syncs.
Anonymous, opt-out usage stats (Settings) help us improve the app. We count which features are used and roughly how big libraries are — never your note content, titles, or paths. Turn it off any time.
3.14 Aug 24
Readable in dark mode. Links, status text and every accent colour now adapt to light and dark instead of staying a light-mode blue on a dark background. Contrast is checked automatically on every build, so it can't drift back.
A bigger, clearer window. Text is larger throughout, the window is wider, and you can resize it: long folder names and export paths no longer cut off mid-word.
Cleaner typography. The monospaced face is now used only where it earns it: counts, dates, file paths and commands. Everything else reads in the system font.
One obvious action per source. "Sync now" is a proper primary button instead of one of six identical buttons, with the quieter actions grouped beneath it.
The free tier says what it means. You can see how many of your 100 free notes are used, and it now states plainly that your first 100 notes keep re-syncing free forever: only new notes beyond 100 need the one-time unlock.
Release notes on the main screen. Subscribe to occasional release notes and tips from the home screen, double opt-in, unsubscribe anytime.
Tidier note rows. Each note has a single link that opens it in Apple Notes; reveal in Finder and open the exported file moved to the right-click menu.
Thin scrollbars. Scroll handles no longer sit on a grey track, including when macOS is set to always show scroll bars.
Fixed: Notes Exporter no longer writes file paths to the system console, and no longer leaves a debug file in your Documents folder when exporting a note containing a table.
3.13 Aug 20
- Exports launched from cron, Carbon Copy Cloner or any root-owned automation now stay attached and return the real exit code. macOS was suspending the export when no desktop session was present, and the caller read that as the command finishing while the export was still writing
- Attachment filenames no longer change between exports. When two attachments in one folder share a name, the suffix is now decided up front and stays the same every run, so backup tools stop recopying hundreds of megabytes of identical files
- One run log per export, written in the folder that run actually wrote to. The duplicate copy that used to land in your configured sync folder is gone, and the export log still reads every folder the app knows about
- Your export folder is now a mirror of your notes instead of a pile that only grows. Files whose note was deleted, renamed or moved away are removed, tracked by a manifest so nothing the app did not write is ever touched. The first run after updating only starts recording and deletes nothing
3.12 Aug 19
Handwritten notes and drawings now export properly.
- Drawings, sketches, and handwritten notes are exported as images (or PDFs) next to your markdown files and embedded in the note
- Apple's recognized handwriting text is included below the image, so exported notes are searchable and readable by AI tools
- Scanned documents that previously exported without a file are now included
- Drawings that can't be found on disk are reported in the export log instead of being silently skipped
3.11 Aug 4
better visibility into purchases.
fixing issues with CLI.
3.10 Jul 24
making CLI more robust.
obsidian notes exporter plugin 0.3.0 released.
3.9 Jul 20
This update fixes the command line tool and makes the app easier to troubleshoot.
Command line
• Fixed: the installed notes-exporter command showed "not connected" even when your sources were connected in the app. If you installed the command in 3.7, copy the install command from the Command Line card once more to fix it.
• Running notes-exporter with no arguments now shows usage help instead of failing.
• New: notes-exporter report — prints a diagnostic summary (app state, recent exports, last crash) and copies it to the clipboard. Add --send to deliver it straight to us.
Menu bar mode
• Fixed: the app could quit on its own after launching in menu bar mode or after clicking the menu bar icon.
3.8 Jul 16
- notes exporter CLI - preview
- better HTML export - resizable images
3.7 Jul 14
NEW: Logseq support — export your Logseq graphs to Markdown, with the same real-time sync as Apple Notes and Bear. Free.
NEW: background sync — turn on launch at login and menu bar mode, and your notes keep exporting with the window closed. The menu bar shows live sync status for every source.
NEW: MCP server card — start/stop, one-click connect for Claude, Cursor, and VS Code, and it starts automatically with the app.
FIXED: created and modified dates now appear as real date properties in Obsidian (thanks Natalie for the report!)
FIXED: notes with identical titles no longer overwrite each other, attachments with matching names are kept separate, and real-time sync no longer silently stops after macOS database maintenance.
FASTER: exports now run in parallel — big libraries export without freezing the app.
3.6 Jul 13
- Fixed internal note links: they now keep their titles and link to the correct note in both Markdown and HTML exports (previously they showed a raw ID like [[74c2f5b6-…]]).
- HTML export now copies and embeds attachments (images and files) — they were missing before.
- New Export Log: after each export you can see exactly how many notes succeeded or failed, any attachment issues, and a history of past runs — both inside the app and saved next to your export.
- Bear exports are now logged too, alongside Apple Notes.
3.5 Jun 28
better support widgets.
3.4 Jun 12
improve mcp sever tooling. show logs.
3.3 Jun 10
Connect your notes to AI tools. Notes Exporter now includes a local MCP server that lets Cursor, VS Code, Claude Desktop, and Claude Code read your exported notes as context. Start the server in Settings and connect with one click. Also fixes Bear card expanding on every launch.
3.2 Jun 6
Add Obsidian Plugin support.
3.1 Jun 4
- Bear notes export (free, unlimited)
- real-time sync: notes auto-export when they change
- export directly into Obsidian vaults and create default Obsidian bases
- all attachments included with exports
- full resync option to re-export everything from scratch
- completely redesigned interface
3.0 May 26
- browse individual notes inside folders and tags
- folder and note icons in the tree view
- open exported notes in your default editor or reveal in Finder
- deeplink to any note in Apple Notes
- double-click rows to select/deselect
- markdown is now the default export format
- compact single-row layout for export controls
- taller tree view showing more folders at once
- fixed note loading when expanding folders
2.0 Apr 2
What's New in 1.13:
- freemium: export up to 100 notes for free
- subfolder export: selecting a folder now includes all its subfolders
- export results shown on a single line for cleaner UI
1.13 Mar 30
Every source now has tabs, not just Apple Notes. Bear adds Recent, Pinned, Archived and Files beside its tags. Messages splits People from Groups and can show only what you have not read. Contacts gains Groups and Companies.
Screen Time gets a list of days for the first time, so the ten free days are ten days you chose rather than ten the app picked for you. Sort by Busiest to find the ones worth keeping.
Nothing exports until you ask it to. Connecting a source and choosing a folder no longer starts a sync on its own, and real-time sync begins only after your first manual sync of that source.
Notes Exporter now also speaks Czech, Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, Vietnamese and Hungarian.
more Version 3.22 1d ago
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