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Think in plain Markdown.

A fast, private, local-first knowledge base for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Wiki-links, backlinks, a graph and a mind map, diagrams, maths and on-device AI — over notes that stay plain files you own.

DownloadExplore the features

Version 1.3.3 · macOS, iOS & iPadOS 27 or later · Free

On the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Mac — or a direct download for Mac

Signed and notarised by Apple · No account · Nothing collected

Version 1.3.3 is with Apple for review. Until it is approved the App Store has 1.3.2; the direct download for Mac is 1.3.3 today. iPhone and iPad get 1.3.3 through the App Store as soon as it is approved.

The HelloNotes window in three parts: a sidebar with Mind Map, Assistant, Ask Your Library and Git above the tree of the collection’s folders and notes; the note “Start Here” open in the editor; and a right panel showing Summary & Outline — the note’s word count and its headings
The HelloNotes window in three parts: a sidebar with Mind Map, Assistant, Ask Your Library and Git above the tree of the collection’s folders and notes; the note “Start Here” open in the editor; and a right panel showing Summary & Outline — the note’s word count and its headings

Everything a knowledge base should be

Powerful where it counts, and out of your way everywhere else.

📄

Local-first, plain files

Your notes are ordinary .md files in a folder you choose. No database, no lock-in, readable in any editor — and still yours if you ever stop using HelloNotes.

✍️

A native live editor

Built on TextKit 2, not a browser engine. Markdown styles as you type, with syntax-highlighted code, LaTeX maths, Mermaid diagrams and collapsible callouts rendered natively.

🔗

Connected thinking

[[Wiki-links]] with autocomplete and aliases, backlinks, unlinked mentions, note transclusion, a graph of each note’s links, and a mind map of the links across the whole collection.

🔎

Find anything, fast

Full-text search with snippets, Open Quickly, find and replace with regular expressions, nested tags with autocomplete, bookmarks, daily notes and templates.

✨

Intelligence on your device

Summarise, suggest tags and links, find the links you meant to make, or ask questions across your whole library — on your device, with Apple Intelligence or an open model you run with MLX. No AI services, no API keys.

🕘

Version history with Git

Initialise a repository, commit as you write, browse any note’s history and restore an earlier version. Sync to your own remote — never to us.

See the full feature list →

See it in action

A calm, keyboard-first editor with real power under the hood.

The note “Rich Content” in Split view: its Markdown source on the left, and on the right the same note rendered, with three coloured callouts and inline and block LaTeX maths
The note “Rich Content” in Split view: its Markdown source on the left, and on the right the same note rendered, with three coloured callouts and inline and block LaTeX maths
Source beside the rendered page
The Mind Map open as a tab beside a note: the collection at the centre, two coloured branches of notes headed by “Start Here” and “Index”, and faint dashed lines for the links the branches leave out
The Mind Map open as a tab beside a note: the collection at the centre, two coloured branches of notes headed by “Start Here” and “Index”, and faint dashed lines for the links the branches leave out
The Mind Map
The Assistant open as a tab, running on the System model: asked to summarise the Linking note in three bullet points, it shows a search_notes call and a read_note call and then a three-point answer
The Assistant open as a tab, running on the System model: asked to summarise the Linking note in three bullet points, it shows a search_notes call and a read_note call and then a three-point answer
The Assistant

Browse all screenshots →

🔒

Private by design

HelloNotes collects nothing. There is no account, no analytics and no tracking, and we operate no server that could receive your notes. The AI runs on your device: your notes are not sent to us or to any AI service. The exception is a web search the Assistant makes when a question needs one — the privacy policy says exactly what that sends.

Read the privacy policy →

Start writing today

HelloNotes is free on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Download on the App StoreView source on GitHub

Prefer not to use the App Store? The direct download for Mac is signed and notarised.

Version 1.3.3 is with Apple for review. Until it is approved the App Store has 1.3.2; the direct download for Mac is 1.3.3 today. iPhone and iPad get 1.3.3 through the App Store as soon as it is approved.

Published by Hello Tham.