Two ways to use cloud storage
Because your notes are ordinary files, they can live wherever you already keep files. HelloNotes supports two approaches — the first is simpler and recommended.
1. Open a cloud folder (recommended)
Box, Dropbox, OneDrive (personal and business), Google Drive and iCloud Drive all present their storage to macOS as ordinary folders. If you have the provider’s app installed, choose File ▸ Open Cloud Folder… and pick the folder you want — no sign-in, because the files are already on your Mac. Everything works exactly as it does locally, and syncing between your devices is handled by the provider.
Cloud files are often online-only until something opens them. HelloNotes handles this deliberately:
- Online-only notes appear in the list with a cloud badge, so you can see what is not local.
- Opening one downloads it on demand, with a “Downloading from the cloud…” indicator while it arrives.
- Indexing skips notes that are not downloaded, so opening a large collection does not silently pull your entire library onto the disk. They are indexed once opened.
- The status bar shows how many notes are still online-only, and each note has Download (when it isn't local) or Remove Download (when it is) in its context menu.
Search covers notes that are downloaded. A note that has never been downloaded still appears in the list — its title comes from the filename — but it is not searchable until it is opened or downloaded. When a search is affected, the sidebar says so and offers to fetch what it is skipping.
2. Connect an account over the web
If you do not have the provider’s app installed — or do not want it — HelloNotes can talk to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and OneDrive over their own APIs.
- Choose File ▸ Connect Over the Web ▸ Dropbox… (or Box, Google Drive, OneDrive).
- Sign in to your account in the window that appears.
- Browse your folders and open a note to read or edit it in place.
- Or click Add as Collection to add the folder to the sidebar as a normal collection — with search, links, backlinks and the editor all working as usual. Saves are uploaded back automatically.
The folder’s structure appears straight away; each note’s contents download the first time you open it, so adding a large account does not mean waiting for a large download. Use Refresh in the status bar to ask the provider what has changed.
Sign-in uses the provider’s standard OAuth flow. Tokens are stored in the macOS Keychain, and no credentials pass through us.
On iPhone and iPad the same thing lives in Settings ▸ Cloud (direct API). Pick a provider, browse to the folder, and Add as Collection. The progress, stop and retry controls described below are on the Mac.
Editing on more than one device
If a note changes underneath you — another device, a sync client, another app — HelloNotes notices and tells you, offering to reload the version on disk or keep yours. It will not silently discard either one.
As with any file-syncing service, the usual advice applies: let a sync finish before editing the same note somewhere else.
A note on Git in cloud folders
Git and cloud-sync clients do not always get along: Git needs its object files present locally, and a sync client may keep them online-only or rewrite them mid-operation. HelloNotes therefore disables auto-commit for collections inside a cloud folder and shows a caution in the Git panel. Manual commits remain available when the folder is fully downloaded.
For version history, a local folder plus a Git remote is the more reliable arrangement — see Version history with Git.