Notice apps had been a part of my paintings for years, most commonly as a result of I write about device and stay trying out new ones. There is additionally the UX perspective – approachable gear are one thing I simply experience poking at. Both approach, biking via they all is not lifelike and committing to only one has all the time felt like a nasty guess too.
Then it roughly dawned on me that the large names I stored attaining for had the similar blind spot. You want the app itself to learn your individual notes. The answer was once approach more practical than including every other device to my already overflowing arsenal… Markdown recordsdata.
I cancelled my Perception subscription after Claude Code realized how I take notes
My terminal takes higher notes than I do.
The 3 maximum cherished be aware apps all have the similar blind spot
And every one additionally comes with its personal catch
My telephone has been the middle of maximum of my notes for years, this means that Apple Notes carries a large number of weight in that setup. The app itself is okay and I in fact love it. However the ecosystem part is one thing that begins to hassle me the extra I take into consideration it. Despite the fact that you disable iCloud sync for Notes and keep on with the native On My iPhone account, the ones notes nonetheless get pulled into your iPhone backups, which nonetheless add to Apple’s servers. Some options additionally best paintings at the iCloud account. So principally, no model of Apple Notes truly lives out of doors Apple’s infrastructure.
Perception were given me via a section too and I do not in fact have many gripes with it. The unfastened tier is first rate for solo use however caps document dimension and web page historical past at limits you can in the end hit, and the extra complex options get started at round $10 a month. My exact factor previous pricing is that Perception is so much. Development the rest past a fundamental web page approach navigating its layered database gadget, so sooner or later, environment all that up and keeping up it simply were given me asking myself what I used to be even seeking to do.
Obsidian is the standout right here. It is cherished by way of the open-source neighborhood regardless of no longer being open-source (and I appreciate the devs’ determination to stay it closed). Then again, it is lean to the purpose the place any complex capability comes from plugins. The UX is cast however can really feel a little crowded if you stack plugins on, and Obsidian Sync being a paid carrier has all the time felt like an atypical selection for an in a different way beneficiant app. I do not use sync or cell myself, so it hasn’t been my drawback regardless that.
None of those are dangerous apps, truly, and my factor is not with them in my view. They only constitute the wider trend in how we use note-taking device, the place you want the app itself to get right of entry to what is within.
Why a folder of Markdown recordsdata is awesome
And it is going past the “it is future-proof” argument
I’ve to say the most obvious issues, as a result of they truly are the largest attraction. Markdown is solely simple textual content. The recordsdata are future-proof in some way proprietary codecs can not compete with, plus they keep readable even if not anything is rendering them so you are no longer relying on any explicit app to get right of entry to what is within. None of that is new data, however it is the basis the whole lot else builds on.
The larger case for me is the AI technology we are in. I am not having a look to have proprietary notes on best of proprietary AI gear, and this is not an area LLM factor particularly. Each and every AI device I take advantage of accepts simple textual content as an enter someplace. Even those with complete record toughen, like NotebookLM and Claude Tasks, nonetheless have simple textual content fields for directions or context. The markdown hierarchy could also be one who each AI reads natively, so a header in my document in fact reads as a header to the fashion without a formatting conversion someplace within the heart.
Any other factor for my explicit use case: Markdown’s structural hierarchy is a blank option to take into consideration visible hierarchy in design, because the approach headers nest beneath every different is identical good judgment to arranging a display screen. I simply all the time concept it was once a gorgeous cool illustration of what I am studying in design categories at this time. YAML frontmatter is every other underrated piece, the place metadata sits on the best of a document and travels with the be aware throughout apps. I do not lean on it closely but, however the choice being there may be beautiful cool.
The most important piece for me regardless that is cross-app fluency. Markdown recordsdata do not care which app I open them in, so I will be able to use any editor, or none, and my notes keep readable and editable from anyplace.
I attached Claude to Obsidian with out putting in MCP, and I will have to have carried out it faster
The answer was once sitting proper there the entire time
Dwelling in a folder of Markdown
My setup, give or take
This appears other for everybody. Move-device switch is straightforward via Snapdrop, or AirDrop between my two iPhones. As soon as a document is on cell, I will be able to pop it into no matter app I think like the usage of; Joplin and Simplenote are my go-tos for rendering markdown however Apple Notes permits you to import markdown too, and from time to time I simply learn the document directly from the Recordsdata app.
Claude is every other position this will get helpful. CLAUDE.md is an instruction document Claude reads for gadget context, and I will be able to additionally paintings with the folder at once via Filesystem. That covers the whole lot from growing a brand new document to modifying one I have already were given, so a large number of what used to wish a real notes app now occurs within Claude. Again to the AI fluency factor once more – on this technology, simple textual content is essentially very important.
Now, about Obsidian… I understand how this sounds given the name, however my folder of markdown recordsdata is my Obsidian vault. This piece is extra about the place my notes reside slightly than which app reads them. A lot of the ones recordsdata originated in Obsidian and nonetheless open there fantastic. So I did not essentially ditch Obsidian, what I “ditched” was once the idea that Obsidian needed to be the default. They are no longer my Obsidian notes, simply notes that occur to reside in a typical folder titled Obsidian, and I take advantage of them all over.
As for my folder construction, I do not truly have one. As you’ll see, my folders are beautiful generic and the notes don’t seem to be all the time the place they belong. However that is roughly the entire level, that you do not truly desire a gadget with markdown.
Notice freedom
This was once by no means truly about eliminating the apps I discussed, or note-taking apps on the whole. What it in fact comes right down to, I believe, is be aware freedom. The apps are nonetheless round once I really feel like the usage of them, however they not make a decision whether or not I will be able to get right of entry to my very own paintings.
