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elgato2024

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 4, 2019
67
3
so I am looking for something like macos notes...
where I can have multiple folders with multiple notes in it (incl links, pics and stuff),
like in notes, all accessible with one click from within the software.
with one big difference: I want these files to be files, i.e. easily accessible and backupable within the filesystem.
ideally open source, ideally free.
any ideas?
thank you for your help.
 
Notes is great and I use it heavily, but for the requirement you're describing for it to be file based, you could use Pages (or Word) instead and create all the folders and subfolders you'd need.
 
Notes-type apps seem to all be database applications as far as I can tell. The open source Joplin app lets you store the database anywhere you want but you can't mess with the organization of it and its folders.
 
Notes is great and I use it heavily, but for the requirement you're describing for it to be file based, you could use Pages (or Word) instead and create all the folders and subfolders you'd need.
yeah but these do not offer the 'all notes accessible with one click' menus on the left
 
Is there no reason you can't just keep your text files organized in folders, and just open them via the Finder?

Anyways, maybe something like Atom. You'll have to drag folders into a sidebar manually, but when you do, you can browse the folder and files in a tree view.
 
FSNotes, maybe?

It provides a sidebar with your entries and each entry can be Reveal in Finder and consists of a markdown file(although inside a .bundle)

It's on both GitHub and on the Mac App Store - on the Mac App Store you support the author with a few $
 
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Is there no reason you can't just keep your text files organized in folders, and just open them via the Finder?

Anyways, maybe something like Atom. You'll have to drag folders into a sidebar manually, but when you do, you can browse the folder and files in a tree view.
the way macos-notes lists my notes on the left is just very convenient when switchin between the single notes.
notes is great really when it comes to functionality, the only thing I dislike is that I need the net to sync between computers.
i would love it if macos-notes would save all content in files (one per note) that could then easily be copied around.

thanks for the hint but atom is not really a text but a programming editor.
 
Maybe try Obsidian? https://obsidian.md
It's markdown based, but customizable, plug-ins and can do pretty much anything you'd ever want.
thanks for the tip, but too geeky for my taste, i am no friend of markdown and such ... want a simple, standard way of formatting text... plus it needs to be able to hold external files such as pdf, pics, etc
 
hm macos pages12 could be a candidate but they deal with inserted pdf-files in a different & bad way.
in notes, the inserted file is displayed with its first page, and dbl-clickin on it will open it with ur default pdf-viewer, eg. preview.
pages12 does not open it, it seems to not include the entire file but merely its first page, like a picture or so....
any thoughts on this? and how to make pages12 act like notes regarding pdf-files?
 
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