[HN Gopher] Show HN: Stash - Sync Markdown Files with Apple Note...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Stash - Sync Markdown Files with Apple Notes via CLI
Author : shuka
Score : 49 points
Date : 2026-01-06 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| shuka wrote:
| I've used Apple Notes for years because it syncs fast and stays
| out of the way. But when I'm writing in the terminal, there's
| always been friction getting Markdown into Apple Notes.
|
| Existing tools were either bloated or read-only. So I built
| Stash: push a Markdown file to Apple Notes, pull changes back. It
| uses YAML frontmatter to track which note belongs to which file.
|
| Built with Bash, AppleScript, and Pandoc. No databases, no
| daemons, no config files. Install via Homebrew. Happy to take
| suggestions and answer questions about the quirks I ran into
| along the way.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| How hard would it be to extend this to support bulk export of
| Apple Notes?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I love Apple Notes, but I also love writing in vim; looks like
| I can finally reconcile those two things thanks to your
| project. Nice work!
|
| > questions about the quirks
|
| I've used a decent amount of AppleScript to automate things on
| my Mac, so I know it's a powerful tool but not easy to just
| jump into, even when you're already familiar with that bizarre
| syntax. What kinds of quirks did you run into?
| Someone wrote:
| "Fun". In the latest MacOS, Apple Notes supports markdown
| export (https://support.apple.com/en-
| md/guide/notes/not201900c07/mac), but not through its
| AppleScript dictionary.
|
| So yes, it seems you do need Pandoc to do html-to-markdown and
| vice versa.
| happyopossum wrote:
| This looks cool, so obviously I have questions!
|
| Does it support pushing to personal/home/this-is-my-note.md, or
| does everything wind up in the Notes root?
|
| It appears notes have to start out externally in order to
| "stash pull" them, is that the case?
|
| thanks!
| stogot wrote:
| I will have to try this.
|
| Question: is there a way to make this automatic on state changes?
| I had an issue recently where a child accidentally overwrote my
| huge Apple notes and I couldn't undo the change, or restore my
| history
|
| I lost a lot of work
| ferfumarma wrote:
| I think the name is not unique enough
| viccis wrote:
| Yeah there's a popular self hosted media server designed for...
| other purposes
| kbouck wrote:
| on my iphone the readme ascii art title gets truncated to just
| "STASI" :-)
|
| been looking for something like this! will definitely check it
| out.
| mcdow wrote:
| This is awesome! I've been looking for a way to batch export my
| notes out of Apple notes, will this work for that purpose?
|
| I totally agree with you that most notes apps miss the mark. I'm
| working on one now which I hope satisfies the same requirements
| as Apple notes(dead simple, iCloud sync, free) but has some
| things I want (improved search, first class markdown support).
|
| I've been using it as my daily driver for a while, but it's not
| quite ready for other users yet. I wrote a bit about it in my
| year in review[1] under the section "Not Another Notes App!".
|
| 1. https://emmettmcdow.com/posts/2025-in-review
| bnchrch wrote:
| Came here to find out exactly this!
|
| This is an awesome tool. Would love to get started in 2026 with
| all my notes (without an id) being synced to a markdown folder
| / repo
| dc_giant wrote:
| Awesome will try this for sure!
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| How is this different to Obsidian which has a nice UI, supports
| importing Apple Notes and iCloud Sync works and is free.
| devilsdata wrote:
| The big benefit is that you get to use the Apple Notes app. I
| prefer Apple Notes on my phone, to be honest. I haven't used
| Obsidian's app on iOS in over a year.
|
| I personally put all my work-related dev notes in Obsidian, and
| all my life-related quick notes in Apple Notes.
| daotoad wrote:
| I was about to say "Obsidian is free as long as you don't use
| it for work."
|
| But it turns out that that is no longer the case.
| https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/
|
| Obsidian is now actually free for everyone.
| preezer wrote:
| Maybe consider a name change. There is another very popular app
| with the same name which does some other stuff...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-06 23:09 UTC)