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🦉 WE READ 813 OWNER COMMENTS
Apple Notes: what owners actually say
Owners praise Apple Notes for frictionless quick capture and ecosystem integration, but repeatedly hit a wall on data portability and lock-in.
What owners complain about
- Data lock-in SOME
Multiple developers built custom tools to extract notes from Apple's SQLite database via AppleScript, citing a need to 'liberate the data.' One user described being 'absolutely sick of being held hostage' by the closed format while trying to move to Obsidian.
- No Markdown support SOME
Users note Apple Notes lacks Markdown input or export, which matters for people who want plain-text portability or integration with developer workflows. One commenter argued Markdown 'doesn't really make sense for Notes outside of export,' but others clearly want it.
- IMAP sync is crippled FEW
A developer who tried building a CMS on top of Notes via IMAP syncing reported 'everything felt like a hack all the time' and that 'many features are not supported when syncing over IMAP,' including advanced formatting and collaboration.
- Falls apart at scale FEW
A user who accumulated ~6,000 notes in Apple Notes as part of a 'Second Brain' system eventually found it 'overwhelming and pointless,' suggesting the app doesn't hold up as a long-term knowledge management tool.
- Sync reliability across Apple devices SOME
While not Notes-specific, users report long-standing sync failures across the Apple ecosystem (e.g., Screen Time never syncing properly across iPhones, iPads, and Macs), contributing to distrust in iCloud-based syncing.
What owners love
- Unmatched quick capture
Owners call it their 'go-to application to capture unstructured memos' and praise how fast it is for jotting things down, even when they use heavier tools like Notion or Obsidian for structured work.
- Deep Apple ecosystem integration
Users specifically value Siri integration, Apple Pencil scribbling, and Shortcuts automation — 'all sorts of shortcuts can easily make or add to notes' — across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- Better than Evernote for the price
Switchers from Evernote cite it as 'deleting my content, struggling to stay synced, and way too expensive,' and one user still keeps Apple Notes for quick captures even after moving bulk notes to Notion.
- Surprisingly sophisticated under the hood
A developer discovered Apple Notes uses CRDTs (conflict-free replicated data types) to handle shared notes and concurrent edits — an advanced technical detail not advertised by Apple.
Surprising patterns
- Power users treat Apple Notes as a 'capture layer' even when their real system lives elsewhere — multiple commenters maintain Apple Notes alongside Obsidian or Notion, using it solely for speed of entry.
- Developers are reverse-engineering Apple Notes' internal SQLite database and building third-party tools (site generators, CMS systems) on top of it, accepting the risk that Apple may change the schema at any time.
- One user routes voice notes through a Siri shortcut with Claude AI that parses the content and files it into Notion automatically — bypassing Apple Notes entirely for structured storage while using Siri as the entry point.
WHO SHOULD SKIP IT
Anyone who needs Markdown workflows, cross-platform access outside Apple's ecosystem, or a scalable long-term knowledge base will likely find Apple Notes too locked-down, according to owners who hit those exact walls.
Synthesised from 813 real owner comments across 5 platforms. Every point is grounded in the comments — no marketing, no AI guessing. How we do it →