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.

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

been looking for something like this! will definitely check it out.

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