Notesmith

Notesmith is a note app for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It has no account and no server, and the app sends me nothing. This page says where your notes are kept. It also lists every way I know of that your writing can move, including the ways that belong to Apple.

The short version

No account, no server, no advertising, no tracking, and no analytics or crash reporting code.
Your notes are kept in Notesmith's storage on your devices, and in your backups.
Sync is off until you turn it on, and then it goes directly between your paired devices.
Text goes anywhere else, such as Apple's Writing Tools, Bibliome or an AI app, only through features you use or turn on.
On the Mac you can lock a block with a passphrase that is never stored.

Requirements

Mac: macOS 26 or later. iPhone and iPad: iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later.

The iPhone and iPad app is the smaller of the two. It has no recording, calendar, reminders or export, and none of Notesmith's own Apple Intelligence features. It can't lock or unlock a block, only show that one is there. Apple's Writing Tools can still work in its editor on devices that support them, except in a note marked Never Share with AI. Where a section below says Mac, it applies only to the Mac.

Privacy policy

What I collect

Nothing through the app. Notesmith has no account, no server, no advertising and no tracking. It contains no analytics or crash reporting code from anyone, and it sends me nothing about your notes, your searches or how you use it.

Three things can reach me:

Only if you turned on Apple's option to share analytics with app developers, which is off unless you choose it, Apple may make crash reports and aggregate usage statistics for Notesmith available to me in App Store Connect. That is Apple's channel, not Notesmith's: I gather nothing myself, the figures do not identify you, and I do not build any picture of you from them. In a TestFlight beta, Apple sends crash reports whatever that setting says, along with any feedback you send through TestFlight.
If you email me, I receive your address and whatever you send.
If you choose to send me the performance log, I receive that file.

I use anything that reaches me only to fix problems in Notesmith and to reply to you. I do not sell it, share it or use it for advertising.

Where your notes are kept

On the Mac, your library is a database inside Notesmith's own storage at ~/Library/Containers/com.langberg.privatenote, with pictures, PDFs and recordings as separate files beside it.
On iPhone and iPad, your notes live inside the app's own storage and don't appear in the Files app.
A page you save with Save to Notesmith waits in ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.langberg.privatenote until Notesmith next opens.
When you use Share Note, Notesmith puts a copy of the note, and of its attachments if you included them, in a temporary folder so the app you share with can read it. Notesmith clears folders older than an hour when it opens and before each new share.

Notesmith doesn't encrypt the database as a whole. It relies on your device's own protection.

On a Mac, that is FileVault, if you have turned it on.
On iPhone and iPad, iOS encrypts the app's files with a key tied to your passcode, if you have set one. Notesmith uses the standard level of that protection, so once you have unlocked the device after it starts up, the files stay readable even while it is locked.

On the Mac you can also lock a block with a passphrase (see Locked blocks).

Your backups include your notes, because Notesmith excludes nothing from them.

Time Machine backs up the Mac copy. It is encrypted only if you chose Encrypt backups for that disk.
iCloud Backup includes the iPhone and iPad copy. It is end to end encrypted only if you turned on Advanced Data Protection.
A computer backup of an iPhone or iPad is encrypted only if you turned on Encrypt local backup.

Sync between your devices

Sync is off until you turn it on. On the Mac it is Settings > Sync > Sync with other Notesmith devices on this network. On iPhone and iPad it is Settings > Sync > Sync with my other devices, also on the Sync screen.

When it is on, your paired Notesmith devices exchange notes directly with each other, over the local network they share (Wi-Fi, or Ethernet on a Mac) or over a direct Wi-Fi link when they are close together. There is no account and no server of mine involved.

The first time, you press Pair on one device and Accept on the other. Once two devices pair, each one sends the other its whole library. Any device can call itself any name, so accept a request only when you have just pressed Pair on your own other device.
Your notes are encrypted with AES-GCM as they travel, using keys built from a secret your two devices agreed when they paired, on top of the encryption Apple's connection already uses. That secret is kept in each device's library, so backups of the library hold it too.
Sync carries notes with their titles, text, tasks, transcripts, tags, notebooks, order and deletions, plus each note's Never Share with AI setting and the address a web clip or imported PDF came from. Locked blocks stay locked, though a hint you added stays readable, as it does on your own device.
Attached files don't sync, whether pictures, PDFs, recordings or anything else. The other device does get each note's placeholder for them, including the file's name. Note history, Ask Your Notes conversations and your settings don't sync.
While Sync is on, any device on the same local network, or close enough for a direct Wi-Fi link, that looks for Notesmith can see this device's name. On a shared or public network that can include strangers. On a Mac the name is the computer name from System Settings. On iPhone and iPad it is a name like "iPhone (a1b2)".
Devices can sync only while Notesmith is open with Sync on in both of them. When that is true and they can reach each other, paired devices reconnect on their own.
Turning Sync off stops it at once. Forget stops syncing with that device at once, and unpairs the two devices on both sides. The next time they can reach each other with Sync on, the device where you pressed Forget tells the other one, over a connection that carries no notes. The other device then removes its pairing too and says so. Until that happens, the device where you pressed Forget keeps the pairing secret, only so the other device can tell the message really comes from it. On iPhone and iPad, swipe left on a paired device to find Forget. Neither turning Sync off nor Forget deletes notes that have already synced.

Locked blocks

On the Mac you can lock a block of text with a passphrase. Click in the block and choose Format > Encrypt Block. Paragraphs, headings, lists, to-dos, quotes, code, callouts and diagrams can be locked. Tables, pictures, PDFs and recordings can't.

The key is derived from your passphrase with Argon2id and the text is encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The passphrase isn't stored anywhere and there is no recovery, so if you forget it, neither you nor I can open that block.

The lock is only as strong as the passphrase. Notesmith accepts any passphrase, and someone with a copy of your library, from this Mac, a backup or a paired device, can try guesses offline. Use a long passphrase and keep the hint vague.
Locking protects only that block's text. The note's title, notebook, dates and source address, its other tags and blocks, where the locked block sits, the optional hint, and roughly how long the locked text is all stay readable.
If the locked text is a transcript or came from an imported PDF, the recording or PDF file stays unencrypted in Notesmith's storage, and Share Note with Attachments still includes it.
A locked block's text is left out of search, Spotlight, export and the Markdown copy. It is also kept from Shortcuts, Bibliome, the AI connector and Notesmith's own Apple Intelligence features.
A block you unlock stays open until you lock it again, open another note, close the note's window or quit Notesmith. It also locks itself when the Mac sleeps, when the screens sleep, when you lock your screen or start the screen saver, and when you switch to another user account.
While a block is open it is ordinary text on your screen. You can copy it, and unless the note is marked Never Share with AI, Apple's Writing Tools can work on it, which may send it to Apple's Private Cloud Compute or to ChatGPT (see Apple features).
When you lock a block, Notesmith seals that block in the note's history. Earlier copies stay as they were. That means exports and shares, a Markdown copy you edited by hand, the same text if it once sat in a different block or note, Ask Your Notes conversations, to-dos you added to Reminders or Calendar, anything Bibliome or an AI app already received, your backups, and paired devices until they next sync.
Locking doesn't scrub the database file. Treat anything written before you locked it as possibly still on disk.

Features you use or turn on

Everything in this section is on the Mac. Each feature starts when you use it or turn it on, except task notifications, which start by themselves. Some keep going after that. Spotlight and the Markdown copy stay on, and a Shortcuts automation or an app you have allowed to control Notesmith can use it at any time.

Apple Intelligence. Suggest a Title, Summarise This Note, Summarize for several selected notes, Find Action Items, Suggest Tags, Suggest Tags for Last Import, suggesting tags for untagged notes, Find Related Notes, Ask Your Notes and Rewrite This Note run on Apple's on-device model. Notesmith doesn't send them to Apple's Private Cloud Compute. Find Related Notes and Ask Your Notes let the model search your other notes as well, leaving out notes marked Never Share with AI. Ask Your Notes saves each question and answer with the note, in your library on that Mac, and the only way to remove a conversation is to delete the note.
Translate This Note uses Apple's on-device translation. If a language isn't installed, macOS asks before downloading it. Apple says it may collect usage and performance data, including which app asked and which languages were used, but not the text.
Recording and transcription. macOS asks for the microphone the first time you record. Recordings, and audio files you add, are saved in Notesmith's storage on the Mac. Apple's on-device transcriber turns them into text there, using speech models already installed, and Notesmith never downloads speech models itself. The first time, macOS also asks for Speech Recognition. Apple's general description of that permission says speech data may be sent to Apple, but Apple says the transcriber Notesmith uses runs entirely on the device. If no speech model for your Mac's language is installed, or you turn down Speech Recognition, the recording is kept without a transcript.
Calendar and Reminders. In the Schedule menu, Add Note to Calendar, Add To-do to Calendar and Add To-do to Reminders put the note's title or the to-do's text, its date and time, and a line naming the note with a link back to it, into your default calendar or reminders list. For a note marked Never Share with AI the note's title is left out. A reminder with a due date also gets an alert. That account then stores and shares it like anything else in it, so a work or shared calendar can show it to other people. Calendar access is write only. Reminders has no write only option, so Notesmith asks for full access, which would let it read, change and delete all your reminders. It only ever adds new ones. You can take either access back in System Settings > Privacy & Security.
Task notifications. Notesmith asks to send notifications as soon as any unticked to-do has a due date still to come, including one that arrived by Sync. Once you allow them, each such to-do gets a notification showing its text and the note's title, or no title for a note marked Never Share with AI. Depending on your notification settings, macOS can show it on the lock screen. Nothing is pushed from a server.
Photos. Notesmith uses Apple's photo picker, which gives it only the photos and videos you pick. It stores each file as the picker hands it over. That usually includes details saved inside the photo, such as where it was taken, and those details go with the file when you share a note with its attachments.
Spotlight. Notesmith adds nothing to Spotlight's index until you turn on Find notes in Spotlight in Settings > Privacy. Then titles, text and tags go into your Mac's Spotlight index, which Apple says stays on the device and isn't shared with Apple or synced. Notes marked Never Share with AI stay out. Turning it off removes them all. The switch covers only Notesmith's library. macOS indexes a Markdown copy folder and exports like any other files, so they can show up in Spotlight either way, unless you exclude that folder in Spotlight's privacy settings.
The Markdown copy starts when you choose File > Choose Notes Folder. Notesmith then keeps a plain Markdown file there for every note except templates, Someday/Maybe notes and notes marked Never Share with AI. Locked blocks show as a placeholder. Any app that can open that folder can read the files. If the folder is in iCloud Drive, including Desktop or Documents when you store those in iCloud, iCloud syncs the files, and they are end to end encrypted only with Advanced Data Protection.
To stop keeping that copy, choose File > Stop Keeping a Copy. Notesmith forgets the folder and writes nothing more to it. The files already there stay where they are, for you to keep or delete.
Export, share and print go where you choose. A locked block appears only as a placeholder, even while it is unlocked. A note imported from a PDF keeps the original file's path as its source. That path can include your Mac user name, and it goes wherever the note's details go: Markdown exports, shared notes, the Markdown copy, the AI connector and your other devices through Sync.
Save to Notesmith, in the Share menu, saves the page title, the address and the content or text the sharing app provides. It has no network access and fetches nothing.
Shortcuts, Siri and Spotlight can create a note, add to a note, find notes, get a note's text and open a note, whether or not Find notes in Spotlight is on. Find Notes gives a shortcut each matching note's title, date and first line of text. Get Note Text gives it the whole note's text, without locked blocks. A note marked Never Share with AI can't be found, opened, added to or read this way. What the shortcut does next is up to it. Shortcuts' Use Model action, for example, can send text to Apple's Private Cloud Compute or to ChatGPT. What you say to Siri is handled by Apple.
Other apps, such as Hookmark, can ask Notesmith for the selected note's title and link, and can create a new note. They can't read a note's text this way, and they get no title or link for a note marked Never Share with AI. macOS normally asks your permission before another app can control Notesmith.
Links. A privatenote:// link can only open a note or a search. It can't create, change or delete anything. A web link in a note opens in your browser only when you click it.

Apple features inside Notesmith

Writing Tools work in Notesmith's editor. Apple decides where the text is processed. That can be your device, Apple's Private Cloud Compute, or ChatGPT if you turned on that extension. Apple asks before each ChatGPT request unless you turned off Confirm ChatGPT Requests. Notesmith turns them off in a note marked Never Share with AI, on the Mac and on iPhone and iPad.
Dictation. Depending on your device and language, Apple processes it on the device or on its servers. If you turned on Improve Siri and Dictation, Apple also keeps and may review some of it.
Copy and paste use the system clipboard. On a Mac, other apps can read it, and Spotlight can keep a clipboard history if you use that feature. On iPhone and iPad, iOS asks before another app reads what you copied. Universal Clipboard can make it available on your other Apple devices.

These are covered by Apple's privacy policy. A request sent to ChatGPT while you are signed in to a ChatGPT account is also covered by OpenAI's policies.

Any note can be marked Never Share with AI, on the Mac or on iPhone and iPad, and the mark syncs. You can still find, read and edit the note in Notesmith. The mark keeps its writing from more than AI:

Notesmith's own Apple Intelligence features and Translate This Note won't work on it. Ask Your Notes and Find Related Notes leave it out when they search your other notes.
Apple's Writing Tools are turned off in it, on the Mac and on iPhone and iPad.
Nothing from it goes to Bibliome. If you mark a note while Check This Note for Contradictions is running, no more of its sentences are sent.
Shortcuts and Siri can't find it, open it, add to it or get its text. A shortcut you made before you marked the note finds nothing.
Other apps, such as Hookmark, get no title or link for it.
It comes out of Spotlight as soon as you mark it.
Its file comes out of the Markdown copy folder as soon as you mark it, even if you edited that file. A file that no longer names the note and isn't what Notesmith wrote is left where it is. Unmarking the note writes its file again.
The AI connector can't see it.
Its title stays out of Calendar, Reminders and task notifications. Add Note to Calendar calls the event "A note in Notesmith". A to-do you add keeps its own words, and its notification says "In one of your notes". Notifications still waiting to appear change when you mark the note. Events and reminders you added before stay as they are.

These happen on the Mac, apart from Writing Tools. The mark doesn't stop you choosing where a note goes: export, sharing, printing, copy and paste, Sync, Calendar and Reminders all still work with it. Duplicate keeps the mark on the copy. New Note from Template doesn't pass it on, so mark the new note too if you want it kept.

Permissions Notesmith can ask for

Mac:

Microphone, the first time you record.
Speech Recognition, the first time audio is transcribed.
Calendar, write only, the first time you add an event.
Reminders, the first time you add a to-do to Reminders.
Notifications, once any to-do has a due date still to come.
Local Network, when you first turn on Sync.
If Translate This Note needs a language that isn't installed, macOS asks before downloading it.

iPhone and iPad:

Local Network, when you first turn on Sync.
iOS may ask whether Notesmith can paste from another app when you tap the link button with text selected, because Notesmith checks what you copied for a web address.

The performance log

Both apps keep a small log file next to your library, noting moments when the app stopped responding. It never records note text, titles, search words or file names. Notesmith never sends it anywhere. It records:

when the app stopped responding, and for how long
which screen was open
how long notes took to open
on the Mac, the kind of input at the time (typing or scrolling, for example), how many blocks an opened note has, and how long slow searches took with how many results
on iPhone and iPad, when the app moved to the background or back

On the Mac it is in Settings > Privacy, with Show in Finder and Clear. On iPhone and iPad it is on the Sync screen, where you can share it yourself or clear it. Like your notes, it is included in backups.

Notesmith also writes a few lines to Apple's system log on your device, such as the name of a file that failed to import or of an audio file being transcribed. Those lines aren't hidden, so anyone who can use Console on that Mac, or on a Mac your iPhone is connected to, can read them. Notesmith doesn't send that log anywhere.

Deleting your notes

A deleted note waits in Recently Deleted for 30 days and is removed the next time Notesmith is open after that. Delete Now on the Mac, Delete Forever on iPhone and iPad, or Empty Trash removes it sooner.
Removing a note doesn't scrub the database file, so pieces of it can stay on disk until they are overwritten. Backups made before then keep their copy.
Delete Now, Delete Forever and Empty Trash reach your paired devices too. The next time they sync, the note is removed from each one, whether it was in that device's Recently Deleted or still in its notes. If the note was edited on another device after you deleted it, that device keeps it, and if it is still in that device's notes it comes back to this one. A note that simply reaches 30 days in Recently Deleted isn't sent anywhere. Each device counts its own 30 days from when the deletion reached it.
Emptying Recently Deleted, here or on a paired device, also removes a note's attachment files, unless another note still uses them. So does a note expiring on its own after 30 days. This works the same way on the Mac, iPhone and iPad. If an older version left something behind, open Settings > Privacy on the Mac, click Look for Leftovers, then Remove These Files.

To remove everything from a Mac:

Turn off Find notes in Spotlight in Settings > Privacy.
Quit Notesmith and delete the app.
Move these folders to the Trash, then empty it:
~/Library/Containers/com.langberg.privatenote
~/Library/Containers/com.langberg.privatenote.clipper
~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.langberg.privatenote
Delete any Markdown copy folder and exports you made, and uninstall the AI connector if you added it.

Events and reminders you added stay in Calendar and Reminders. Time Machine backups keep their copies, and anything an AI app has already read stays with that app.

Deleting Notesmith from an iPhone or iPad removes its notes from that device. Your other devices and your backups keep their own copies.

Children

Notesmith doesn't collect personal information from children or from anyone else. The only things that can reach me are listed under What I collect.

Changes

If this policy changes, I'll update this page and the date at the top.

Check it yourself

These checks run on a Mac with nothing extra installed.

What macOS allows Notesmith to do

In Terminal:

codesign -d --entitlements - /Applications/Notesmith.app

Alongside the usual signing entries, you'll see these permissions.

app-sandbox: the app is sandboxed, so it reaches only its own storage and whatever the entries below allow.
application-groups: a shared folder for Save to Notesmith and for the local connection to Bibliome.
device.audio-input: recording voice notes.
files.user-selected.read-write: files and folders you pick in an Open or Save window.
network.client and network.server: Sync needs both. macOS doesn't limit them to your local network. This list shows what Notesmith is allowed to do, and the next check shows what it does.
personal-information.calendars: adding events and reminders.
print: printing a note to a printer you choose.

Which connections it opens

With Notesmith open, run this in Terminal, or use a firewall app if you have one:

nettop -p Notesmith

With Sync off, nothing in Notesmith's code opens a network connection, so you should see none. With Sync on, you'll see it listening for your other devices, talking to the ones you paired, and hearing from any nearby Notesmith device that asks to pair.

Where your files are

In Finder choose Go > Go to Folder and paste:

~/Library/Containers/com.langberg.privatenote/Data/Library/Application Support/PrivateNote

Your library database, your attachments and the performance log are there.

What an AI app has read

If you use the connector, Settings > Connections shows under What has been read how many notes have been sent to a connected app, counting every search result and every repeat, and the titles of recent ones. The connector writes this record itself, so if it can't write it, the list stays empty.

A locked block

Click in a block and choose Format > Encrypt Block. Then export the note, or search your library for a word that appears only inside that block. The export shows a placeholder where the block was, and the search finds nothing.

Third-party code

On the Mac, Notesmith includes GRDB (the database), SwiftMath (math formulas), which is based on iosMath, with its bundled math fonts, Argon2 (turning your passphrase into a key) and Mermaid (diagrams), which itself contains smaller open source libraries such as DOMPurify. The iPhone and iPad app includes GRDB and Argon2. None of them connects to the internet, and Mermaid runs inside Notesmith with every web request blocked. The licences for all of them, including the math fonts and every library inside Mermaid, are in Settings > About on the Mac, and under Acknowledgements in Settings on iPhone and iPad.

Support

For questions, bug reports or suggestions, email info@psychosonicconsulting.com. I read every message. Your address and whatever you send are kept in that mailbox. I use them only to reply to you, and I'll delete them if you ask.

Where are my notes stored?

On your own devices, inside Notesmith's own storage. There is no account and no server. See Where your notes are kept.

How do I import from Evernote?

Export a notebook from Evernote as an .enex file, then import it with File > Import on the Mac or the Import menu on iPhone and iPad. Dates, tags, pictures, audio and other attached files such as PDFs come across, and so does the web address of a clipped page. An .enex file doesn't record which notebook it came from, so you choose whether its name becomes a notebook, a tag or neither. Links between Evernote notes become links by note title.

How do I import from Apple Notes?

Export your notes from Apple Notes as Markdown. On the Mac, choose File > Import > Import Apple Notes Export and pick the exported folder. Pictures, PDFs and recordings come along with the notes. On iPhone and iPad only the text is imported, and the app tells you so.

Does Notesmith use iCloud?

Notesmith doesn't store or sync your notes through iCloud. Sync goes directly between your devices. iCloud can still hold a copy in two ways. iCloud Backup includes the iPhone and iPad library, and a Markdown copy folder in iCloud Drive is synced by iCloud.

I locked a block and forgot the passphrase. Can you recover it?

No. The passphrase isn't stored anywhere and there is no recovery key, so the passphrase is the only way into that block. A short or obvious passphrase, or a hint that gives it away, can still be guessed.

How do I get a deleted note back?

Open Recently Deleted and choose Put Back on the Mac, or Restore on iPhone and iPad. Deleted notes wait there for 30 days.

How do I remove everything?

See Deleting your notes. On a Mac, deleting the app alone leaves your notes in place.