Markdown in a folder, not in a database.
Free text expander, clipboard manager and markdown notes. $18 once for unlimited clips, notes sync and AI prompts.
Why people move from Joplin
The specific reasons people give for switching.
The file is the note
Joplin stores notes in a local database and synchronises through a target such as Dropbox or WebDAV. In TypeFire the markdown file in your folder is the note, so Finder, Spotlight, grep and every editor can reach it directly.
It opens a vault you already have
Point it at an existing Obsidian vault or any folder of markdown and it reads it in place, with no import and no second copy.
Reach a note from any app
Control Command Shift K searches everything from on top of the app you are in, and Enter pastes into the document you were already writing.
Capture in one keystroke
A note into the vault without opening the app at all.
A text expander and clipboard manager
Both in the same app, both working system-wide, including inside a note.
Native, and fast at scale
A 10,000 note vault lists in 214 milliseconds on a release build.
TypeFire compared with Joplin
Prices and capabilities as of August 2026.
| TypeFire | Joplin | |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | Plain .md files in your folder | Local database |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| End-to-end encrypted sync | No, your own iCloud | Yes |
| Sync targets | iCloud, Mac to Mac | Dropbox, WebDAV, S3, self-hosted |
| Web clipper | No | Yes |
| Global hotkey over other apps | Yes | No |
| Text expander built in | Yes | No |
| Price | Free, Pro $18 once | Free |
Where Joplin is genuinely better
Three things Joplin does better. If any of them is your deciding factor, use Joplin.
Open source and end-to-end encrypted
Joplin is auditable and encrypts your notes before they reach any sync target. TypeFire is closed source and syncs through your own iCloud without adding its own encryption layer. If that is your requirement, Joplin is the correct answer.
Sync anywhere, including self-hosted
Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, S3 or your own Joplin Server. TypeFire syncs Mac to Mac through iCloud only.
It runs on everything
Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and a terminal client. TypeFire is a Mac app.
The web clipper
Joplin's clipper saves pages properly. TypeFire has no equivalent.
What TypeFire adds
Not available in Joplin at any price.
Files, directly
No database between you and your markdown.
A global hotkey
Your notes on top of every app, pasted where you are typing.
A clipboard manager with OCR
Searchable by the words inside screenshots.
AI on a note, free
On device with Apple Intelligence, or bring your own key.
Turn anything you copy into something you type
Right-click a clip, choose Save as snippet, give it an abbreviation. The thing you copied once becomes something you type three characters to get, forever. The same conversions run across all three surfaces: a clip becomes a note, and a note you keep rewriting becomes a snippet. Clipboard managers have no snippet engine, text expanders do not watch your clipboard, and no note app has either, which is why the loop only closes here.
- 01
Copy something
It lands in Clips alongside everything else you copied today.
- 02
Save as snippet
It leaves your rolling history and enters your permanent library.
- 03
Give it a trigger
Type
invfrom then on and never look it up again.
A clipboard manager you can tell what to ignore
A clipboard manager sees everything you copy. Until 4.0 the only control over that was a password-manager exclusion you could not see. There are three now, none of them gated, and the limits of the strongest one are stated rather than buried.
Turn image capture off
One switch. Text keeps being captured and pictures stop. Images you have already saved are kept rather than deleted, which is not what most people expect a privacy toggle to do, so it is worth saying.
Name apps to skip
Add any application and TypeFire ignores what you copy in it. Choose from the apps it has already seen, with clip counts, or browse to any app on your Mac. Each app gets one of three settings: allow it, block images only, or block everything you copy there. The middle one is what most people want for a work tool, keeping the text and losing the screenshots.
The password managers, now visible
TypeFire has always ignored password managers. That list is in Settings now, twenty-three apps including 1Password, Bitwarden, KeePassXC, Dashlane and Apple Passwords, blocked by bundle ID in code rather than by a setting you have to find. It shows which of them you have installed, and any one can be overridden.
Encrypted database, owner-only files
Clips are stored in an encrypted SQLite database on your Mac. The key is generated on your machine and kept in the macOS Keychain. Image files sit alongside the database with owner-only permissions.
Secrets expire in minutes
Card numbers and high-entropy strings are detected and deleted after five minutes by default, adjustable in Settings. Everything else follows the retention you choose.
An on-device AI option
Apple Intelligence and local models through Ollama or LM Studio run entirely on your machine. If you pick Claude, OpenAI, or Gemini instead, text goes to that provider directly; TypeFire operates no server in that path.
Where blocking by app stops being a guarantee
macOS does not tell an application which other application wrote to the clipboard. TypeFire matches on the app that was in front at the time, plus any app that identifies itself using the standard convention. That covers the overwhelming majority of real cases and it is not absolute. The protection that does not depend on a guess is the concealed-content marker: password managers mark what they copy, and TypeFire never stores it whatever else is set.
The app list also covers what you copy, not screenshots you save as a file. A PNG on your desktop records nothing about what was on screen, so TypeFire matches those to an app where it can and skips them when it does. It is right in the ordinary case and it is not a promise: to keep saved screenshots out entirely, turn off Save screenshots to Clips.
Eighteen dollars. Once.
TypeFire Pro is a single payment that unlocks unlimited clips, Selection Prompts, Prompt Chains, notes sync and note version history. There is no subscription and no per-seat pricing.
Free tier, then one payment
No free tier at all
One time
No free tier
One time
Lifetime, or $3.99/mo
Subscription, forever
Two months of Paste, or all of TypeFire.
Moving from Joplin
Still not answered?
Obsidian and TypeFire are the closest for local markdown.
TypeFire suits you if you want notes as plain files in a folder rather than in a database, and want to reach them by a global hotkey from inside any other app. Joplin remains the better answer if open source and end-to-end encrypted sync are requirements.
Joplin writes markdown but keeps it inside its own local database and syncs that to a target you choose, so the notes are not loose .md files you can open directly in Finder.
TypeFire's notes are ordinary files in a folder, which is why other tools can read them without an export.
Yes. Joplin exports to Markdown, producing a folder of .md files with attachments.
Point TypeFire at that folder and it opens them in place. Joplin's note IDs and internal links will need checking, since TypeFire uses wikilinks and standard markdown links.
The clipboard database is encrypted on your Mac.
Notes are plain markdown files by design, because the point is that any tool can read them, and sync runs through your own iCloud rather than our servers. If you need end-to-end encrypted note sync, Joplin does that and TypeFire does not.
Your markdown, in a folder, one key away.
No database in between, and a global hotkey that reaches your notes from inside every app on your Mac.
Free text expander, clipboard manager and markdown notes. $18 once for unlimited clips, notes sync and AI prompts.
⌃⌘⇧V your clips⌃⌘⇧T your snippets