Markdown notes that stay plain files you own.
What is a good markdown notes app for Mac that keeps local files?
TypeFire opens a folder of markdown files you already have, including a real Obsidian vault, and edits it in place. No import, no copy, no proprietary format.
You get wikilinks, backlinks, tables, daily notes and a graph view, with sync over your own iCloud. Notes are free in full.
Why people move from cloud note apps
The specific reasons people give for switching.
Your notes are files, not rows in a database
Every note is a plain markdown file in a folder you chose. Open them in any editor, sync them however you like, back them up with the rest of your Mac. Nothing is trapped in a format only one app can read.
It opens a vault you already have
Point it at an existing Obsidian vault, a Documents folder, anything with markdown in it. There is no import step, so nothing forks into a second copy that drifts.
Notes without leaving the app you are in
⌘⌃3 searches every note from on top of whatever you are working in, and pastes into the document you are already typing.
Links that survive a rename
Wikilinks autocomplete, backlinks show what points at a note, and renaming retargets every reference across the vault while keeping the link style you wrote.
Nothing rewrites your formatting
Callouts, embeds, footnotes and your own bullet and emphasis characters survive a round trip untouched.
Snippets expand while you write
Type an abbreviation in a note and it expands, the same as it would in Mail. No other markdown editor has a text expander built in.
TypeFire compared with cloud note apps
Prices and capabilities as of September 2026.
| TypeFire | cloud note apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | Plain .md files you own | Proprietary or cloud |
| Works offline | Entirely | Varies |
| Opens an existing folder | Yes, in place | Import |
| Wikilinks and backlinks | Yes | Sometimes |
| Global hotkey over other apps | Yes | No |
| Text expander built in | Yes | No |
| Price | Free, Pro $18 once | $8 to $10 a month |
What cloud note apps does better
Two of them, named plainly, with what TypeFire does instead directly below.
Collaboration and databases
Notion-style shared workspaces, relational databases and filtered views are a different product. TypeFire has none of that and is not trying to.
Mobile
TypeFire is a Mac app. If you write notes on a phone, a cloud note app or Obsidian with Sync covers that and TypeFire does not.
What TypeFire adds
Not available in cloud note apps at any price.
A global hotkey
Your whole vault, one keystroke away, on top of every app.
Quick capture
A thought into the vault without opening anything.
Clipboard history with OCR
Everything you copied, searchable by the text inside screenshots.
AI on a note, free
Summarize, outline, continue, extract tasks. 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. Snippets, clips and notes live in one app, which is what makes each of those a single click rather than an export and an import.
- 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 on your Mac
Clips are stored in an encrypted database on your Mac. The key is generated on your machine and kept in the macOS Keychain. Images sit beside it, readable only by your own account.
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, note version history and saving from AI apps through MCP. 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
Five snippets free, then a subscription
Two months of Paste, or all of TypeFire.
The graph is free, and it needs nothing
Press ` and TypeFire draws every note, snippet and clip on one canvas, using the links, tags and folders already in your files. Nothing to download and nothing to switch on. A connection you made is drawn solid, one TypeFire worked out is drawn dashed.
Turn on Weave and search starts matching what you meant rather than the exact words you typed. It runs on your Mac, with no account and nothing uploaded.
Moving from cloud note apps
Still not answered?
It depends on what you need. Obsidian is the most capable if you want plugins and a graph.
Bear is the most elegant for pure writing. TypeFire is the fastest way to reach notes you already have, because it opens an existing folder of markdown and puts it behind a global hotkey that works inside every other app on your Mac, with a text expander and clipboard manager alongside.
In a folder you choose, as plain .md files with standard frontmatter.
There is no database and no proprietary container, so every note stays readable by any other markdown editor and syncs with whatever service you already use.
Yes, that is the intended use. TypeFire reads an existing folder in place, including a real Obsidian vault, with no import and no copy.
A 10,012 file test vault with unusual encodings and filenames was opened with zero files modified.
Completely. Notes are local files and every feature except AI providers you configure yourself works with no network at all.
Yes. Notes, the vault, the global overlay, quick capture, daily notes, wikilinks, backlinks and AI on notes are free.
TypeFire Pro is $18 once for three Macs and adds notes sync, version history and the clipboard features.
Loved by people who type all day.
Unprompted reactions from users, in their own words.
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