Introducing FoldNotes

I started building FoldNotes over 5 years ago because I couldn’t find a notes app that worked the way I think.

I take a lot of notes. Meeting notes, project plans, research, daily logs. And every time I captured a task during a meeting or while reading, I had to choose: keep it in context where it makes sense, or move it to a task manager where I’ll actually see it again. Neither option was good. Tasks ripped out of their notes lose meaning. Tasks buried in notes get forgotten.

That tension — between context and action — is what FoldNotes was built to solve. Tasks live inside your notes, right where you created them. But they don’t stay buried. FoldNotes tracks them across your entire collection with due dates, priorities, and a kanban-style Task Board that pulls tasks from every note into one view. You get context and visibility.

That was the starting point. What grew from it is an app with strong opinions about how notes should work — but one that stays accessible and never asks you to learn a system before you can start writing.

Plain text, no lock-in

Your notes are .md files in iCloud Drive. Open them in any text editor. Move them to another app tomorrow. There’s no database, no proprietary format, no export step. FoldNotes adds structure through frontmatter that other editors simply ignore — your files are always valid markdown.

Folding changes how you write

Every heading in your document is collapsible. Write a long project plan, then fold it down to just the section headings. Drill into the part you need. Fold away everything else. This isn’t a gimmick — it fundamentally changes how you work with long documents. You stop scrolling and start navigating.

Indented blocks, code fences, and tables fold too. Drag folded sections to rearrange your document structurally, not line by line.

Built native

FoldNotes is built with AppKit on Mac and UIKit on iOS. No web views, no cross-platform framework. The editor handles 10,000+ line documents without lag. It respects your system settings, integrates with macOS services, and feels like it belongs on your Mac.

Features for writers who care about their words

• Focus modes — typewriter scrolling, paragraph focus, and sentence focus dim everything except what you’re working on
• Parts of speech highlighting — colour-codes nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs so you can see the shape of your writing
• Inline #tags and [[backlinks]] — organise without folders, build connections between ideas
• Gallery view — see your notes as visual cards in a waterfall layout (macOS)
• Database views — query your notes with filters, sorting, and computed columns
• Collection graph — visualise how your notes connect
• Command line tool — fn lets you script, search, and manage tasks from the terminal (macOS)

Opinionated but not complicated

FoldNotes doesn’t have a plugin system. There’s no scripting language to learn, no community marketplace to browse, no configuration rabbit hole to fall down. The features are built in, designed to work together, and ready to use.

This is a deliberate choice. Plugins fragment the experience — what works for one person breaks for another, and the app becomes a platform instead of a tool. FoldNotes is a tool. It does what it does well, out of the box.

What’s next

FoldNotes is entering a closed beta on macOS, with iOS to follow. If you’d like early access, sign up on the homepage and we’ll send you a link when it’s ready.

I’ve been using FoldNotes as my only notes app for over two years now. It’s where I plan my week, capture ideas, track projects, and write long-form content. I built the app I wanted to use every day — and I hope it’s the one you’ve been looking for too.

— Stephen