Open Notes

A lightweight macOS menu bar notes app with a floating panel that stays on top of your windows. Notes are stored as plain files in ~/Documents/Notes/ — no database, no sync service, just your files.

Prerequisites

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Swift 5.9+
• Node.js (for building the web editor)

Building

./build.sh

This handles everything — installs web editor dependencies, builds the editor, compiles the Swift app, and produces Open Notes.app in the project root. The script will let you know if any prerequisites are missing.

To run:

open "Open Notes.app"

Or install to Applications:

cp -r "Open Notes.app" /Applications/

Usage

Open Notes lives in your menu bar. Toggle the floating panel with the global hotkey Option+N, or click the menu bar icon.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Option+N	Show/hide panel (works globally)
Cmd+N	New note
Cmd+P	Open note browser
Cmd+K	Shortcuts palette
Cmd+[ / Cmd+]	Navigate back / forward
Cmd+Backspace	Delete current note (with confirmation)
Cmd+B	Bold
Cmd+I	Italic
Cmd+Shift+S	Strikethrough
Cmd+Shift+B	Blockquote
Cmd+Shift+7	Bullet list
Cmd+Shift+8	Ordered list
Cmd+Shift+Enter	To-do / checkbox list
Cmd+Option+C	Code block
Ctrl+Cmd+Up/Down	Reorder list items

Storage

Notes are saved as files in ~/Documents/Notes/. Each note is a .md file with a date-prefixed filename (e.g. 2026-03-20-my-note.md). The filename automatically updates when you change the note title.

Project structure

OpenNotes/
├── LocalNotes/              # Swift app
│   ├── LocalNotesApp.swift  # App entry point, menu bar, key handling
│   ├── AppState.swift       # Shared app state
│   ├── Models/
│   │   └── Note.swift       # Note data model
│   ├── Services/
│   │   └── NoteStore.swift  # File-based note storage
│   ├── Views/
│   │   ├── EditorView.swift     # Main editor layout
│   │   ├── EditorWebView.swift  # WKWebView wrapper
│   │   ├── FloatingPanel.swift  # Floating NSPanel
│   │   └── NoteBrowser.swift    # Note browser overlay (Cmd+P)
│   └── Resources/           # Bundled web editor assets
├── WebEditor/               # TipTap rich-text editor (JavaScript)
│   └── src/
│       ├── editor.js        # Editor setup and bridge to Swift
│       ├── editor.html      # Editor HTML shell
│       └── editor.css       # Editor styles
├── Package.swift            # Swift Package Manager config
└── build.sh                 # Build script