Exporter for Apple Notes

Install Exporter for Apple Notes

Exporter for Apple Notes runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. After buying, download the app zip from your Polar receipt, unzip it, and drag Exporter for Apple Notes to your Applications folder.

The app is signed and notarized by Apple. Confirm Open at the normal first-launch prompt.

The app works without a license key. The key in your receipt turns on automatic updates: enter it in Exporter for Apple Notes → License…. Once a day, the app checks for a new version, shows what’s new, and installs it with Install and Relaunch. Exporter for Apple Notes → Check for Updates… checks right away. A key works on 3 Macs. To move it to another Mac, choose License… → Deactivate This Mac first. Your receipt always has the latest version, too.

Let the app read your notes

The window opens on “Save your notes as files”. Click Show My Notes.

The app reads your notes by asking the Notes app for them, so the first time your Mac asks: ““Exporter for Apple Notes” wants access to control “Notes”.” Click Allow. Your Mac asks only once, and only after that click. Notes opens while the app reads from it.

If you clicked Don’t Allow, the window says “Notes didn’t let the app in”. To fix it:

1. Click Open System Settings. It opens Privacy & Security → Automation.
2. Find Exporter for Apple Notes in the list and turn on Notes under it.
3. Go back to the app and click Try Again.

The app only reads. It never changes, moves or deletes a note.

Pick the notes

Your accounts show up, like iCloud and On My Mac, each with its folders and the number of notes in each. A folder inside another folder is indented under it.

• Every note is ticked at first, except the ones in Recently Deleted, which has a trash icon. Tick it yourself if you want those too.
• Click a folder’s box to tick or untick all its notes. Subfolders have their own box.
• Click the arrow next to a folder to see its notes, with the date each was last changed, and tick single notes.
• Select All ticks everything but Recently Deleted. Select None unticks everything.
• A note with a lock is locked with a password. No app can read a locked note, so it will be skipped and named in the report. Unlock it in Notes first if you want it saved.

The bottom of the window counts what’s ticked, like “39 notes ticked. 1 is locked and will be skipped.”

Pick the format

Choose one next to Save as:

Format	What you get
PDF	One PDF per note, with its pictures, ready to print or share
Word (.docx)	One Word file per note, with its pictures. Opens in Word, Pages and Google Docs
Plain text	One text file per note. Pictures can’t go in a text file, so they go in a folder next to it
Markdown	One Markdown file per note. Pictures go in a folder next to it
Web page (.html)	One web page per note, with its pictures inside. Opens in any browser

For PDF and Word, pick the Paper: A4 or Letter. The app picks the one used where your Mac is set up.

TextEdit shows Word files without their pictures and marks the ones it didn’t make “Locked”, so open them in Word, Pages or Google Docs to see everything.

Export

Click Export… and choose a folder, like Documents. Click Export Here.

The app makes a new folder inside the one you chose, named “Notes” and today’s date, like “Notes 2026-11-14”. Export again the same day and you get “Notes 2026-11-14 2”. Nothing that was already there is ever replaced.

While it works, the window says “Saving 18 of 39 notes…” with the note it’s on. Stop stops it. The notes already saved stay where they are, and the report lists the ones it didn’t reach. Around five hundred short notes take a few seconds.

What you get

Notes 2026-11-14/
  iCloud/
    Notes/
      Shopping list.pdf
      Ideas.pdf
      Ideas 2.pdf
      Plans- 2026-2027.pdf
    Recipes/
      Desserts/
        Lemon tart.pdf
  On My Mac/
    Notes/
      Garden plan.pdf
  notes.csv

• A folder for each Notes folder, with the same name. The account folders, like iCloud and On My Mac, are there only when your notes come from more than one account.
• One file per note, named after the note. Two notes with the same title get “Ideas” and “Ideas 2”.
• Characters that some disks refuse, like /, : and ?, are replaced or removed, so “Plans: 2026/2027?” becomes “Plans- 2026-2027”. The names work on a USB stick, an SD card and Windows.
• Each file is created and last changed when its note was, so sorting by date in the Finder works.
• In every format, the note’s title is on top with the line “Created … Edited …”.
• With Markdown and plain text, a note’s pictures go in a folder next to it, like Lemon tart files/picture 1.png. In a text file, the line [Picture: Lemon tart files/picture 1.png] marks where each one was.

notes.csv

notes.csv opens in Numbers or Excel. It has one row per note you ticked, with these columns: Account, Folder, Title, Created, Modified, File, Status (Saved or Skipped) and Note, which says why a note was skipped, which folder a note’s pictures are in for Markdown and plain text, or that a picture couldn’t be saved.

The report

When it’s done, the window says how many notes were saved and in which folder, like “Saved 37 notes as plain text. They’re in the folder “Notes 2026-11-14”, inside “Documents”.” Show in Finder opens that folder.

Below it, every note that wasn’t saved, with the reason:

• Locked with a password: unlock it in Notes and export it again.
• Notes didn’t give its content: Notes didn’t answer for that note. Open Notes, check the note shows up, then export it again.
• The file couldn’t be saved: the disk is full, or you can’t write there. Pick another place.
• Not reached before you stopped: you clicked Stop before it got there.

Export More goes back to the list with the same notes ticked. Start Over goes back to the start.

What’s exported and what isn’t

The app can only get what Notes hands to other apps. These come through:

• titles, headings and subheadings;
• bold, italic, underline, strikethrough and monospaced text;
• bulleted and numbered lists, nested lists;
• tables;
• pictures you pasted into a note.

These don’t:

• Checklist ticks: a checklist comes out as a bulleted list, without saying which items are done.
• Link addresses: a link keeps its text, but not the address it points to, so links aren’t clickable in the files, the PDF included.
• Attached files, like a PDF dragged into a note.
• Dashed lists come out as part of the list next to them, or as bullets.
• Colors, fonts and other formatting only Notes has.

Not tested yet on real notes: notes in iCloud, locked notes, drawings and scanned documents.

Privacy

Exporter for Apple Notes reads your notes only after you click Show My Notes, and only reads them. The files it saves stay on your Mac, where you choose. Nothing leaves your Mac. Once a day the app sends its license key to updates.flaviocopes.com to check for a new version, and about once a week it checks the key with Polar, the shop. There are no accounts and no analytics.

Exporter for Apple Notes isn’t made by, affiliated with or endorsed by Apple.

Troubleshooting

It says Notes didn’t let the app in

Your Mac is set to keep the app away from Notes. Follow the steps in Let the app read your notes, then click Try Again.

It says Notes couldn’t be read

Notes didn’t answer, or answered with an error. Open Notes and wait until your notes show up, then click Try Again. With thousands of notes, reading the folders can take a minute.

It says there are no notes

Notes on this Mac has no notes yet. If your notes are in iCloud, open Notes and wait for them to show up, then click Try Again.

A picture is missing

In plain text and Markdown, pictures are in the folder next to the note, named like the note with “files” at the end. In PDF, Word and web pages they’re inside the file. If the report says pictures couldn’t be saved, those are pictures Notes didn’t hand over.