Apple Notes Exporter

Export Apple Notes to HTML and Markdown on macOS, using Shortcuts.app and a bite of Python

See also Apple Reminders Exporter

1. Clone repository (Terminal)

git clone https://github.com/Kylmakalle/apple-notes-exporter
cd apple-notes-exporter

2. Install Export Notes Shortcut using Link or open "Export Notes.shortcut" file
3. Shortucts.app > Settings > Advanced > Allow Sharing Large Amounts of Data
4. Run make
   1. Shortcuts.app will ask for your approval to save notes and images. Click Allow.
   2. If you miss-clicked or something does not work, Go to Export Notes Shortcut > (i) Shotcut details > Privacy > Reset Privacy and Try again.
5. Done! You can find files at notes directory

Caveats

1. Only Image attachements are supported. Drawings do not export for some reason.
2. Protected notes are not supported. They will only have a title. For some reason, Shortcuts.app generates new empty image with the title of a protected note on each launch. Consider make clean to delete all notes and export them again.
3. Markdown exports via Make Markdown from Rich Text Shortcut action "comparable to Aaron Swartz's html2text script" as Apple says. Looks like it's done with textutil. The converter doesn't work well with headings, tables and much more, that's why HTML sources are also present. Source RTF will lack of any attachment references for some reason.

   Not sure why Apple decided to set html2text as their quality bar. Perhaps, there're much more modern converters.

4. Notes with long titles may exceed file path limit.

macOS Shortcut source

Probably, you're here because you don't want to lose your data due to various reasons. Me too. I don't trust .shortcuts format much, that's why you can find visual source of Export Notes.shortcut in shortcut-source.

Tricks

While Implementing this shortcut, I've tried various actions, below I'll share some of the insights I got that might me helpful to any Shortcut creator.

1. Export Notes.shortcut creates files in format $creation_date^$escaped_folder_name^$escaped_note_name[^$attachment_name] and then I use Python to re-create folder structure. The need for post-processign is simple, otherwise Shortcuts.app will ask your Write approval for each created folder (even if it was created within the shortcut). That means you'll need to click Allow for each note you have. This may be hundreeds or thousands.

   Creation date is required to distingush different notes with the same title.

2. Shortcuts.app does file changes in a temporary directory ~/Library/Group Containers/group.is.workflow.shortcuts/Temporary/com.apple.WorkflowKit.BackgroundShortcutRunner. For some reason, Rename or Move File actions caused errors like couldn't be moved to "com.apple.WorkflowKit.BackgroundShortcutRunner" because an item with the same name already exists.. Instead,
3. When providing Subpath to Save File action, only top-level Subpath will work. e.g. "Save HTML to PATH, Subpath: notes/backup/latest" will not work. Just notes will.
4. Apple exports Note's HTMLs with file:/// references to attachements. This doesn't work for both HTML and Markdown previews for some reason. Simple python script replaces these occurances to source local directory.

Alternative Approaches

While I think exporting via Shortcuts.app is more or-less official and should less likely to break in the future, here's what I've found:

• Exporter macOS app with similar to Shortcuts.app capabilities
• Automate Copy-Pasting
• Access internal Database