Kept as written
There is no hidden rich-text format underneath. The note is the Markdown you typed, so what syncs and what you export is the same plain text you wrote.
Writing in Markdown
Notes that stay Markdown.
Cohestry is a notes app for iPhone and Mac where every note is plain Markdown, kept exactly as you typed it. Write with the marks you already know, preview it formatted, link notes with double brackets, and watch them connect.
Source and preview
What you type. What you see.
The editor shows your Markdown as you write it. One toggle in the note's menu, Preview formatted Markdown, draws it formatted, on iPhone and Mac. In the preview, tap a checkbox to tick it.
What you type
Balcony ecosystem, year two
This year I did **nothing clever**: marigolds, dill, and waiting.
## What worked
- Ladybirds arrived on their own by June
- Mint in its own pot, for everyone's safety
> One plant is a target. Fifteen kinds is a system.
## Next spring
- [x] Save the dill seed
- [ ] Try nasturtiums along the rail
Same lesson as [[Resilience is redundancy]].
What the preview shows
Balcony ecosystem, year two
This year I did nothing clever: marigolds, dill, and waiting.
What worked
- Ladybirds arrived on their own by June
- Mint in its own pot, for everyone's safety
One plant is a target. Fifteen kinds is a system.
Next spring
- Done: Save the dill seed
- To do: Try nasturtiums along the rail
Same lesson as Resilience is redundancy.
Built for it
Markdown first, not Markdown as an export.
Links in double brackets
Type [[ and titles complete as you go. Every note lists what links back to it, and a link to a note that doesn't exist yet offers to create it.
Photos where you put them
A photo in the text is one ordinary image line in the Markdown. The editor draws it as the picture; an export points it at the file beside the note.
Lists that keep going
Return continues a list, a numbered list or a checklist, and Return on an empty item ends it. Tab and Shift-Tab indent and outdent, and numbers follow along.
The shortcuts you know
⌘B, ⌘I, and shortcuts for code, links, headings, bullets and checklists. The Mac has a Format menu; the iPhone has a Markdown key row above the keyboard.
Tables without counting pipes
Insert a table at the size you want and fill it in as a grid of cells. Cohestry writes the Markdown, lined up, and the preview draws it as a table.
An honest scope
What the preview draws.
The preview is made for personal notes, not for typesetting a book. Anything it doesn't draw is still in your note, word for word, and exports exactly as typed.
Drawn formatted
- Headings, from # to ######
- Bulleted and numbered lists, nested as you indent them
- Checklists, with boxes you tap to tick
- Tables, with column alignment
- Quotes and horizontal rules
- Code blocks, kept verbatim
- Bold, italic, inline code and links
- [[Wiki links]] that open the note they name
- Photos and videos placed in the text
- Line breaks where you put them
- Frontmatter from other apps, as a properties block
Left as plain text
- Footnotes and callouts
- Math
- Colour for the code in code blocks
- Images linked from the web
They stay in the note as you typed them, and export that way.
In and out
Plain files, both ways.
- Import Markdown files or whole folders on iPhone and Mac, free. Coming from Obsidian or Bear? Tags in the frontmatter or the text become your tags, a note that opens with a heading keeps it as its title, pictures come in as attachments, and subfolders become collections. On iPhone, share a
.mdfile to Cohestry from any app and it becomes a note. - Save any single note as a
.mdfile, free. A note with attachments travels as a ZIP with its files beside it. Or copy it as Markdown, or as rich text for Mail and Pages. - Export the whole library as Markdown with Pro: one file per note, named by its title, with attachments beside them and [[links]] that still point at the right file.
- Coming from Apple Notes? Apple Notes turns Markdown into rich text when it imports it. Cohestry keeps it as Markdown. Compare the two.
Then it connects
Every link you write is a line on the map.
Your [[links]] become lines in the Brain, a 3D map of every note, on iPhone and Mac. Cohestry also finds the connections you never wrote, from shared names, references and words, and every one explains why it's there. Today's insight shows you one a day, free; Pro reveals them all.
Write in Markdown. Watch it connect.
Free on iPhone and Mac, with unlimited notes. Explore the example Brain first, no sign-up.
Explore the example Brain →