ENVY 1.9.0 · macOS
Fast, frictionless, flexible notes.
Your thoughts are your own. Your notes should be, too. Ownership is disappearing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With Envy, a single box searches, creates, opens, and filters your thoughts. Everything lives locally on device, in plain .md files. There’s no account, no sync service, no subscription, and no lock‑in. Oh, and it’s free.
As it was always meant to be.
One window. One workflow.
Filter / Sort / Create
Filtered list of notes
Edit, add, synthesize
Articles I – XII
The ENVY manifesto
I. Only you should own your thoughts.
II. Everything done in the app exists outside the app, from notes to theme settings.
III. Subscriptions are slavery. Software should be free. You should be, too.
IV. Should Envy perish, your notes will remain. They were never ours to keep.
V. Results matter more than process.
VI. Search is not a feature. Search is freedom.
VII. Hypertext has always been supreme. Interlinking is akin to necessity.
VIII. Sync by whatever means you already trust. We will not ask which.
IX. Summon the app when you need it. Hide it when you don’t.
X. Nothing phones home. There is no home to phone.
XI. Formats rot. Companies fold. Fashions turn. Plain text persists.
XII. The source is open. Read it and judge for yourself.
Specifications, complete
- Size
- 3.8 MB
- Requires
- macOS 14+
- Price
- Free
- File format
- Markdown, UTF‑8
- Storage
- One folder, chosen by you
- Dependencies
- None
- Accounts
- None
- Servers contacted
- None
- Setup steps
- None
- Things to configure first
- None
Reclaim your thoughts. Bear witness to plaintext.
Interlinks will set you free.
The Index
Flat files
Every note is plain Markdown in a single folder we call The Index. Readable by anything, forever. Move it, sync it, or open it in another editor. Envy never owns it.No database or proprietary conventions.
One box
Type to filter as you type. Press Return to open the top match, or to create a note from what you just typed. Operators narrow it: tag: due: todo:Search is not a feature. Search is freedom.
Wiki-links
[[Note Title]] connects notes. Rename a note and every link pointing at it is rewritten across the vault, so nothing breaks.
Embeds
![[Note Title]] pulls another note’s live content inline. Edit either copy; both stay in sync.
Fleeting notes
A half‑formed thought isn’t knowledge yet. Type inbox: before your new note and whatever you’re thinking captures it without leaving where you are. You can even make notes go into the Inbox automatically, just as Luhmann intended.You can also import Apple Notes into Envy, into either the Inbox or The Index, for fleeting notes on the go.
Interlinks
The footer shows what a note links out to and what links back to it. What about notes you’ve mentioned by name but never linked? One click to wire them up, too.
Color your piles
Tags and folders, both colorable. Right-click a tag to tint it. Or organize by subfolder: color a folder and every note in it shows that color as a dot in the list, so you see which pile it’s in at a glance. Two axes: one folder each, as many tags as you like. The color’s a preference; the file just knows which folder it’s in.
Pictures, still just files
Drag or paste an image straight into a note. It renders inline, but the note only holds a plain ![[picture.png]] reference, and the picture is a real file beside your notes: copyable, portable, and never uploaded or fetched from the web. Size it, caption it, right‑click to resize or rename.
Notes that float
Option‑click a [[link]] to peek at it, then pin the peek to keep it: a floating note that stays put while you write, resizable, as many as you like. Or right‑click any note in the list and Pop Out. They tuck away when you leave Envy and return when you do.New! And beneath it all, 1.8.1 makes switching notes instant, even at 15,000 notes.
Time and task management
Both live in the text itself. [ ] anywhere on a line for a checkbox [✓], @2026-04-16 or @monday for a due date. Click to tick, Tab to nest sub-tasks, and sort or filter by either. Check off a task and the date inside it retires, too.
Always a keystroke away
⌥⌘↩ summons Envy over whatever you’re doing, and hides it again. Or pin a note to the menu bar and open it with a click.Optionally, you can hide the app when you click away from it, too.
Download, open, and type to begin.
Zero telemetry. Zero AI. Airgap‑friendly. Envy runs entirely on your own machine and never sends a thing about you or your notes anywhere. Out of the box it makes no network calls at all. The only ones it can ever make are update checks, which are off until you switch them on in Settings, and even then they only fetch a public file, carrying nothing about you. macOS 14 and later. 3.8 MB, free, signed and notarized. Flat Markdown files in one folder you choose. No account, no server, no sync service, no subscription, no lock‑in. Your notes are already portable, because they were never anywhere else.