Features
Inkdrop is an agent-ready note-taking app for developers, on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, with end-to-end encrypted sync. Here’s everything it can do.
Writing in Markdown
A plain-text Markdown editor — no WYSIWYG mode, by design. It’s built on CodeMirror 6, and the same editor runs on desktop and mobile.
GitHub Flavored Markdown
Tables with column alignment, task lists, strikethrough, footnotes, sub/superscript, and HTML comments that stay hidden in the preview.
Editor, preview, or side-by-side
Editor only, preview only (Cmd/Ctrl+E), or both (Cmd/Ctrl+P).
Distraction Free Mode
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+D hides the sidebar and note list so you can focus on writing.
Floating toolbar
Appears only when you select text, with bold, italic, inline code, links, headings, lists, task lists, GitHub alerts, and highlights.
Slash commands
Press
/on an empty line to insert headings, lists, task lists, code blocks, blockquotes, horizontal rules, images, GitHub alerts, and note links.Formatting shortcuts
Bold (Cmd/Ctrl+B), italic (Cmd/Ctrl+I), blockquote, and link. Pasting a URL over selected text turns it into a link.
Code block language suggestions
Type
```and pick a language; autocompletion inside the block switches to that language.Emoji autocompletion
Type
:plus two characters for GitHub-style emoji.GitHub Alerts
[!NOTE],[!TIP],[!IMPORTANT],[!WARNING], and[!CAUTION]are highlighted in the editor with proper colors, and the alert type autocompletes.Note links with
[[Search your notes and insert an internal link, with a syntax-highlighted preview of each candidate. If the note doesn’t exist yet, Inkdrop creates, links, and opens it in one step.
Reading highlights
Wrap a selection in
<mark>from the toolbar. Pairs with the Kindle highlight import.Smarter link pasting
Paste a URL and choose a link format inline in the autocompletion menu. The page title is fetched in the background, so nothing steals focus.
Images
Paste or drop images into a note; they’re stored as attachments and synced. Resize them with size specifiers like
, or use the resize toolbar’s Auto / Small / Half / Full presets.Smart list indentation
Tab and Shift+Tab indent a list item by exactly the right amount for its parent, and numbered lists renumber themselves. List markers are colored by nesting level.
Table editing toolbar
With the cursor in a table, a toolbar appears above the row to format the table, align columns, move rows and columns, and add or delete them.
Line wrapping that spares tables
Wrap all lines, prose only, or everything except the table or code block under the cursor (Unwrap at Cursor, the default), so wide tables stay readable.
Multiple cursors
Multiple cursors and rectangular selection, for editing many lines at once.
30+ editing commands
Duplicate, move, join, and sort lines; change case; move by subword; expand the selection to the enclosing syntax node; select all occurrences; toggle comments. Most default keybindings match Zed.
Editor header
Back/forward navigation, view mode buttons, an outline button, and a distraction-free toggle. An action menu drops down from the more button or Cmd/Ctrl+J.
Little things
A copy button on code blocks, link tooltips, native OS spellcheck, View menu toggles for line numbers and readable line length, and a strikethrough on checked to-dos.
Markdown preview
Syntax highlighting
100+ languages, with language icons, line numbers, file-name headers, and a copy button on hover. Fenced
markdownblocks are highlighted with the full GFM grammar.Mermaid diagrams
Zoom, pan, and a full-screen viewer. Diagrams are themed through CSS variables, so they match your theme in light and dark mode.
Math
KaTeX for inline and block equations, with equation numbering.
Color code preview
A hex,
rgb(), orhsl()value in backticks shows a color swatch.Embed GitHub code snippets
Paste a GitHub link to a line range and Inkdrop inserts a syntax-highlighted snippet that links back to the source. Connect your GitHub account to get private repos and rich link titles for repos, issues, PRs, and commits.
Find in preview
Matches across elements, so searching inside code blocks works.
Image viewer
Double-click an image to look at it up close.
Organizing notes
Nested notebooks
Sub-notebooks to any depth, with note counts and a default notebook. Collapse a notebook to list the notes from all its sub-notebooks.
Workspace view
Narrow the sidebar to one notebook tree, with its own statuses and tags, while you’re deep in a project.
Notebook icons
1,500+ Lucide icons, shown in the sidebar, Telescope, and notebook pickers, and synced across devices.
Manual notebook ordering
Drag and drop notebooks into any order; the order syncs.
Tags
As many per note as you like, suggested as you type, and emoji are allowed in names.
Note statuses
Manage notes as tasks — Active, On Hold, Completed, or Dropped — and filter by status.
Pin to top
Keep important notes at the top of the note list.
Bulk actions
Select several notes to move, tag, set a status on, or delete them at once. Duplicate a note with Cmd/Ctrl+D.
Trash
Deleted notes go to the Trash, where you can restore them or delete them for good.
Revision history
A revision is saved whenever you pause typing. Browse earlier versions with a diff view and restore one — and undo the restore if you change your mind.
Automatic conflict merging
Edits made to the same note on different devices are merged, including the title, notebook, status, and tags. A backup copy appears only when both sides edited the same lines.
Activity stats
Notes created and tasks worked on over the past 52 weeks, with your current and longest streaks.
Search and navigation
Full-text search with qualifiers
Narrow results with
book:,tag:,status:,title:, andbody:, quoted phrases, and-exclusions, with matches highlighted.Telescope
A Spotlight-style bar (Cmd/Ctrl+K) that fuzzy-searches commands, notebooks, tags, themes, and the current note’s headings and to-dos at once. Plugins can add their own sources.
Outline view
Jump between sections of the current note through the telescope-toc plugin; it highlights where you are in the editor or the preview.
Back and forward
Move through recently viewed notes with the keyboard, mouse side buttons, or a trackpad swipe on macOS.
Fuzzy matching everywhere
In Telescope, the notebook and tag menus, and the tag input.
New note in a separate window
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N opens a new note in its own window, saved to the notebook you’re in.
Note templates
Start from a template
Press Cmd/Ctrl+T or the Choose a template button on an empty note, then search and preview before you pick.
Curated official templates
Grouped by category — Debugging, Planning, Brainstorming, Learning, Productivity — such as bug-fix write-ups, implementation plans, and performance investigations.
Custom templates
Your own templates, using a safe templating syntax that never runs arbitrary code. A template can preset the title (with date placeholders), description, tags, notebook, and status.
AI and agents
AI is opt-in and bring-your-own-API-key: Anthropic or any OpenAI-compatible provider, including Ollama for local models. No AI surcharge, keys stay in your OS credential store, and one switch turns it all off.
Inline AI assistant
Select a passage and describe the change; the result is applied in place. Presets cover proofreading, summarizing, reformatting, converting to a table or list, and generating a Mermaid diagram — plus your own prompts.
Next Edit Suggestions
Predicts your next edit as inline ghost text, using linked notes and backlinks as context. Tab accepts, Esc dismisses.
MCP server
Lets Claude Code, Codex, or any MCP client search, read, create, and update your notes, notebooks, tags, and attachments. Preferences sets it up and hands you a ready-to-paste command. When an agent edits the note you have open, your cursor and undo history stay put.
Agent Skills
npx skills@latest add inkdropapp/skillsteaches your agents Inkdrop’s Markdown and note-driven workflows, such as filling out a template and waiting for your review.Agent-ready note templates
Note templates can carry instructions for AI agents. Agents read them, and they’re stripped from the notes you create.
Drag notes into your agent
On desktop, drag notes from the note list into a terminal or editor to paste them as Markdown links (
[title](inkdrop://note/…)), or drag a notebook to paste its name and ID. Dropping a note onto the editor inserts a link to it.Copy note, notebook, and tag IDs
Right in the context menus, so you can point an agent at exactly the right note.
Backup, sync, and security
Continuous backup
Choose a folder and Inkdrop keeps writing all your notes, notebooks, tags, and attachments there as JSON files while you work. Restore the whole folder from Preferences anytime.
Export
Export a note, a notebook, or all your notes as Markdown or HTML, including from a notebook’s context menu.
End-to-end encrypted sync
Notes, notebooks, tags, and attachments are encrypted on your device with AES-256-GCM before they reach the server, and all traffic goes over TLS.
Works offline
Everything is stored locally and syncs when you reconnect. Sync works out of the box, with no setup.
Self-hosted sync
Use Inkdrop’s sync server, run your own CouchDB-compatible server, or don’t sync at all.
Two-factor authentication
TOTP with any authenticator app, plus one-time recovery codes.
Your files, in the open
Config, keymaps, stylesheets, plugins, and the local database live in a data folder you can open from Preferences.
Import, capture, and sharing
Import
Bring notes in from Evernote, Apple Notes, Notion, Bear, Markdown files and folders, and HTML. Subfolders become nested notebooks, and images come along.
Import into a notebook
Right-click a notebook to import Markdown or HTML straight into it.
Web Clipper
A Chrome and Firefox extension that clips a page’s main article, or your selection, as Markdown.
Mobile share sheet
On iOS and Android, save a page as a web clip, insert its link into the open note, or copy it as a Markdown link.
Kindle highlights
Import your Kindle highlights; later imports pull only the new ones.
Share on the web
Publish a note at a public link anyone can read without Inkdrop.
Launcher integrations
Local HTTP server
Exposes your notes to scripts, automations, and your agents’ custom tools.
Keyboard and customization
Customizable keymaps
Bind keys to commands per context — editor, note list, or app-wide — with multi-key sequences.
Global shortcuts
Show or hide the main window, or open a quick note, while Inkdrop is in the background.
Vim keybindings
Full modal editing through the vim plugin, with relative line numbers. Also available on mobile with a hardware keyboard.
Sublime Text keymap
Sublime Text’s keybindings, built on the editor’s own commands.
Your own
init.jsandstyles.cssScript the app at startup and restyle any part of the UI with plain CSS. init.js · Style tweaks
Themes
One package, the whole app
A theme styles the UI, editor, and preview as a thin layer of CSS variables, overriding only what it needs to.
Automatic light/dark
Follow the OS appearance with the default light and dark themes.
Live theme previews
Preview cards are rendered from each theme’s palette, before you install it.
Official and community themes
Kanagawa, Solarized, Nord, and many community themes such as Catppuccin and Gruvbox.
Plugins and developers
Plugin directory
Browse and install 100+ official and community plugins from Preferences or the web directory. Even the built-in Mermaid, math, and emoji support ship as plugins.
Presentations
The presentation plugin turns any note into slides in the Inkdrop window. Notes written for Marp render as Marp decks, other notes split into slides at their headings, and the slides follow your Inkdrop theme.
Community favorites
note-tabs, code-runner, constellation (a note graph), code-fold, embed-youtube, and more.
ipmCLISearch, install, update, and publish plugins from the terminal.
ipm initscaffolds a TypeScript plugin or theme in seconds.TypeScript plugin API
Official type definitions in
@inkdropapp/types.Use Inkdrop as a CMS
Live Export publishes notes to a static site — start from the Astro blog template.
Desktop app
Every desktop platform
macOS 12+ (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows 10+, and Linux (Ubuntu 22.04+), on x64 and ARM64. Linux builds come as AppImage,
.deb, zip, Snap, and Flathub; macOS is also on Homebrew.System tray mode
On Windows and Linux, Inkdrop can keep running in the tray, which keeps the local HTTP API available and makes reopening instant.
Fast with large libraries
Notes are indexed in a local SQLite database, so reading and writing stay quick however large your library grows. With 50,000 notes, saving a note updates the search index in under 2 ms, counting a notebook’s notes takes about 4 ms, and a two-character search returns in about 20 ms.
Corporate networks
Supports HTTP proxies, including authenticated proxies and self-signed certificates, plus a built-in network diagnosis.
Mobile app
Full-featured apps for phones and tablets, synced with desktop. Requires iOS 15.6+ or Android 14+.
Same editor and renderer as desktop
Themed code blocks with line numbers, Mermaid diagrams (tap to zoom and pan full-screen), and numbered math equations.
Slash commands and
[[note linksThe note picker shows a preview on iPad.
Editing toolbar
Open Link, Highlight, and slash-command buttons, plus a table toolbar to format tables, align columns, and add, move, or delete rows and columns.
Unwrap at Cursor
A wide table or code block stops wrapping while the cursor is in it.
Hardware keyboards
Desktop shortcuts (listed in the iPad menu bar), Vim keybindings, and multiple cursors.
Shared with desktop
Note templates, notebook icons, and drag-and-drop notebook ordering.
Themes from the plugin registry
Browse, preview, and install themes; they work offline and update automatically.
Fast with large libraries
Opens straight into the note you were editing and stays responsive during the first sync. A local SQLite index keeps saving, search, and the note list quick with tens of thousands of notes.
Known limitations
Stated plainly, so you know before you start.
Images only
Attachments are images; you can’t attach arbitrary files.
CouchDB-compatible sync only
Sync goes through Inkdrop’s server or a CouchDB-compatible one — not Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud.
Bring your own AI key
AI features need your own API key, and the provider bills you directly.
Plugins on desktop only
Mobile supports themes, not plugins.
No password recovery
Inkdrop never holds your encryption key unencrypted, so a forgotten password means losing access to synced data. Use a password manager and turn on backups.
No free plan or lifetime license
One subscription with a 30-day free trial. See pricing.
Build better with Inkdrop
Still curious? Read the documentation, or ask on the forum. See pricing for plans.