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Spotlight indexes note titles and unprotected bodies. Choose a result to open the corresponding note directly.
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MenuBar NotesmacOS · In development
A genuinely Mac-native notes app
Capture a thought without leaving what you’re doing.
Your notes stay one shortcut away in the menu bar, with independent windows when an idea needs more room.
Ask about MenuBar Notes →
Compact. Fast. Private.
Open Notes List
⌃⌥Space
Right where you need it
It belongs on the Mac because it works like the Mac.
MenuBar Notes is intentionally focused. It does not try to turn every thought into a project. It makes the path from “I should remember that” to a saved note feel immediate and familiar.
Quick Capture
A small place for the thought you have now.
Use the global shortcut from any app to open a compact title-and-note form. Save it, close it and keep moving without rearranging your workspace.
⌃⌥NDefault shortcut, fully customizable
Focused writing
Every note can have a window of its own.
Open a note in an independent, resizable Mac window. The app restores open note windows and their positions after relaunch, so an ongoing thought can return to the same place.
Rich textFonts, sizes, bold, italic and links.
Easy to organizeSearch, pin, preview, duplicate, rename and manually reorder.
Safe to reconsiderOrdinary deleted notes remain in Recently Deleted for 30 days.
Ready on every launchOpen automatically at login and restore your working windows.
Deep macOS integration
More than an app that happens to run on a Mac.
Use the Services menu
Select text in another Mac app and choose Services → New MenuBar Note to turn it into a note.
Drag documents in
Drop TXT or RTF documents onto the menu bar icon to import them as notes.
Drag notes out
Drag an unprotected note into Finder, Mail or another app to create an RTF document named after the note.
Share and print
Share an unprotected note as RTF through the standard share sheet, or print its title and formatted body with Command-P.
A full Mac citizen
MenuBar Notes participates in Command-Tab and can bring every open note window to the front.
Keyboard first
Familiar commands. Very little ceremony.
Create, open, find, print, navigate and reorder without reaching for the mouse.
- New note
- ⌘N
- Open notes list
- ⌘O
- Find
- ⌘F
- ⌘P
- Move through notes
- ↑↓
- Open selected note
- Return
- Reorder selected note
- ⌥↑↓
Privacy, precisely
Protect the notes that need an extra boundary.
Individual notes can be password protected. Their body and rich-text content are encrypted with AES-GCM before storage or synchronization, using a key derived with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256.
Titles intentionally remain visible.
A protected note’s title is visible in the notes list, Spotlight and iCloud, protected note content is not.
01
Deleting a protected note requires its password.
02
Protected notes can lock when the Mac sleeps, locks or after a chosen period of inactivity.
03
Protected bodies are excluded from Spotlight, drag export, sharing and AppleScript.
04
Forgotten note passwords cannot be recovered.
Automation and continuity
Your notes stay useful beyond the notes list.
AppleScript
Create, inspect, edit, show and delete unprotected notes from your own scripts and workflows.
iCloud synchronization
Keep notes synchronized through your private iCloud account.
JSON backup and restore
Export notes as JSON and restore them later. Protected bodies remain encrypted in backup files.
Currently in development
A focused notes app, built with care for the platform it lives on.
The core experience is working now. Packaging, distribution and final release details will come later.