OctoNote: the GitHub-powered note-taking app

OctoNote is a markdown-based note taking app. It connects with GitHub so you have a place to store your gists/notes and share them with everyone.

As with many of the iOS-based markdown editors, there are a number of shortcuts that allow you to add markdown tags without having to work your way through the keyboard interface looking for, say, the elusive ‘#’ key. One of the missing shortcuts currently is for tables. You must create them with the usual markdown syntax of pipes, dashes and colons.

You can download existing gists as long as they have a markdown extension, i.e. they end in .md. Otherwise, those gists will remain locked away on GitHub’s gist platform.

There is no mention of local storage, so access to your notes is only available through the app by logging in to GitHub. You can’t, for instance, have a set of notes in Obsidian and connect them through OctoNote to GitHub. But then why would you when you can connect Obsidian to GitHub. But if you want an app that gives you quick and easy access to GitHub, I can’t think of anything better than OctoNote.

It’s also worth noting here that if GitHub happens to be down at the time you’re trying to access your notes, then you lose access completely.

OctoNote has a free tier, which is all you’ll ever need for casual note taking. But, if you want to use the app to author or edit ‘secret’ notes (those not available through GitHub searches or search engines), you must upgrade to OctoNote Premium. The premium offering also includes the ability to customise the syntax highlighting theme and inline code styles.

The current version of OctoNote does not allow you to connect with competing GitHub interfaces, such as GitLab’s Snippets or Codeberg’s more personalised version of gists. Maybe that is something for the future. Oh, and local storage.

Download OctoNote from the App Store.