macOS 26 · iOS 26 · Native SwiftUI
Inkstone is a notes app built on plain Markdown in a folder you choose. It reads the vault you already have, writes nothing you cannot open in any other editor, and keeps its own state in a hidden folder you are free to delete.
Free · Apple silicon · English · 简体中文 · 繁體中文
They are load-bearing, and they are why the app behaves as it does.
There is no database, no import step and no proprietary format. A vault Obsidian created opens here; a vault this app created opens there. If Inkstone disappeared tomorrow you would still have a folder of Markdown.
With no database to repair one, renaming a note rewrites every wikilink that pointed at it, across the whole vault, in the same action. This is the direct consequence of the decision above, not a feature bolted on.
Parsing, indexing, search and the graph live in a package that imports no UI framework at all. That is why they are covered by real tests instead of a simulator, and why the same engine could back a command line tool later.
Everything below is implemented and running, not a roadmap.
Editing
Headings, bold, quotes, callouts, checkboxes, tables and code all render in place as you type, with the syntax revealed on the line the cursor is on. Reading mode is a separate, read-only view when you want the page without the scaffolding. Body font, code font and their sizes are set independently.
Linking
[[Note]], [[Note#Heading]], [[Note^block]], ![[Embeds]] and aliases declared in frontmatter, all resolved into one index. Every note shows what points at it, what it points at, and which of its links have no target yet.
Seeing the shape
The force simulation is deterministic, so the same vault draws the same picture every time and you can learn its layout rather than re-reading it on every open. Local graph shows one note and its neighbours.
Spatial notes
Cards, files and links on an infinite sheet, saved as JSON Canvas 1.0 — the same file the format's other implementations read and write. Your canvases are as portable as your notes.
Finding things
One keystroke opens a fuzzy switcher over every note. Full-text search understands tag: and path:, and tags work inline or in frontmatter, nested, in any script — #项目/进行中 indexes exactly like #project/active.
Two machines
Sync through iCloud, or push the vault to a GitHub repository with conflicts settled once rather than left as two copies. Per-type filters decide whether attachments and media go with it, and the vault's own .gitignore is respected.
The hard case is a Latin word inside a Han sentence. Nearly every app gets it wrong, in a way that is easy to see once and impossible to unsee after.
Specimen · Source Serif 4 with Source Han Serif
Chinese sets solid. There are no word spaces, so a line's evenness is what the eye reads. Drop typography into that line and the two scripts collide.
正文里出现Latin单词时，汉字与拉丁字母之间应当有一段约四分之一字宽的间隙——W3C的中文排版需求称之为文字间隙。这一段文字本身就在演示它：每一处汉字与Latin的交界都由构建时插入的空元素撑开，在支持text-autospace的浏览器上则交还给浏览器处理，两者永远只生效一个。全角标点（，。；：）自带二分空，因此一律不加。
Typography exists to honour content. It is a servant, and its manners should be invisible.
Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
The parts worth knowing before you download anything.
| Platforms | macOS 26 and iOS 26, one SwiftUI codebase, Apple silicon |
|---|---|
| Storage | Plain Markdown files in a folder you pick. No database, no import |
| Compatibility | Obsidian vaults open unchanged, both directions. Canvas is JSON Canvas 1.0 |
| Markdown | GitHub Flavored Markdown, plus wikilinks, embeds, block references, callouts, footnotes, maths and Mermaid |
| Sync | iCloud or a GitHub repository, with per-file-type filters |
| Interface languages | English, 简体中文, 繁體中文 |
| Source | Public on GitHub. A licence has not been chosen yet. |
| Privacy | No account, no telemetry, no network call you did not ask for |
It is free, it keeps nothing from you, and the files it writes are the files you already had.
