NotaBene
Mac
Three columns, a full menu bar and keyboard shortcuts. Open an attachment in Word or Excel and ⌘S there carries it back into the note.
Beta 1.0 (215) · closed testing
Notes that stay yours.
NotaBene is a native notebook for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Rich editing, PDF annotation, Apple Pencil, scanning, a web clipper and instant search — no account, no ads, no subscription.
Requires macOS 15, iOS 18, iPadOS 18 or watchOS 11 and later. Syncs through your own iCloud.
One library, four devices
Built the way each platform expects.
NotaBene deliberately differs between devices. Each one does what makes sense there — and the way the system's own apps already do it.
iPad
The Mac's layout plus Apple Pencil: a sketch block inside the note and image annotation whose strokes stay editable forever.
iPhone
Drill-down navigation, a bottom capsule with the three capture buttons, and custom swipes — up to three actions on each side of a row.
Apple Watch
Tasks, notes to read, dictation and complications on the watch face. The watch writes to iCloud on its own, without the phone.
What it does
A notebook that doesn't stop at a paragraph of text.
Modelled on Evernote — but native, without the compromises Evernote makes, and without the parts it charges for.
Rich editor
Bold, headings, bullets, numbering, checklists, tables, highlight, links, images and attachments. It saves itself about a second after you stop typing.
Notebooks, stacks and tags
Notebooks fold into stacks, tags cut across everything. Shortcuts at the top of the sidebar hold what you use daily, in an order you set by hand.
Instant search
Case and diacritics don't matter — pise finds píše. It searches inside PDFs, pictures, Word and Excel too. Operators tag:, notebook:, created:, and saved searches.
PDF annotation
Highlight, underline, strike out, comment on a selection, and freehand ink. On saving, a summary of every annotation is added as a page of the PDF.
Apple Pencil
A sketch block inside the note, and annotation on pictures. Every stroke comes back exactly as it was drawn, however many times you re-open it.
Scan with the camera
Photograph a document and the recognised text is written into the PDF invisibly — from then on the scan is searchable like any other note.
Web clipper
Safari ▸ Share ▸ NotaBene saves the page, or pulls the article out of it without the ads. Notebook and tags are chosen before it lands.
Tasks, calendar and reminders
Tasks inside notes, with a due date, priority, repeat and a progress log. Apple Calendar and Reminders sit beside them in the same sidebar.
Widgets, Siri and Shortcuts
Notes, tasks, quick capture and a pinned note on the Home and Lock Screen. App Intents for Siri, the Shortcuts app, the Action button and Control Centre.
iCloud sync
CloudKit mirrors every file on its own: two devices editing different notes never collide, and a big attachment never holds up your typing. A conflict makes a copy, not a silent overwrite.
Templates and history
Save a note as a template and start from it. Every note keeps its own history, and you can go back to any earlier shape of it.
Export and trash
A note to Markdown or PDF; the whole library to folders with YAML front matter that Obsidian reads. Deleted notes wait in the trash until you empty it.
No account, no ads, no tracking.
The library is a folder of ordinary files inside the app, mirrored to your private iCloud. Nothing signs you up and nothing reaches a server of ours — there isn't one.
How to become a tester
Four steps, ten minutes.
The beta is closed: an invitation goes to one specific email address — the one on your Apple ID.
Ask for an invitation
Email [email protected] and give the address on your Apple ID — the invitation is tied to it. Say what you'll be testing on, too: Mac, iPhone, iPad, watch, or all of them.
Ask for an invitationInstall TestFlight
TestFlight is Apple's free app for handing out betas. Get it from the App Store on iPhone and iPad, and from the Mac App Store on a Mac — two separate items, both free.
Get TestFlightAccept the invitation
An email arrives with a View in TestFlight button. Open it on a device that already has TestFlight and accept. Or use the public link below — it works without an invitation while there are places left.
Install NotaBene
Tap Install in TestFlight. The app appears beside your others and behaves like any of them. TestFlight tells you about every new build by itself.
Open in TestFlightThe Mac and the watch work slightly differently
On the Mac you need macOS 12 or later and TestFlight from the Mac App Store — it installs separately there. You don't download the Watch app on its own: it arrives with the iPhone one. If it doesn't appear, it's in Watch ▸ My Watch ▸ Available Apps.
Beta means beta — back up anything you care about
Your notes sync to your own iCloud and nowhere else, but a build in testing can have bugs that damage data. Before you write anything you'd hate to lose, export it: Settings ▸ Import & Export ▸ Export Library.
Feedback
Tell me what breaks — and what's missing.
Bugs are welcome, but the most valuable sentence is "this doesn't feel right". That's what a beta is for.
The fast way — from inside TestFlight
Take a screenshot and TestFlight offers to send it. Or tap Send Beta Feedback in TestFlight. Your device, OS version and build number come attached automatically — you needn't write any of it.
The detailed way — email
For anything longer than a sentence. Ideas, behaviour that doesn't sit right, comparisons with Evernote or Apple Notes — all of it helps, and all of it gets read.
[email protected]What a bug report should carry
- Device and OS version — say, "iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 18.4".
- The build number — TestFlight shows it, and so does Settings ▸ Welcome.
- What you did, step by step, up to the moment it went wrong.
- What you expected, and what happened instead.
- A screenshot or a video, when it's something you can see.
Still being built
What the beta doesn't have yet.
So that nobody files it as a bug: this is known, and it's next.
- Claude AI — semantic search, summaries and text editsnot started
The key lives in the Keychain; no third-party server in between.
- Handwriting recognition in inknot started
Drawings and handwritten notes aren't searchable yet.
- Sharing and collaborationin design
CloudKit shared zones and a permission model.
- Small editor additionsnot started
Merging notes, paragraph indent, buttons for code and quotation.
Permanently out of scope: Windows, Android and a web version — NotaBene is native SwiftUI. .enex import and export too; Evernote's format is how you leave Evernote, not how you stay in it.
Let's do it.
The beta is open to a limited group. Ask for an invitation, and tell me what your notebook has been missing for years.
Ask for an invitation