Apple Notes Core Workflow B — Export & Conversion

Overview

Export Apple Notes to portable formats: Markdown, JSON, HTML files, and SQLite databases. Apple Notes stores content as HTML internally — these workflows convert it to developer-friendly formats.

Instructions

Step 1: Export All Notes to JSON

osascript -l JavaScript -e '
  const Notes = Application("Notes");
  const allNotes = Notes.defaultAccount.notes();
  const exported = allNotes.map(n => ({
    id: n.id(),
    title: n.name(),
    body: n.body(),
    folder: n.container().name(),
    created: n.creationDate().toISOString(),
    modified: n.modificationDate().toISOString(),
  }));
  JSON.stringify(exported, null, 2);
' > apple-notes-export.json

echo "Exported $(jq length apple-notes-export.json) notes to apple-notes-export.json"

Step 2: Export Notes as Markdown Files

#!/bin/bash
# scripts/notes-to-markdown.sh
OUTPUT_DIR="${1:-./notes-export}"
mkdir -p "$OUTPUT_DIR"

osascript -l JavaScript -e '
  const Notes = Application("Notes");
  const notes = Notes.defaultAccount.notes();
  notes.map(n => JSON.stringify({
    title: n.name(),
    body: n.body(),
    folder: n.container().name(),
  })).join("\n---SEPARATOR---\n");
' | while IFS= read -r line; do
  if [ "$line" = "---SEPARATOR---" ]; then continue; fi
  title=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.title' 2>/dev/null)
  body=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.body' 2>/dev/null)
  folder=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.folder' 2>/dev/null)

  # Convert HTML to basic Markdown
  md_body=$(echo "$body" | sed 's/<h1>/# /g; s/<\/h1>//g; s/<h2>/## /g; s/<\/h2>//g; s/<p>//g; s/<\/p>/\n/g; s/<br>/\n/g; s/<li>/- /g; s/<\/li>//g; s/<[^>]*>//g')

  safe_title=$(echo "$title" | tr '/:' '-' | head -c 100)
  mkdir -p "$OUTPUT_DIR/$folder"
  echo -e "# $title\n\n$md_body" > "$OUTPUT_DIR/$folder/$safe_title.md"
done

echo "Export complete: $OUTPUT_DIR"

Step 3: Export to SQLite Database

# Using apple-notes-to-sqlite (pip install apple-notes-to-sqlite)
pip install apple-notes-to-sqlite
apple-notes-to-sqlite export notes.db

# Or build your own with JXA + sqlite3
osascript -l JavaScript -e '
  const Notes = Application("Notes");
  const notes = Notes.defaultAccount.notes();
  const rows = notes.map(n =>
    `INSERT INTO notes (title, body, folder, created) VALUES (${JSON.stringify(n.name())}, ${JSON.stringify(n.body())}, ${JSON.stringify(n.container().name())}, ${JSON.stringify(n.creationDate().toISOString())});`
  ).join("\n");
  rows;
' > /tmp/notes-inserts.sql

sqlite3 notes.db << 'SQL'
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS notes (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, title TEXT, body TEXT, folder TEXT, created TEXT);
.read /tmp/notes-inserts.sql
SELECT COUNT(*) || ' notes imported' FROM notes;
SQL

Step 4: Full-Text Search on Exported Notes

# Search across all exported notes
osascript -l JavaScript -e '
  const Notes = Application("Notes");
  const query = "project plan";
  const results = Notes.defaultAccount.notes().filter(n => {
    const body = n.body().toLowerCase();
    const name = n.name().toLowerCase();
    return body.includes(query) || name.includes(query);
  });
  results.map(n => `${n.name()} (${n.container().name()})`).join("\n");
'

Output

• JSON export of all notes with metadata
• Markdown files organized by folder
• SQLite database with full note content
• Full-text search across notes

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Solution
Slow export	Thousands of notes	Export in batches by folder
HTML artifacts in Markdown	Complex formatting	Use a proper HTML-to-MD library (turndown)
Missing attachments	Images not exported	Attachments need separate export path
Encoding issues	Unicode in note titles	Use safe filename sanitization

Resources

• apple-notes-to-sqlite
• AppleNotesExport

Next Steps

For common errors, see apple-notes-common-errors.