Hi there! A little background: I write down notes a lot to make up for my bad memory. I’ve been doing this for a few years, and it’s usually a few thousand words a day: some professional, some deeply personal. Because of this, I’m trying to be conscious about keeping these notes private. While I’ve made a few changes along the way to follow better privacy practices, I thought I’d post here and see what other ideas are out there.
Right now, I have a few thousand markdown files stored in iCloud with end to end encryption. It’s far from a perfect system: ideally I would get away from cloud storage, iCloud is closed source, and there’s no native linux client. While it’s more private, writing entirely on paper isn’t an option: typing is much faster, it’s easier to query, and I can do fun things with this data. I think my next shift is towards using syncthing to maintain copies of these notes across devices, as I often edit from various machines and want to maintain multiple backups.
Rather than asking directly for proposed solutions, I’ll ask: What should I be considering? Does the editor I use matter? Does this go down to operating system level? I think the answers are both of these are yes, but I don’t know what else I should be asking myself.
I would recommend Joplin, for these reasons:
- It’s digital (of course)
- It’s cross platform: iOS, Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android
- It’s fully open source
- It supports end-to-end encrypted syncing with different providers: Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, File system (for things like Syncthing), Nextcloud, WebDAV, S3 (Beta), and Joplin Server (Beta)
- It supports markdown editing
When looking for software in general, write down what you are looking for and what your requirements are. Then, consider if there are any conflicting requirements (e.g. “I want my handwritten notes to be transcribed, but I don’t want any kind of handwriting recognition”). From there, you can make tough decisions or find a compromise. Then, think about any problems that may arise in the future. Do you plan to switch operating systems to something like GrapheneOS? Do you want to move away from cloud storage altogether? From there, you can get a good idea of what to look for. Good luck!
Thanks a bunch for the suggestion, I will definitely check out Joplin’s E2EE syncing. I guess I should have been more specific; I’m looking more for a way to store and synchronize notes, rather than a tool to edit them. Given that my notes are all nearly all text, most of the time I edit notes using vim or vscodium.
I edit notes using vim or vscodium.
You should probably try moving away from this practice. First, this leaves your notes vulnerable as they are not encrypted at rest. Second, those programs are not designed for private notes, meaning there is the potential for various leaks to happen that you may not even be able to catch (temporary system files, etc.). Using a dedicated notes editor (like Joplin) means you are using something designed to keep your notes confidential.
Disclaimer: In the case of Joplin specifically, the developers take issue with implementing encryption at rest. Their philosophy is “If your computer’s disk is encrypted, then all your notes are already encrypted at rest.” This is flawed thinking for many reasons that I won’t get into here.
If you don’t mind I am curious to hear your reasons. I personally agree with the developer, I think it’s a lot of work and doesn’t provide a meaningful win. If an attacker has access to the system, there are many other ways they can access your notes even if the notes are encrypted at rest. Based on the thread it sounds like what people actually want is isolation and access control, but I don’t think that responsibility should fall on the app developer, it should be handled by a broader system (like Veracrypt, or Flatpak).
If you don’t mind I am curious to hear your reasons.
For the same reasons KeePassXC encrypt their databases and Signal got backlash for storing encryption keys in plaintext. Encryption doesn’t protect against everything, but it is a big deterrent against many attacks.
KeePassXC and Signal are regarded as security products. Joplin is not, and I doubt the developer wants it to be. If we push for every product developer to bake their own security systems, we will end up with half-baked products and half-baked security. If people want better isolation between apps, they should choose an OS that does so, or push for one if it doesn’t exist.
I’ve been looking up a solution myself for years. I ended up with encrypting my note folder with Gocryptfs and synchronize the folder with Syncthing.
Requires quite the setup at first, but perfectly fits my needs (I also use extensively the terminal).
On android there is DroidFS to decrypt your synched folder and read the notes in mobile, but I couldn’t find a way to edit them.
I think you’re spot on: Markdown files with SyncThing. That’s my setup as well, you just can’t beat markdown files as a back-end for flexibility and future-safety in my opinion.
Some things to consider:
- Editor: The obvious no-nos are editors with built-in AI support or cloud storage. FOSS editors are highly recommended. If you find a good offline FOSS WYSIWYG-style markdown editor, let us know. I use Neovim myself, but I’m often asked for recommendations by non-geeks.
- Operating system: You should be fine on MacOS (for now), but Linux is a great option for desktop. Windows is a loose canon with their AI snapshot approach, definitely avoid. What are you syncing to? Mobile devices are a lot more difficult to keep control of.
- Encrypted devices: Make sure you have full disk encryption on all devices and on all your backups.
There’s Zettlr and Typora for WYSIWYG md.
Well, here’s a copy&paste from the KSP JNSQ modpage. Had mostly the forum header and iframes to clean up, not much else. Made in Typora.
Original here.
I’d really love an open-source WYSIWYG for android, but I’m stuck with obsidian currently.
3·1 year agodeleted by creator
I know i’m not really answering your actual questions, but i’ll just throw TrilliumNext Notes into the mix.
It’s open source, and it can be encrypted.
If you want sync you can selfhost a server too, if not it’s local only.
There’s an android app too, but i haven’t used it.I gravitated towards icalendar as a storage format for VJOURNAL entries with Evolution as my primary entry interface.
My workflow evolved over the years, but the earliest goal was to get started writing. Evolution > Memos > New Memo List > “On This Computer”. Then write.
In between writing I git-tracked that file then backed up the repository. I played with setting up xandikos to automate those parts (and it worked pretty well) but I stuck with direct file management to keep the writing path clear.
I also use tasks.org on my phone for intake, but I don’t do any automatic synchronization. Typically the app serves as a dumping ground, and from time to time (ideally though rarely before it gets weedy) I’ll massage those bites into longer form journal entries and clear the inbox.
From there, consumption/review is a free for all. I once converted my VJOURNAL entries to nikola blog entries so I could see them marked up, but I’m part robot and reading the markdown has been fine. I use nikola for other blogging, but the ability to view journal entries in Evolution (or some theoretical other VJOURNAL editor that I haven’t been able to find) without having to do anything more than write was appealing. Web based means you could point nutch at it once grep/sed/ack/awk on local files stops scaling. It took a lot of writing to get there, good job!
