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I wish I knew the best way to digitize my thoughts and notes. I don’t want to invest in someone else’s app they may lose interest in and the text files approach

I wish I knew the best way to digitize my thoughts and notes. I don’t want to invest in someone else’s app they may lose interest in and the text files approach doesn’t work well on mobile.

pluijzer 3y ago
If you are on Android I can recommend Orgzly. It ties in with Emacs' org-mode but is fully usable on its own with a sensible very convinient UI. It is open source and everything is saved in plain text that can optionally be kept in sync with Dropbox or WebDAV.
- pydry 3y ago
  +1 It's the first and only note taking app I liked.
  - LanternLight83 3y ago
    As an alternative, Markor has worked great for my own flat-directory of org files.
    - pydry 3y ago
      I use that as well but it's better as a general text editor. It's unwieldy if you have a lot of notes and you can't attach dates/times/reminders.
wenc 3y ago
I just dump stuff in Google Docs. For backups from Google Docs (or cloud in general) to local, I use rclone. [1] But otherwise Google Docs works fine. [1] https://rclone.org/ https://rclone.org/
shynrou 3y ago
I'd recommend obsidian, works well on mobile and desktop, and documents are plain .md files in directories.
- Kokouane 3y ago
  +1 For syncing, you can either pay for Obsidian Sync ($10 per month, which is a bit pricy) If you have a mac/iPhone combo, then iCloud sync is natively supported. Other than that, Syncthing works well on Android/Windows/Mac, but I heard Syncthing on iOS is not that great.
  - themadturk 3y ago
    Obsidian Sync has been flawless for me (I got in on early bird pricing, so it's only half as painful). Obsidian Git works well, and for getting stuff back and forth from a Git repo to iOS, Working Copy does the job.
- seabrookmx 3y ago
  +1. I used to just keep a folder full of plain text files but recently (as in the last 2 weeks) moved to obsidian and the ability to add some simple markup (headings, code snippets) as well as search the content of the files easily has been a game changer. Also it's just a thoughtfully designed, nice to use app (if you aren't an electron hater.. I daily drive VSCode, postman and Slack so am certainly not).
  - PorterBHall 3y ago
    Similarly, Joplin is great. Just migrated 10 years of note out of OneNote. Getting them out of OneNote was arduous; getting them into Joplin was a breeze.
- rmkrmk 3y ago
  + the Omnisearch plugin for a great search engine in Obsidian. It can index images and pdfs, too
Condition1952 3y ago
I have been using Standard Notes since the lockdown. Multi-platform, Self-hostable FOSS or freemium, E2EE. Subscription prices have skyrocketed. It emails you a back up from time to time. I use it less and less because the interface is not comfortable after a given point and of notes. I wish I had heard of obsidian before.
ilkke 3y ago
I use and recommend workflowy. It's an outliner (nested text) they syncs across all my devices and saves regular backup dumps to my Dropbox. You can use it on mobile via app or web.

I wish I knew the best way to digitize my thoughts and notes. I don’t want to invest in someone else’s app they may lose interest in and the text files approach doesn’t work well on mobile.

pluijzer 3y ago

If you are on Android I can recommend Orgzly. It ties in with Emacs' org-mode but is fully usable on its own with a sensible very convinient UI. It is open source and everything is saved in plain text that can optionally be kept in sync with Dropbox or WebDAV.

pydry 3y ago
+1 It's the first and only note taking app I liked.
- LanternLight83 3y ago
  As an alternative, Markor has worked great for my own flat-directory of org files.
  - pydry 3y ago
    I use that as well but it's better as a general text editor. It's unwieldy if you have a lot of notes and you can't attach dates/times/reminders.

wenc 3y ago

I just dump stuff in Google Docs. For backups from Google Docs (or cloud in general) to local, I use rclone. [1] But otherwise Google Docs works fine. [1] https://rclone.org/ https://rclone.org/

shynrou 3y ago

I'd recommend obsidian, works well on mobile and desktop, and documents are plain .md files in directories.

Kokouane 3y ago
+1 For syncing, you can either pay for Obsidian Sync ($10 per month, which is a bit pricy) If you have a mac/iPhone combo, then iCloud sync is natively supported. Other than that, Syncthing works well on Android/Windows/Mac, but I heard Syncthing on iOS is not that great.
- themadturk 3y ago
  Obsidian Sync has been flawless for me (I got in on early bird pricing, so it's only half as painful). Obsidian Git works well, and for getting stuff back and forth from a Git repo to iOS, Working Copy does the job.
seabrookmx 3y ago
+1. I used to just keep a folder full of plain text files but recently (as in the last 2 weeks) moved to obsidian and the ability to add some simple markup (headings, code snippets) as well as search the content of the files easily has been a game changer. Also it's just a thoughtfully designed, nice to use app (if you aren't an electron hater.. I daily drive VSCode, postman and Slack so am certainly not).
- PorterBHall 3y ago
  Similarly, Joplin is great. Just migrated 10 years of note out of OneNote. Getting them out of OneNote was arduous; getting them into Joplin was a breeze.
rmkrmk 3y ago
+ the Omnisearch plugin for a great search engine in Obsidian. It can index images and pdfs, too

Condition1952 3y ago

I have been using Standard Notes since the lockdown. Multi-platform, Self-hostable FOSS or freemium, E2EE. Subscription prices have skyrocketed. It emails you a back up from time to time. I use it less and less because the interface is not comfortable after a given point and of notes. I wish I had heard of obsidian before.

ilkke 3y ago

I use and recommend workflowy. It's an outliner (nested text) they syncs across all my devices and saves regular backup dumps to my Dropbox. You can use it on mobile via app or web.