7 ms·

Alto turns Apple Notes into a website

84 points by colinprince 1y ago

cxr 1y ago
Is there a good reason for one's Apple Notes to be turned into a "website"? (NB: there's something more meant here than notes-as-a-website, since that implies little more than than "your notes, but with URLs". "Website" is being used here as a euphemism for something else—something more than that alone.) Is that better than your website being a collection of notes? It seems that the note is the preferred form of interaction, following straightforwardly from the concept of revealed preference—else those in the target audience wouldn't actually be choosing the notes every day, when they could be choosing not-notes. So that's the value proposition here: taking the thing that its users like more and exchanging it for something that they like less.
- Telemakhos 1y ago
  With a custom domain, which seems to be available for a small price, this could be the easiest blog setup ever.
  - cxr 1y ago
    Again I gesture towards what we know as revealed preference. People like the idea of blogging. In practice, they don't like actually blogging. This is why we have: <https://rakhim.org/honestly-undefined/19/ https://rakhim.org/honestly-undefined/19/>
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      I think this graph is somehow invalidated in recent times. Now we have something in the middle: Minimalist blogging platforms which provide the service sans the need to rebuild the site every time you publish something. The graph was true, because handling the static site was a big time sink and also prevented me from having a blog. Otherwise you have to go full Wordpress or similar. Now I use Mataroa. There's also prose.sh, bearblog, smolpub and possibly others. Being able to type something away in your notes app, and share it to somewhere is an unprecedented power enabler. Because it's simple, transparent, and heck, it works. This is the also proposition of Obsidian publish. Yes you have Quartz4, which needs Node, NPM, and a factorio pipeline plus a server and whatnot. You select the pages, press publish and presto. Your site is up in "5" seconds flat. Removing the exciting tech and making it simple, thin and invisible is a great way to make people to work your tool. If I want, I can make all the CI/CD dance and animate it in the process to entertain myself, but no. I want a simple, minimalist blog with a nice layout. Hence Mataroa. Alto caters to the same demographic, and is brilliant for that.
- hidelooktropic 1y ago
  Notes is a writing tool that approachable and easy to use. It also works across the ecosystem on a syncing platform I already pay for and whose privacy I am comfortable with. I like the idea of setting up a simple text based website without needing to adopt a new editor. That's plenty value prop to me.
- alprado50 1y ago
  I think that it is kinda cool to convert your notes to a website, especially if you want to easily share them. I just created a Shortcut that sends my modified notes to an email address, and then I use Eleventy to build a website. Here is the result: https://albertoprado70.github.io/Mini/this-blog-uses-ios-notes-as-a-cms/ https://albertoprado70.github.io/Mini/this-blog-uses-ios-not...
  - hofo 1y ago
    What’s processing the mail?
  - qn9n 1y ago
    Whenever I export notes from Apple Notes it replaces the Markdown title marker `# Title goes here` with `*Title goes here *****` or something similar. Any notes on this?
- nkotov 1y ago
  I noticed a trend with gen z at least that they use Apple Messages and Apple Notes for everything. Even scheduling and stuff, I had a shared note sent to me. So probably a replacement for Notion.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  I suppose the use case for using Notes to back a website is the same reason you'd use Notes over Notion, Obsidian, Todo apps, Evernote, and everything else: Notes are built-in to your Macbook and iPhone, and they sync across them, and you're probably already using it. Every time I try to use a new tool, I end up going back to Notes.
- subpixel 1y ago
  I need to share a doc with family that is basically the agenda for our reunion. There is no service (Google, iCloud) that we all have access to, and I do not want the doc I share to be full of prompts for the people I share it with to join any service (this disqualifies Dropbox paper). I need to be able to update this doc on my phone. I have this need a couple times a yeat, so this app appeals to me (haven't tried it yet!)
lowwave 1y ago
Very nice! Just FYI, one can also save RTF doc in cryptpad as html.
mattmaroon 1y ago
Would love an iOS (or even Windows, if possible) version.
- qn9n 1y ago
  You could utilise the Convert Rich Text to Markdown feature from in Apple Shortcuts
  - mattmaroon 1y ago
    I did not know that, thanks!
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
randomcatuser 1y ago
i'm curious, how does it work? does it read the db directly or use applescript to get the notes?
DASD 1y ago
Makes me think what would have happened if CityDesk from Fog Creek Software in 2001 modernized into today. https://web.archive.org/web/20020802014713/http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020802014713/http://www.fogcre...
forthwall 1y ago
Very cool how you have both a one click purchase and a subscription :) I use apple notes a lot but never thought of making it into a website. Is this homepage a notes app site?
- kkoncevicius 1y ago
  > I use apple notes a lot but never thought of making it into a website. Is this homepage a notes app site? Same question. Is there an example of how the final website might look like?
  - mikestew 1y ago
    At the bottom of the home page: “Made with Alto”
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jrvarela56 1y ago
Didn't work for me. At first I thought the app did not open but it turned out to add a few buttons to the lower right corner of Apple Notes. When clicking the buttons, nothing happened, not even the 'copy markdown' button worked. I'm running 15.5 (24F74).
gnabgib 1y ago
Not the title, why the edit? title: Alto h1: Welcome to Alto
- itemize123 1y ago
  it makes the headline more informative
sghiassy 1y ago
Is a screenshot of the product not possible? Like wtf, show what the final result looks like
- nocoiner 1y ago
  I think that’s the site?
- mikestew 1y ago
  You were looking at it: “Made with Alto…”
AnonC 1y ago
So, alto.so is a platform for publishing Apple Notes on the alto.so website? This was a bit confusing to understand because the “Install Mac app” link points to an app called alto.computer. The “Guides” link in the docs page leads me to an empty page (turned off ad blocker and checked, but no luck). The app is free and the one time price request seems reasonable. But adding a custom domain is a comparatively more expensive subscription (or a much higher one time fee). Are there apps that allow publishing from Apple Notes to a website with one’s own domain without additional subscription fees?
ksynwa 1y ago
I was crawling through the links and J ran into https://montaigne.io/ https://montaigne.io/ which also aay: > Make a website, blog, or portfolio using nothing but Apple Notes. A bit confusing.
- subpixel 1y ago
  That app's developer reviewed this app developer's app. Nice guerrilla marketing.
dedicate 1y ago
The 'no more tools to learn' promise is powerful, but here's my hang-up: isn't this... just another tool? A layer between my notes and the web, with its own app and pricing. Feels like we're just trading one set of complexities for another. Is this true simplicity, or just a different kind of abstraction? Maybe I'm just being cynical lol.
- qn9n 1y ago
  I think by tools they mean more complex tools such as static site generators. Rather than an application where you select a Notes Folder and it does the rest.
ZenoArrow 1y ago
For anyone that doesn't use Apple Notes, and keeps their notes in Markdown or Org format, good news for you, there are tons of existing tools to do the same thing (converting your notes into webpages) and you don't have to pay for them. For example: https://bloggrify.com/ https://bloggrify.com/
ashdksnndck 1y ago
Be careful keeping important things in Apple Notes and not backing it up elsewhere. One time I disabled the iCloud sync on Apple Note from my Mac. All of my notes disappeared everywhere. The notes were previously available across all my devices logged into that account as well as the web UI - all gone and unrecoverable (I did a lot of research and tried everything). And no warning in the UI that disabling the iCloud sync would delete any data. Dumb mistake I won’t make again. I’ve heard many times over the years not to trust “the cloud” and don’t consider it to be a valid backup solution. This is the first time I’ve ever actually been bitten by it.
- nottorp 1y ago
  With photos, Apple actually threatens you that they will delete everything including your local copies when you disable the icloud syncing that you never explicitly enabled...
CaRDiaK 1y ago
Possibly worth noting that import export markdown is coming to Apple notes in ios26 https://9to5mac.com/2025/07/17/heres-everything-new-for-apple-notes-in-ios-26/#:~:text=Markdown%20is%20now%20supported%20by,the%20new%20share%20sheet%20option. https://9to5mac.com/2025/07/17/heres-everything-new-for-appl...
- kilroy123 1y ago
  Wow, I didn't know about this. Awesome news.
plun9 1y ago
Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterous

84 points by colinprince 1y ago

cxr 1y ago

Is there a good reason for one's Apple Notes to be turned into a "website"? (NB: there's something more meant here than notes-as-a-website, since that implies little more than than "your notes, but with URLs". "Website" is being used here as a euphemism for something else—something more than that alone.) Is that better than your website being a collection of notes? It seems that the note is the preferred form of interaction, following straightforwardly from the concept of revealed preference—else those in the target audience wouldn't actually be choosing the notes every day, when they could be choosing not-notes. So that's the value proposition here: taking the thing that its users like more and exchanging it for something that they like less.

Telemakhos 1y ago
With a custom domain, which seems to be available for a small price, this could be the easiest blog setup ever.
- cxr 1y ago
  Again I gesture towards what we know as revealed preference. People like the idea of blogging. In practice, they don't like actually blogging. This is why we have: <https://rakhim.org/honestly-undefined/19/ https://rakhim.org/honestly-undefined/19/>
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    I think this graph is somehow invalidated in recent times. Now we have something in the middle: Minimalist blogging platforms which provide the service sans the need to rebuild the site every time you publish something. The graph was true, because handling the static site was a big time sink and also prevented me from having a blog. Otherwise you have to go full Wordpress or similar. Now I use Mataroa. There's also prose.sh, bearblog, smolpub and possibly others. Being able to type something away in your notes app, and share it to somewhere is an unprecedented power enabler. Because it's simple, transparent, and heck, it works. This is the also proposition of Obsidian publish. Yes you have Quartz4, which needs Node, NPM, and a factorio pipeline plus a server and whatnot. You select the pages, press publish and presto. Your site is up in "5" seconds flat. Removing the exciting tech and making it simple, thin and invisible is a great way to make people to work your tool. If I want, I can make all the CI/CD dance and animate it in the process to entertain myself, but no. I want a simple, minimalist blog with a nice layout. Hence Mataroa. Alto caters to the same demographic, and is brilliant for that.
hidelooktropic 1y ago
Notes is a writing tool that approachable and easy to use. It also works across the ecosystem on a syncing platform I already pay for and whose privacy I am comfortable with. I like the idea of setting up a simple text based website without needing to adopt a new editor. That's plenty value prop to me.
alprado50 1y ago
I think that it is kinda cool to convert your notes to a website, especially if you want to easily share them. I just created a Shortcut that sends my modified notes to an email address, and then I use Eleventy to build a website. Here is the result: https://albertoprado70.github.io/Mini/this-blog-uses-ios-notes-as-a-cms/ https://albertoprado70.github.io/Mini/this-blog-uses-ios-not...
- hofo 1y ago
  What’s processing the mail?
- qn9n 1y ago
  Whenever I export notes from Apple Notes it replaces the Markdown title marker `# Title goes here` with `*Title goes here *****` or something similar. Any notes on this?
nkotov 1y ago
I noticed a trend with gen z at least that they use Apple Messages and Apple Notes for everything. Even scheduling and stuff, I had a shared note sent to me. So probably a replacement for Notion.
hombre_fatal 1y ago
I suppose the use case for using Notes to back a website is the same reason you'd use Notes over Notion, Obsidian, Todo apps, Evernote, and everything else: Notes are built-in to your Macbook and iPhone, and they sync across them, and you're probably already using it. Every time I try to use a new tool, I end up going back to Notes.
subpixel 1y ago
I need to share a doc with family that is basically the agenda for our reunion. There is no service (Google, iCloud) that we all have access to, and I do not want the doc I share to be full of prompts for the people I share it with to join any service (this disqualifies Dropbox paper). I need to be able to update this doc on my phone. I have this need a couple times a yeat, so this app appeals to me (haven't tried it yet!)

lowwave 1y ago

Very nice! Just FYI, one can also save RTF doc in cryptpad as html.

mattmaroon 1y ago

Would love an iOS (or even Windows, if possible) version.

qn9n 1y ago
You could utilise the Convert Rich Text to Markdown feature from in Apple Shortcuts
- mattmaroon 1y ago
  I did not know that, thanks!

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

randomcatuser 1y ago

i'm curious, how does it work? does it read the db directly or use applescript to get the notes?

DASD 1y ago

Makes me think what would have happened if CityDesk from Fog Creek Software in 2001 modernized into today. https://web.archive.org/web/20020802014713/http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020802014713/http://www.fogcre...

forthwall 1y ago

Very cool how you have both a one click purchase and a subscription :) I use apple notes a lot but never thought of making it into a website. Is this homepage a notes app site?

kkoncevicius 1y ago
> I use apple notes a lot but never thought of making it into a website. Is this homepage a notes app site? Same question. Is there an example of how the final website might look like?
- mikestew 1y ago
  At the bottom of the home page: “Made with Alto”
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

jrvarela56 1y ago

Didn't work for me. At first I thought the app did not open but it turned out to add a few buttons to the lower right corner of Apple Notes. When clicking the buttons, nothing happened, not even the 'copy markdown' button worked. I'm running 15.5 (24F74).

gnabgib 1y ago

Not the title, why the edit? title: Alto h1: Welcome to Alto

itemize123 1y ago
it makes the headline more informative

sghiassy 1y ago

Is a screenshot of the product not possible? Like wtf, show what the final result looks like

nocoiner 1y ago
I think that’s the site?
mikestew 1y ago
You were looking at it: “Made with Alto…”

AnonC 1y ago

So, alto.so is a platform for publishing Apple Notes on the alto.so website? This was a bit confusing to understand because the “Install Mac app” link points to an app called alto.computer. The “Guides” link in the docs page leads me to an empty page (turned off ad blocker and checked, but no luck). The app is free and the one time price request seems reasonable. But adding a custom domain is a comparatively more expensive subscription (or a much higher one time fee). Are there apps that allow publishing from Apple Notes to a website with one’s own domain without additional subscription fees?

ksynwa 1y ago

I was crawling through the links and J ran into https://montaigne.io/ https://montaigne.io/ which also aay: > Make a website, blog, or portfolio using nothing but Apple Notes. A bit confusing.

subpixel 1y ago
That app's developer reviewed this app developer's app. Nice guerrilla marketing.

dedicate 1y ago

The 'no more tools to learn' promise is powerful, but here's my hang-up: isn't this... just another tool? A layer between my notes and the web, with its own app and pricing. Feels like we're just trading one set of complexities for another. Is this true simplicity, or just a different kind of abstraction? Maybe I'm just being cynical lol.

qn9n 1y ago
I think by tools they mean more complex tools such as static site generators. Rather than an application where you select a Notes Folder and it does the rest.

ZenoArrow 1y ago

For anyone that doesn't use Apple Notes, and keeps their notes in Markdown or Org format, good news for you, there are tons of existing tools to do the same thing (converting your notes into webpages) and you don't have to pay for them. For example: https://bloggrify.com/ https://bloggrify.com/

ashdksnndck 1y ago

Be careful keeping important things in Apple Notes and not backing it up elsewhere. One time I disabled the iCloud sync on Apple Note from my Mac. All of my notes disappeared everywhere. The notes were previously available across all my devices logged into that account as well as the web UI - all gone and unrecoverable (I did a lot of research and tried everything). And no warning in the UI that disabling the iCloud sync would delete any data. Dumb mistake I won’t make again. I’ve heard many times over the years not to trust “the cloud” and don’t consider it to be a valid backup solution. This is the first time I’ve ever actually been bitten by it.

nottorp 1y ago
With photos, Apple actually threatens you that they will delete everything including your local copies when you disable the icloud syncing that you never explicitly enabled...

CaRDiaK 1y ago

Possibly worth noting that import export markdown is coming to Apple notes in ios26 https://9to5mac.com/2025/07/17/heres-everything-new-for-apple-notes-in-ios-26/#:~:text=Markdown%20is%20now%20supported%20by,the%20new%20share%20sheet%20option. https://9to5mac.com/2025/07/17/heres-everything-new-for-appl...

kilroy123 1y ago
Wow, I didn't know about this. Awesome news.

plun9 1y ago

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterous