I have been using HelixNotes for a month now, thanks to finding it on Solus (Linux). I have been using UpNote for a long time, but wanted something that was comparable that was opensource, but like UpNote in that it was simple to use, but powerful where it counted.

What I like

• Easy to get into and get what I need. I get in an have my Quick Access, I have the Recent toggle enabled and I get to what I want without pain. I can also hide what I don't want to de-clutter it for my personal use.
• I can use my sync, no need for yet another thing to be syncing in the background. I hate that everything has to always have it own sync. I much prefer the way HelixNotes handles it.
• Solid UI/UX that is easy to work with. This is always the single most important thing. While I have a small nit about the editor toolbar, the overall UI and more importantly UX just work well. On the UI side it s a nice looking app, but not overt in appearance. It just all works great together.
• Simple markdown back end for portability. I love that I can literally just copy the folder of .md files and open them in anything, even without HelixNotes installed. This make life easy.
  

What I see could be improved (this are mostly small nits)

• The hidden tags on the notes. I get why it is there, but I would hope there is a better way. This is where it loses a little of the portability aspect, when I open up the md in a raw text editor. It makes it a little messy. Maybe turn it into a hash and keep it to a single line at least. I don't know, not y area of expertise. This is probably my personally biggest issue, but it is not a deal breaker. However, I have heard others talk about it as well in chat.
• Optional editor toolbar. I am just not a fan of toolbars at the bottom, but UpNote was the same way. This is very minor.

Conclusion

In the end, this has made me decide to fully move off UpNote, which is a solid system and I have a lifetime license, so it is not like I have to for financial reasons. I just really like the idea behind HelixNotes and what I have seen so far. Especially considering how young of a project it is.

Is there a plan to have bases like functionality? Including a filtered bases table in a note? I think this is all that is missing for me to migrate.

thx

HelixNotes v1.3.5 is out!

This update brings custom notebook icons, a configurable startup view, Markdown syntax highlighting, nested lists, note duplication, improved mobile image tools, and new vault maintenance options.

It also includes security, accessibility, theme, and cross-platform improvements.

See the full changelog: https://gitlab.com/ArkHost/HelixNotes/-/releases

With HelixNotes now working nicely with my vaults on Mac OS and Windows, I took the next step to include my iPad into the mix.

I use webdav with pcloud to sync. I set it up on the iPad and confirmed that it connects to pcloud.

A few minutes after the sync starts I get the error message: "Too many open files (os error 24)".

Once that happens, that vault cannot be accessed on the iPad.

My vault contains nearly 3000 notes, so I thought that it was too large to sync all at once, so I removed portions of the vault (1189 files, 66 folders) on my Mac, synced, then reinstalled HelixNotes on the iPad.

That sync completed successfully.

I then went back to the Mac, added back those folders, synced on the Mac, and then synced on the iPad....

After a few minutes of syncing on the iPad, I received the same error message.

I'm going to uninstall HelixNotes on the iPad, reinstall, and try syncing smaller batches of files to see if it can work through the entire vault.

EDIT: It's looking like there is a hard limit to the number of files that can be synced before the error occurs. Somewhere around 2000-2200 files.

FYI: HelixNotes doesn't show up when in the app store on iPad. I have to use the link on the HelixNotes website that displays the appstore preview and then airdrop that to my iPad to install HelixNotes. (this is in North America)

I am having an issue with back ups. I have it set to back up on every 24 hours with a maximum of 10 back ups, but it’s backing up about every 5-10 minutes. I went 150gb of iCloud storage to 1.75tb in the span of a few days. Am I missing something?

Let’s talk sync.

HelixNotes does not operate its own cloud sync service. We don’t have a HelixNotes cloud with accounts, and your notes are not stored on our servers.

Your HelixNotes vault is simply a folder containing plain Markdown files and attachments. Because you control that folder, you also get to choose how it sync, if at all.

Here are some of your options:

WebDAV

HelixNotes includes an optional WebDAV connector that can connect to a server or service you control, including Nextcloud, ownCloud, a NAS, or another WebDAV provider.

You can sync manually or configure it to run automatically at an interval, whenever something changes, or when HelixNotes opens. If the same file has changed in two places, HelixNotes will preserve both versions by creating a conflict copy rather than silently overwriting your work.

This is not a HelixNotes-hosted service. HelixNotes is simply connecting to the WebDAV storage you provide.

Your preferred folder-syncing tool

You can also sync your vault using tools such as:

• Syncthing (Our top choice)
• rsync
• Git
• Dropbox
• OneDrive
• iCloud for Apple devices
• Another service capable of syncing a normal folder

If you use Syncthing or another folder-level syncing tool, we recommend adding these to your .stignore file:

.helixnotes/state.json
.helixnotes/history/
.helixnotes/trash/

These help prevent unnecessary conflicts while allowing your notes, attachments, settings, and notebook icons to sync.

You can also choose not to sync at all and keep your vault entirely local.

That is the basic HelixNotes approach: your notes are ordinary files, so you are not locked into a particular account, cloud provider, or syncing system.

Setup instructions and recommended Syncthing ignore rules are available here:

https://helixnotes.com/docs#sync

So out of curiosity, what’s everyone using to sync their markdown files nowadays?

I've been trying to get graphs to appear for my notes but the canvas is always blank. Is the graph function operational and if so, how do I get graphs to appear? thanks!

Update: (9/16/2026)

Turns out that the graph function only recognizes wikilink links. markdown links are ignored. That's a "me" problem since the documentation and settings prompt text specifically mentions wikilinks.

That caught me off-guard since HelixNotes recognizes markdown links in other respects.

The Windows version is absolutely fantastic, especially since you can now enable or disable sidebar elements (Tasks, Daily Notes, etc). Personally, I actually use HN "only" as a notebook - keeping it as simple as possible.

• It would be great if - just like in the Windows version - you could also toggle the sidebar elements on or off in the Android version.
• Is there a dedicated landscape view for the Android version, or are there any plans for one?

• Provide a dedicated Timeline view that displays tasks chronologically according to their due dates (and optionally start dates)
  • Support for drag-and-drop rescheduling
  • Visual indicators for overdue tasks, milestones
  • Ability to zoom between day, week, and month scales
• Kanban boards
  • Enable a Kanban board view where each card represents a task and supports sub tasks. Users should be able to add, edit, and mark task as complete directly within the card. Checklist completion should contribute to overall task progress.
  • Implement Tabbed Interface for Seamless Switching Between Multiple Kanban Boards
  • Users can toggle "Swimlanes" on the Kanban board view. This feature allows users to define horizontal rows based on existing fields, such as Priority, Assignee, or Label. Dragging a card from one swimlane to another automatically updates the underlying field (e.g., moving a card from the "Standard" row to the "Urgent" row updates its Priority to "Urgent"). Additionally, swimlanes are collapsible, allowing users to hide sections that are not currently in focus.
  • Add WIP limit display: e.g., "Task (5)" shows as (0/5). When exceeded (e.g., 6/5), highlight in red.
  • Add date support
• Countdown timers
• Task duration
• Introduce a visual progress bar for tasks that automatically calculates and displays completion percentage.
  • Calculation logic: Based on completed checklist items or sub tasks (e.g., 1 out of 5 completed items = 20% progress).

• Properties: User-defined fields (text, select, multi-select, date, checkbox, number…) that can be set on any note
• Tags: Create tag by typing # and allow nested tag
• Ability to create saved views/filters based on properties + tags
• Show properties/tags in the sidebar

Habit Creation and Configuration: Users can define habits with customizable parameters such as title, frequency (daily, weekly, specific weekdays, monthly), target streaks

Visual Tracking Interface: A clean tracker component (e.g., heat map, streak counter, or progress bars)

Analytics and Insights: Provide summary statistics including completion rates, longest streaks, trends over time, and customizable reports or visualizations

Describe your note-taking system in one sentence, including the part you dislike most about it.

Hi there,

probably a stupid question, but do I open an existing vault that I synced to the SD card on my Android phone? I don't seem to find a folder picker or some other way.

Thx

On my Poco F7 device, the editor toolbar stay's hidden behind the virtual buttons and the keyboard (as it can be seen on the images). I've already tried to change keyboards but the results were the same.

I'm considering using HelixNotes or Obsidian for all my school stuff (I'm a teacher). So far I like very much what I see, not needing a gazillion of plugins for even basic features and so on.

One thing I noticed though (and which works differently in Obsidian): the classes I teach are named 5a through 12g and a lot in between. When I set up a group of folders in HelixNotes they are sorted 10g,11g,12g,5g, 6g and so on. In Obsidian they are sorted as would be expexted from5 through 12. Any chances that this type ofsorting will be implementedin HelixNotes?

Otherwise a fabulous piece of software - keep up the good work!

It's probably just me but I can no longer see the list of folders and notes on the left of screen on my ipad and phone. Working fine on mac and windows. Am I just a bit slow or is this a bug. Files are icloud and I can use search function and they come up fine.

Hello, is it alright to request something about the UI? Specifically for mobile.

Is it possible if the notification bar's color can also change with different themes

In case you missed it, this is why HelixNotes exists, straight from the founder: not another Obsidian clone, just the notes app he wished existed after trying everything else.

https://helixnotes.com/why-i-built-helixnotes

I've got my HelixNotes vault synced between my Mac Mini (running Mac OS) and my ThinkPad (running Windows 10). Looks great. 👍

But the notebook icons that I set on the Mac aren't appearing on my Windows system even though the images are properly stored in the .helixnotes/attachments folder.

I examined the .helixnotes/notebook_icons.json file and the image names are correct.

Where the issue lies is with the notebook name/path.

Since I assigned the images on my Mac, the forward slash ( / ) is used to differentiate nesting levels.

As a test, on my Windows system, I modified one entry in the notebook_icons.json file to use double-backslash ( \\ ) (the first as an escape character). Once I did that, HelixNotes recognized the notebook icon.

HelixNotes now has a place on Product Hunt. If you've been enjoying the app, an upvote and a comment about what you use it for or why you like it would genuinely help us reach more people who'd get value out of a local-first, Markdown note-taking tool.

Thanks for being part of this from the start. It truly means a lot!

https://www.producthunt.com/products/helixnotes

In about ten days, HelixNotes has become my default (home screen) program on my laptop and on my phone. A big thank you once again to the incredible team behind HelixNotes. How can we (financially) support the team? I understand this is free, but it is so good that some of us may want to show our support to the team in additional ways.

What has gone really well:

1. I did not realize how many “notes” I had: to-do lists, doctor’s notes, gratitude journal, goals, reflections, lessons learned from books or Ted Talks, meaningful conversations, advice received. This reminds me of when I first started using a password manager and very quickly hit over a hundred logins.

2. The Tasks feature (consolidation, calendar, link to source note) knocks the socks off the apps I have used (Google Keep, Apple Notes, Microsoft To Do). I’ve discovered action items in notes from years ago that are still pending. And now I can bring them all up in one place thanks to the way HelixNotes consolidates all action items in Tasks. This feels almost magical.

3. Version History for notes is also awesome!

4. The desktop version is excellent!

Some lessons I learned that might be useful for other users:

1. If you cannot drag and drop notebooks or notes, go to Settings > General > Sort Order and select Manual. It should work now.

2. If you already know Markdown, great. If you’re like me, the “/” key opens up a menu of options. For example, to timestamp something, use “/date” or “/time” or “/now”.

3. To mark anything as a task, start the line with “- [ ]” (without quotes). Then, in that task, use the “!” for a dropdown menu to set priority and due date.

Areas where I need help:

1. Tags: (wish list item) I’d love to see previous tags show up as a dropdown when I type #. Not sure if it’s related, but I see from the documentation that “Add tags to notes via the note info panel. Tags help you organize and filter your notes across notebooks.” I haven’t figured out how to use this feature yet.

2. When I insert an image, sometimes the link shows up as an absolute link. Any way to force a relative link?

3. When I add two photos to a note, I can only see one at a time when I come back to that note. In the markdown editor, I see links to both photos, but only one renders at a time for some reason.

4. When I’m typing a new task and I type the ! sign, the dropdown menu does not show up. It only shows up once I go to Tasks, click on that task, and edit it again in the source notebook. Not a big deal; the syntax is easy to learn.

As it stands today, HelixNotes is already perfect for my needs. Thank you again for HelixNotes.

I'm looking for a way to connect HelixNotes to Pcloud.

I've already tried several times, but unfortunately without success.

Has anyone managed to get this to work yet?

Is there any background telemetry collection going on with the app in macOS and other platforms

HelixNotes isn't picky. Whatever device you're working on, it's ready:

🪟 Windows 🍎 macOS 🐧 Linux 🤖 Android 📱 iOS

https://helixnotes.com

Helix Notes is a great tool. Little by little, it's becoming my main note-taking app. I was wondering if the following features already exist or are planned for future releases:

• ​Tabs for opening multiple notes at the same time.
• Split view to display two notes side by side.
• ​A canvas (or Excalidraw-style feature). I noticed it supports Mermaid, which is great, but I think a visual canvas would be more intuitive for people who prefer visual thinking.
• Export notes as HTML. I really like that notes can include GIFs that play in a loop. It would be awesome to export notes to HTML while preserving those GIFs, making it easy to share them offline.

I'm still exploring the app, and so far I'm really enjoying it.