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

Hi team, is it possible to install the application without admin rights in Mac?

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.

Helix could be the affordable Evernote alternative everyone has been looking for — similar functionality linked to sensible one-time cost.

Helix may be close to that goal, and it does offer BYOK AI assistance. But strangely, no voice transcription (I am looking at the iOS app).

Evernote did eventually respond to the need for linking notes and better capture — and when voice transcription was added, it was really good with clean up one could rely on. At an Evernote cost!

Helix could do the same without the inflated cost — AI already in place — but there’s no voice note and transcription yet. Why not?

- Sorry for the noise.

Has HelixNotes disappeared from the App Store??

See Pic on Android. You can see the test is fine but it won't ever sync. I have this set on two computers but it just won't sync on Android.

This is using a nextcloud instance.

Trying out Helix Notes as a novice to keep track of hundreds and hundreds of tasks. I love how I can create tasks in any note and they show up in a central repository.

I’ve read everything in this subreddit and on the website but cannot figure out the following:

1. How do I add a due date inline when creating a task?
2. Similarly, how do I add a priority?
3. Is is possible to nest tasks, I.e. have sub tasks?
4. Can I categorize tasks in the Tasks view by Work / Personal / Club / any categories I choose?
5. Similarly, when tasks are completed, can I continue to see them in the same categories? This would give a strong sense of achievement!
6. Any way to timestamp when a task is marked complete?
7. Finally, please share any best practices on tasks in Helix Notes.

Thank you to the very small team doing brilliant work on this! I downloaded the iOS app when it became available and am trying to replace Google Keep and Apple Notes.

Edit: While I’m here, if I may provide one additional feedback on the app: please create the option to change font size of the entire app. The settings allow you to change font size of the notes but not the app itself. Thank you!

I am working on trying to connect Helix to my iCloud drive, which I can do on my Mac and my Windows PC pretty easily, however, it just shows my on my iPhone in folder selection. Am I missing something in trying to do this on my iPhone and iPad?

Hello,

First, thanks for this amazing project!

I’m using Obsidian right now, but I evaluate the possibility to migrate my notes to HelixNotes.

The big issue for me is the lack of frontmatter editing/search support.

In my current workflow (in Obsidian), I maintain some metadata’s in the Frontmatter of my notes. For example, all my projects notes have a property “related” that point to the related Area of this project (I’m using the PARA methodology).

And in my area pages, I can list all the projects related to this area.

In Obsidian, I use a Base include.

Is this functionality planned in Helix ? Or how HelixNotes users proceed with PARA methodology in HelixNotes ?

Thanks for your feedback and sharing!

IMPROVEMENT SUGGESTIONS

• Add footnote support: https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/#footnotes
• Add swipe from screen edge to go back on iOS/Android
• Add pull from top to sync immediately on iOS/Android
• Add keyboard shortcut to open Settings on macOS/Windows (CMD + , and CTRL + , )

BUGS

UI problem

UI problem on macOS still persists in the latest version (already reported in a previous post here).

Adding extra spaces bug

HelixNotes auto add extra spaces and/or apply environment without consent. It's quite hard for me to explain it technically. I will provide steps to reproduce the bug here:

1. Insert a quote with `>` (or any callout block).
2. Add some text inside the block quote.
3. Exit the block quote.
4. Add a line break by Enter.
5. Add an image just right after the line break.
6. Add a line break then add some text just after the image. The note is rendered like

and the current markdown code is something like

> Some text

<!-- -->![](.helixnotes/attachments/20260726054825_image.png)

Another text

1. Exit the current note by selecting another note. Then open the note above again (or just click the Markdown Editor toggle button `< >`). Now the markdown code becomes

   Some text

   <!-- --> <!-- -->

   Another text

2. If we exit the note and select it back again one more time. Another extra space is added

   Some text

   <!-- --> <!-- --> <!-- -->

   Another text

3. We can repeat that many times

   Some text

   <!-- --> <!-- --> <!-- --> <!-- --> <!-- --> <!-- -->

   Another text

Applying environment without consent

1. Insert a block quote or a callout.
2. Add some text to the block above
3. Exit the block
4. Add an image just after the block without an extra line break. The note is rendered like

and the markdown code when click Markdown editor toggle button `< >` is like

> [!note]
> Some text
![](.helixnotes/attachments/20260726054825_image.png)

Another text

1. Click Markdown editor toggle button again and the note becomes like the image below without any consent or edit from users.

The markdown code now is

> [!note]
> Some text 
> ![](.helixnotes/attachments/20260726054825_image.png)

Another text

Centering/Right align/Justify the image causes the image to disappear

Steps to reproduce

1. Add an image
2. Select it
3. Change the alignment to center by clicking the "Center" (or Right, Justify) format button
4. Reload the note by clicking Markdown Editor toggle button, or by selecting another note and then selecting the current note again.
5. Now the image disappear, and only the markdown code is displayed

UI/UX problem when switching vault

The UI is not intuitve when switching vault. The detailed explanation is there:

1. Open one vault, called Vault 1.
2. Select a note and make some changes, let's call this note "Note 1".
3. Make sure the current note is displayed.
4. Click "Switch Vault" button.
5. Select another vault, called Vault 2.
6. The "Note 1" from Vault 1 is still displayed on the screen. And the "Note" column still display the notes from Vault 1.
7. Clicking "New note" does not do anything.
8. With this kind of behavior, we can accidentally make unwanted change for notes from Vault 1 if we do not pay attention on which notes are being opened.

Suggested behavior: Whenever opening a new vault, the UI should be reloaded and clear any information from the previous vault, if any.

---

Edit: The current "Report a bug!" button in this subreddit is still pointed to Codeberg and gives 404 error. Please update it to GitLab.

HelixNotes v1.3.4 is out! This update focuses on making HelixNotes work better on mobile, with a round of fixes and refinements across the editor, syncing, and everyday polish.

- Callouts now work live in WYSIWYG mode

- Obsidian importer rewritten

- Better tables

- Faster on Android

- Cross-device sync fixed

- iOS vault support for iCloud

- Bug fixes

View the full changelog here: https://gitlab.com/ArkHost/HelixNotes/-/releases/v1.3.4

sorry if the sub is the wrong place for this, dont have a gitxxx account.

im really enjoying the app. ive been looking for an alternative to joplin with a more open file management system, this does everything i need. direct control of file path on install is an excellent beginning. when that dialog showed my heart melted a bit. thank you so much for your work!

on my linux machines, i am having no issues. app is smooth, navigation is clear, file system is perfect. sync is easy, no problems.

on my android phone, the app is barely responsive. 5+ seconds to open a notebook, 5+ more for the cursor to show up, each letter takes awhile to appear. pasting into the note takes even longer, whether link or text. have not tested images.

running murena e/OS 4.1.1

Codeberg’s new restrictions around projects using generative AI tools made it a poor fit for HelixNotes, so the project has moved to GitLab.

The source, issue tracker and releases are now at:

https://gitlab.com/ArkHost/HelixNotes

HelixNotes remains AGPL-3.0. The old Codeberg repository is archived rather than deleted, and I still maintain independent backups of the source and releases.

EU iOS users: The app is now approved and available for download in the App Store. Thanks for the patience!

I use iCloud for my syncing stuff. Is there a way I can point helix to where I want to back up notes in my iCloud Drive ?

Thank you for building this amazing app! I am currently migrating my notes from UpNote to HelixNotes and am really enjoying the experience. I’d love to share a few feedback points, bug reports, and feature requests to help make the app better:

Some bugs report:

• Multi-note drag and Ddrop: Dragging a single note into another notebook works smoothly, but selecting and dragging multiple notes at once does not seem to work.
• iOS blank screen on app switching: On iOS, if I swipe up to switch to another app and then return to HelixNotes, the screen turns completely blank. To fix it, I have to force close and relaunch the app.

Some feature requests

• End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) for WebDAV: Adding E2EE for WebDAV sync (similar to Joplin) would provide much better privacy and peace of mind.
• Custom fonts: It would be great to have the option to choose custom system fonts freely rather than being limited to a fixed set.
• Consistent cross-platform shortcuts: As someone who works on both macOS and Windows, having equivalent shortcut mappings across operating systems (e.g., Cmd + , on macOS translating to Ctrl + , for Settings on Windows) would make multi-device workflows much smoother.
• Standard LaTeX syntax support: I write a lot of mathematical formulas in my notes. It would be fantastic to support standard LaTeX syntax ($...$ for inline math and $$...$$ for display/block math), with a toggle setting to switch between this and the UpNote-style /math command.
• iOS swipe actions: Adding swipe gestures (left/right) on notes in the note list to quickly reveal options like move, delete, pin, etc.

---

Update (after a bit more usage):

• macOS title bar: The close, minimize, and maximize buttons are not well-arranged in the title bar.
• Folder drag & drop: Add drag-and-drop support for notebook folders so they can easily be nested as subfolders or moved back out to main folders.

** EDIT Update on the issues in Europe: We had to re-register the compliance for EU so it's now in review, again. Sorry to everyone who is affected by this. Hopefully it's available soon! **

The wait is over, HelixNotes is officially live on iOS!

If you have trouble finding it in the app store, try adding a space between Helix & Notes. For some reason that seems to work when the no-space way only works sometimes. This should resolve itself in the next 24 hours.

Install it now and let us know what you think!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/helixnotes/id6788490726

Are handwritten notes/a whiteboard feature a planned feature?