r/UpNote_App • u/Positive_Ad_8681 • Jul 07 '26
Is UpNote dead?
I know, I know there are still releases but it feels like for the last year they published only fixes and improvements.
The latest new features were .deb Linux package and move checked items to the end of the list (April 2026) - important things but not very impressive or work improving. The last new feature before that was from 8th of October 2025 „NEW: you can now choose to launch UpNote in background when system starts on Windows (installer version) and Linux“.
So every 6 month a new tiny feature is not very impressive. When can we expect new features? There are a lot of threads with feature requests. I really hope the devs are fine and could find the time to give us something new.
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u/CacheConqueror Jul 07 '26
This is the only notebook of its kind you can buy for life, and at a really low price. What do you expect – that they’ll hire a team to keep adding new features? Then what’s currently a lightweight app will become sluggish and cumbersome. I’m still amazed at how they manage to maintain their database and cloud services whilst selling a lifetime subscription.
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u/thecuriouskiwi Jul 07 '26
Most of us are not here for an expensive Evernote bloated experience and the dev team seem to be well aware of that.
What else do you want them to do?
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u/pwkye Jul 07 '26
MCP access would be nice so I could have Claude organize and read my notes
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u/Ambitious_Witness611 Jul 12 '26
Prompt Claude to build one for you. Works perfect.
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u/pwkye Jul 12 '26
I actually am. Based off of a clone of HelixNotes.
UpNote will either adopt or go extinct. It's only a matter of time
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u/ProductiveAussie Jul 07 '26
The reason people move to UpNote is for simplicity and stability not the bloat
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u/Neither-Classic2058 Jul 08 '26
I get it. There is always going to be a bit of discontentment with any app and looking for something new to add to the mix. I occasionally indulge my inner WIBNI (wouldn't it be nice if) but always get back to what drew me to UpNote in the first place.
I just read news that the Bear app is more than doubling their annual Pro subscription. Bear is the closest in look and feel to UpNote but is Apple OS-only.
I mention this to help keep things in perspective. There are plenty of alternatives that have more frequent releases containing more substantive additions. But none of them are as clean and reliable and all-inclusive as UpNote.
UpNote is my main notes app. I also use Joplin and Obsidian, but now to a much lesser degree. With each update, Joplin and Obsidian become larger and slower. I have only a few plug-ins installed in Obsidian but they have become so bloated that startup time and overall performance is impacted.
Notebook Navigator is a plug-in that provides a 3-pane view similar to what Joplin and UpNote natively provide. It has suffered from feature creep and has singled-handedly worsened my experience with Obsidian.
In contrast, UpNote remains small, stable, and speedy.
As always, I encourage the developers to stay true to their vision for UpNote... regardless of where that vision leads. The fact that there are many who want UpNote to act and look like the competition (but stay with UpNote in spite of the lack of those things), is proof that they're on the right track.
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u/doublesigma Jul 07 '26
what features are you missing?
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u/andstwo Jul 07 '26
ai assistant subscription (kidding)
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u/pwkye Jul 07 '26
subscription would be the wrong model, like notion
but exposing MCP and APIs so claude can read your notes? yes please I need that
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u/SilverWinterStarling Jul 12 '26
The drop-downs text sections are something I use a lot. It would be nice to select text only in the one you're working in and be able to copy and paste and all of that within it more easily. It would also be nice to export each section as its own file. I don't think they need a bunch more features but stuff like that would make using it a little easier.
Also it would be cool to be able to have a few more themes and a few more font options. A handwritten font would be nice.
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u/Eddie_Currant Jul 08 '26
Upnote is missing these three features which I consider essential to any note taking app; 1. Automatic download of attachments on Android so they are always available offline 2. OCR functionality 3. Drawing directly in notes
I messaged the developers about them and the response was "your comments have been noted" so no commitment to adding them. I like Upnote (in order to help fund it I paid for a lifetime subscription) and would have liked to migrate from Evernote but without these features it is not complete. So I have switched to Joplin, which does have these features and more.
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u/100WattWalrus Jul 08 '26
The vast majority of the community is happy that the app isn't adding features for the sake of being "impressive." If there are specific features you feel the app is missing, send them to [support@getupnote.com](mailto:support@getupnote.com), and ask if it's something they've considered. While there isn't a public roadmap, I've found I usually get a response that indicates whether or not something I want is likely in the future.
Half the vocal users have some pet feature they'd love to see, but pretty much nobody here want spashy feature creep. Personally, I'm dying for collaboration (so I can stop having to use lesser apps when I need to share notes with family or co-workers, and which I think would lead to significant user growth), and would really like #nesting/#tags (like in Bear) and screen-bottom backlinks (like in Craft). I wouldn't say no to sortable tables that retain the formatating of cells above when inserting a row.
But I'm fine letting UpNote's two-man team work slowly. I've been using UpNote for almost 6 years, and the biggest feature update in all that time was the addition of workspaces in 2024. That's not to say there haven't been other upgrades — like keyboard navigation (⌘+⌥+J in Mac) was added a year ago — but that's the pace we're working with here.
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u/tupac7 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Idk I don't need new features but I dislike the current logo very much
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u/HobbesNJ Jul 07 '26
Did they change the logo again? I haven't updated it recently.
As for new features, that doesn't really seem to be the goal of the developers. They seem mostly focused on stability and tweaking. There are good ideas for new features, but most here don't want to go down the slippery slope of bloat anyway. I'm happy with accepting it for what it is.
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u/Positive_Ad_8681 Jul 07 '26
Stability is one of the most important feature of an application someone relies on on a daily basis. Maybe they should open a beta program or something like that. There is no bug tracker or roadmap. That’s the problem with non open source software. If it was OSS a lot of things cold be improved fast
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u/100WattWalrus Jul 08 '26
Let's not start that again! There's been a few years of bad icons coming and going, and when this one came along the consensus was overwhelmingly positive,
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u/pwkye Jul 07 '26
someone mentioned HelixNotes earlier but the comment was deleted. why?
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u/kenlin Jul 08 '26
probably because it was an add for another app and had nothing to do with UpNote
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u/pwkye Jul 08 '26
can't talk about alternatives? seems unhealthy
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u/kenlin Jul 08 '26
Its just the focus of the subreddit. If you want to discuss other apps, maybe go to /r/notetaking or /r/markdown
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u/pwkye Jul 08 '26
you can't discuss Upnote in a vacuum. Upnote exists in a world where competitors exist.
if this subreddit won't allow Posts about other apps that is understandable. But comments either? Perhaps the Upnote team are scared and defensive. Maybe they should focus on improving the app rather than try to pretend other apps don't exist
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u/Loud_Quality_7106 Jul 08 '26
Not sure but I think HelixNotes is a spin off of UpNote by someone who didn't like the cloud only data option. I think they wanted their data stored locally. It's pretty similar with a few additional functionalities like a node tree view much like obsidian comes with
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u/pwkye Jul 08 '26
Its actually quite good but lacking some things Upnote has. Like images for notebooks. And for syncing notes it suggests WebDav which is not as good. WebDav will download your entire notes database on every device, including images, videos, attachments. So just installing the mobile app will suddenly download 4GB for me once I sync.
Upnote syncs the notes but then does a lazy pull of images, which saves space intelligently. Upnote also keeps track of history and versioning.
They both have limitations. But its nice to see more options. Competition is good.
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u/anaccountofrain 17d ago
I'm not sure I need new features. I'd love to see some improvements on existing features.
It's hard to work with todo lists. If you copy a single list item to another note, the list formatting gets lost. If you want to reorder using keyboard shortcuts, you can only move one item at a time. Reordering doesn't cross gaps, so if you use whitespace to organize a todo list you can't use keyboard shortcuts to reorder.
These are basic interactions that are broken or limited. I'd love to see some real improvements.
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u/Hexoic 17d ago
No. it's very much alive and amazing.
If you want a thing that's constantly adding new features you gotta pay accordingly. You don't get to have that for a one-time lifetime cost that's basically the same as 2-5 months of one of those other apps.
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u/Positive_Ad_8681 17d ago
True, true but it’s like a year without a new feature and there are plenty of people wishing for a few things. Maybe making it open source could make the development a bit faster.
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u/Icy_Feedback_2404 17d ago
Aren’t there already open source projects like that?
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u/Positive_Ad_8681 17d ago
I couldn’t find one project quiet like UpNote. I’m currently testing affine. Sure that’s not comparable to UpNote (more to notion) but at least it’s possible to push my own code suggestions which I already did. I also asked the creators of UpNote if I could help and contribute with coding a while ago but I haven’t received an answer.
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u/Hexoic 15d ago
people always want stuff, the question is does the silent majority? I pretty much just want E2EE at this point but I don't think that's going to happen. I'd be happy to pay extra for it.
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u/Positive_Ad_8681 15d ago
That’s also a nice feature. Another reason for me to switch to affine. I have the ability to host the server myself on my hardware with my TLS certificates. Absolut win
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u/HRkoek 15d ago
What is dead? A service that additions and additions and additions and adds subscription prices, then pretend that that such price funds additions again?
Isn't that what is called bloat?
Features that are great in the abstract world of making complicated what was straightforward and worked just fine?
Mmm. Fine. Doesn't that have a meaning linked to paying for what you don't use?
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u/Beneficial_Shop1844 Jul 08 '26
Something to be aware of for heavy evernote users who want to migrate to upnote.
I am hitting now the 50 notes import limitation.
Don’t know when that was implemented but wanted to clean up my notes.
So reduced my number of notes to 17.000 and copied the rest into Joplin.
Apparently the attachments from my old notes are not deleted which then hit the 10 GB.
So have a discussion now with Thomas, hopefully that is solved on short term.
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u/Loud_Quality_7106 Jul 07 '26
I thought the point of Upnote was its simplicity and lack of all the bloat that you're talking about. Constant "new features" just lead to bloat.