Igneous
Download on the App Store

Local-first Markdown notes

Notes that outlive the app. Native to iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Igneous is written in Swift for each device: the Action button, Control Center, widgets, Live Activities, and real Mac menus and shortcuts. On iPhone it uses Safari-inspired navigation: one dock at the bottom, under your thumb. Tap, swipe, and swipe up move between notes the way Safari's tab bar does. The notebook and find are separate gestures. Your notes are plain .md files. The first notebook is made for you; after that, point Igneous at any folder, including the one you already keep.

Download on the App Store Download on the Mac App Store See it in motion
  • Plain .md files
  • Safari-inspired navigation
  • No Electron
  • No account
  • No analytics
  • iPhone, iPad and Mac
Igneous on a Mac: the notebook sidebar and a note called Writing in Markdown in live preview, with bold, highlight and inline maths rendered as you type.
Igneous on iPhone: the Welcome note fills the screen, with the floating dock at the bottom. The recording swipes in the notebook drawer, opens a project note with a diagram, then opens the Tasks sheet.
.md
Plain Markdown files in an ordinary folder. Nothing to export, ever.
0
Igneous servers, accounts, analytics or trackers.
1
Codebase: one app for iPhone and iPad, and a Mac app.
<10ms
to find a common word across 10,000 notes.*

Why

Why notes on a phone still feel broken

Getting the first line down fast is only half of it. The other half is everything after: finding the note you need, flipping to another, getting back. Here are four things that get in the way on a phone, and what Igneous does about each one.

  1. Fumbling to get where you're going

    In most notes apps, getting around means back buttons, hamburger menus and toolbars at the top of a tall screen. Every trip to another note is a stretch, a tap, a wait, and often a second hand.

    IgneousIgneous uses Safari-inspired navigation. There's no toolbar at the top. Everything lives in one dock at the bottom, under your thumb, and it borrows the gestures you already use in the Safari web browser. Tap the pill in the middle to search every note. Swipe it sideways to move between open notes, and keep going past the last one to open a new one. Swipe up on the pill and the open notes spread out as cards. While you read, the dock folds down out of the way.

    The rest is Igneous. Swipe in from the left edge for your notebook, and in from the right for the Inspector. Pull down on a note to find a word in it. Hold any button for more.

  2. Waiting to write one sentence

    In many notes apps, the caret waits while the app loads the whole notebook, indexes it, syncs it, and starts its plugins. The thought is half gone.

    IgneousThe indexing doesn't stand between the button and the caret. Quick Strike opens a blank note and puts the caret up before the notebook is indexed. The vault scan and sync wait until you are in the note. And plugins can't hold it up, because Obsidian plugins don't run here.

  3. Many apps lock your notes in a database

    Your notes end up inside the app, and getting them out means an export, which often drops links and dates.

    IgneousThe note is the Markdown file. Each one is a plain .md file in an ordinary folder: on the device, in iCloud Drive, in a folder Dropbox already syncs, or in a git repository through Working Copy on iPhone and iPad. Igneous keeps search indexes beside the files, and those can be thrown away. On the Mac, git, VS Code, grep and your own scripts work on the same files, and Igneous picks up their changes as they land.

  4. Losing work to a bad connection

    A spinner in a lift or on a train is the worst moment to lose an idea. And when two devices change a note while they're apart, some sync services merge the two silently, and lines go missing or appear twice.

    IgneousIgneous itself never needs the internet. The editor is locked so it can't reach the network at all, and a notebook synced from your Mac is kept on the phone as a full offline copy. Back on your network, your phone sends its edits before it takes any. Changes to different lines are combined. Two tasks added in the same place are both kept, a ticked task keeps a rewording from the other side, and frontmatter keys that don't collide are merged. If both sides changed the same words, both versions are kept, side by side. Drawings merge shape by shape.

Features

A whole knowledge base, on the device in your hand.

Six things that make Igneous more than a quick-note app.

01 — iPhone

Safari-inspired navigation

The note fills the screen. Everything else sits in one dock at the bottom. The tab gestures are the ones you know from the Safari web browser: tap the pill to search, swipe it between open notes, swipe up to see them as cards, and it tucks away while you read. The notebook, the Inspector and find-in-note are Igneous's own.

  • Tap the title pill to search every note, like tapping Safari's address bar. Swipe it to move between open tabs, or keep going past the last one for a new tab.
  • Swipe up on the pill to see every open note as a grid of cards, the way Safari shows your tabs.
  • Pull down from the top of a note to find a word in it.
  • Swipe in from the left edge for the notebook drawer. The right edge opens the Inspector.
  • While you read, the dock folds into a slim pill just above the home indicator.
  • Liquid Glass on iOS 26. Turn on Reduce Transparency and it goes solid.
Igneous on iPhone: the Project Igneous note, with the dock at the bottom. The recording pulls down from the top of the note to open find, searches for “note” and steps through the matches, then swipes the title pill to switch between two open notes and swipes up to show both as cards.
02 — Write and draw

Type it, or draw it

Formatting sits on a bar just above the keyboard, and a canvas is a press of the dock away when words won't do.

  • The bar above the keyboard has headings, bold and italic, lists and tasks, quotes, links to other notes, tables and more. Undo and redo are on it too.
  • Every button writes plain Markdown, the same way the Mac's Format menu does.
  • Hold the new-note button for a canvas. Draw with a finger, or Apple Pencil on iPad, with a pen, an eraser and six colours, beside cards and links to your notes.
  • Printed handwriting becomes searchable. It's off until you turn it on. Then Igneous recognises printed handwriting on a canvas, on the device.
A note called Weekend trip on iPhone: a heading, “Pack the raincoat.” with raincoat in bold, and two unchecked tasks. The recording writes it from an empty note, using the formatting bar above the keyboard for the heading, the bold and the tasks.
A canvas on iPhone with a finger-drawn house, with a door, a window and a yellow sun. The recording draws each wall, the roof, the door and the window stroke by stroke, then switches to yellow for the sun.
03 — Your files

Your vault, as it is

Point Igneous at the folder you already keep. It reads Obsidian-flavoured Markdown as written, and writes the Markdown you typed, with nothing in a private format. The files are the notes.

  • [[wikilinks]]
  • ![[embeds]]
  • block references
  • > [!callouts]
  • footnotes
  • frontmatter
  • ==highlights==
  • %%comments%%
  • Mermaid
  • KaTeX maths
  • drawings
  • JSON Canvas .canvas
  • Notes
    • Inbox
      • 2026-09-22 143207.md
    • assets
    • 2026-09-22.md
    • Chiller Plant.md
    • Project map.canvas

Quick captures go in Inbox/, today's note is yyyy-MM-dd.md, and attachments go in assets/. All three are defaults you can change.

What you give up. Igneous won't run your Obsidian plugins, your Dataview queries or a theme; its query blocks are its own, fenced as igneous. The editor is a page built into the app, locked off the network, not a native text view. If you need plugins, stay in Obsidian. The folder works in both.

Igneous on iPhone: the Welcome note's frontmatter shown as properties (title, aliases, tags, created) above the note. It scrolls with the page, through a table of wikilinks and callouts.
04 — Writing Tools

Writing Tools that keep your Markdown

Rewrite, proofread or change the tone with Writing Tools, and your structure survives.

  • Writing Tools gets the real Markdown, not the styled text on screen, so it can see your links to begin with.
  • Anything a rewrite drops goes back in: a [[link]], a #tag, maths, a checkbox, a callout, a footnote.
  • If a rewrite can't be made faithful, Igneous doesn't apply it. Losing a link quietly is worse than a menu item doing nothing.

Needs Apple Intelligence: a supported device and language, and iOS 18 or macOS 15 or later. Writing Tools is Apple's feature and runs under Apple's privacy terms.

In your note 
The [[Chiller Plant]] review moved to Friday. #mechanical
- [ ] Confirm the 350 kW load
What a rewrite might hand back 
The Chiller Plant review has been rescheduled to Friday.
- [ ] Confirm the 350 kW load
↑ the link's brackets and #mechanical are gone
What Igneous saves 
The [[Chiller Plant]] review has been rescheduled to Friday. #mechanical
- [ ] Confirm the 350 kW load

Illustration of the repair rule

05 — Search

Find it by name, by word, or by meaning

⌘K on a Mac or iPad, or a tap on the pill on iPhone, opens Omnisearch over every note. Notes whose names match come first, then notes that just mention your words.

  • A query language when you want it: tag:, task:open, path:, and your own frontmatter, like priority<=2 or due>=today-7d, joined with AND, OR and NOT.
  • Query blocks. Fence a search as igneous in a note and it keeps its own answer up to date, as a LIST, TABLE or TASK list.
  • Search by meaning, on the device. A search for "chiller power capacity" can find notes about cooling and electrical loads that never use the word. It uses the language model already on your device and never downloads one. It only indexes while you're charging and have stopped typing. On the Mac, switch it on in Settings.
  • Handwriting search. It's off until you turn it on. Then printed handwriting in your canvases becomes searchable, recognised on the device.
Omnisearch on the Mac with “Book” typed: Book Notes – The Nature of Tech first under Notes, above notes that mention the word. The recording types “Writing in Mark”, clears it, searches for “Book” and opens the top result.
06 — Capture

Capture from anywhere

One tap to a blank note, wherever your hand already is. Each capture is its own note, filed in Inbox/ by default.

  • Control Center and the Lock Screen. Add the Quick Strike, Capture Note, Today's Note or Record Voice Note controls.
  • Hold the app icon for New Note, Today's Note, Search, or the note you were last in.
  • The Action button. Give it Quick Strike for a blank note every time, or Igneous Action and choose what a press does: a new line or task in today's note, search, a canvas, or a voice note. A Focus can switch it for you.
  • Voice notes. Record from the Action button, Control Center or Siri. The Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island show the waveform and the words as you speak, with Pause, Mark and Save. The transcript is made on the device and goes into today's note with the recording.
  • Widgets. A Home Screen planner with today's tasks and your recent notes, where you can tick a task off without opening the app, a small one with New, Today, Find and Log, and Lock Screen widgets.
  • Siri and Shortcuts. "New note in Igneous", "Add a task in Igneous", or add a line to today's note without opening the app.
  • The Share sheet. Send a link, text, image or file from any app into your notebook.
  • Focus sessions. Start one on a note and the Lock Screen counts down with its next open task. Tap Done to tick it off and see the one after.
  • On the Mac, a system-wide hotkey (⌃⌥Space by default) opens a fresh note from any app.

Controls for Control Center, the Lock Screen and the Action button need iOS 18, and so does starting a voice note from Siri without opening the app. Everything else here works from iOS 17.

The iPhone Home Screen with Igneous's widgets: a planner with today's tasks and recent notes, and New, Today, Find and Log buttons. The recording opens Control Center, taps Quick Strike, and Igneous opens straight onto a blank note with the keyboard up, where “Call the garage about the car” is typed.
Three screenshots in turn: the Home Screen with Igneous's widgets, a planner with today's tasks and recent notes and New, Today, Find and Log buttons; Control Center with the Quick Strike, Today's Note, Record Voice Note and Capture Note controls; and the Lock Screen with a voice note recording, its live transcript and Pause, Mark and Save.

iPad

Room to think.

A floating notebook pane, a real tab bar, and as many windows as Stage Manager will hold. Drag a note to the edge of the screen and it opens in a window of its own.

  • Apple Pencil. Scribble writes into any text field. Double-tap the Pencil to switch between Live Preview and source. Canvases take ink, cards and links side by side.
  • A hardware keyboard gets the Mac's shortcuts: ⌘K, ⌘T, ⌘E, ⌥⌘I, ⌃⌘D.
  • Split View and Slide Over. When the window gets narrow, Igneous folds down to the iPhone's layout, and springs back when there's room.
  • Filter the notebook as you type. Names that don't match fall away, and the folders around the ones that do stay open.
Igneous on iPad: the Welcome note in the live editor, with the tab bar across the top. The recording swipes the notebook pane in from the left edge, then scrolls to the end of the note.
The Project Igneous note on iPad, opening on its Mermaid diagram. The recording scrolls through its principles and tracker, then opens Tasks and the graph from the notebook pane.
Diagrams, tasks and the graph
Omnisearch on iPad with “Book” typed: the matching notes listed, best match first. The recording types the query one letter at a time and opens the top result.
Search as you type
The graph view on iPad, centred on Project Igneous with its connections highlighted.
The graph

Mac

A real Mac app, not a companion.

The same notebook in native windows: tabs in the title bar that tear off into windows of their own, a graph column, and an Inspector beside the note.

Igneous on a Mac: the note Writing in Markdown in live preview, with the graph column open beside it showing the notes around it. The recording closes the graph, then opens the Inspector with the note's outline, backlinks and links.

Formatted as you write

Headings, bold, lists and links render as you type, and the Markdown comes back when the caret reaches it. ⌘E switches to the raw source. Edits made outside Igneous, in Obsidian, git or a shell, show up as they land.

A note called Quick Notes in the Mac editor: a heading, a bold phrase, a two-item list and a link to Writing in Markdown, all rendered. The recording types the note line by line, and each line renders as it's finished; typing two square brackets brings up a list of notes to link to.

The graph and the Inspector

A graph of the notes around this one, in 2D or orbital 3D. The Inspector shows the outline, backlinks with context, unlinked mentions, and version history you can restore from.

Find and replace across the notebook

⇧⌘F lists every hit before it writes anything, lets you untick the notes to leave alone, and saves each changed note to version history first.

Always a keystroke away

Keep Igneous in the menu bar, and open a new note from any app with a system-wide hotkey.

⌘K
Search every note
⌘P
Command palette
⌘E
Live preview ⇄ source
⇧⌘F
Find in notebook
⌥⌘I
Inspector
⌃⌘G
Graph
⌃⌘D
Today's note
⌥⌘T
Formatting bar
  • macOS 14 Sonoma or later
  • Apple silicon and Intel
  • On the Mac App Store: the same app as on iPhone and iPad, free

Sync Beta

From your Mac to your phone, with no cloud in between.

Igneous on the Mac can serve your notebook over your own network. Your iPhone or iPad finds it with Bonjour, and you pair it once with an eight-character code.

  • No account and no server of ours. It's your Mac talking to your phone.
  • The phone keeps a full offline copy and catches up the next time you're both on the same network.
  • Your phone sends before it takes. Its edits reach the Mac first, so nothing coming back can overwrite work it hasn't sent.
  • Away from home, use Tailscale. Sync itself isn't encrypted, so outside your own network, or on Wi-Fi you don't trust, connect through a private network such as Tailscale, which encrypts everything between your devices. With Tailscale on, and Igneous open on the Mac with the server running, the phone catches up when you open it. How to set it up
  • Edits merge. Changes to different lines are combined. Two tasks added in the same place are both kept, a ticked task keeps a rewording from the other side, and frontmatter keys that don't collide are merged. If both sides changed the same words, both versions are kept, side by side. Drawings and canvases merge shape by shape.
  • It's off until you turn it on, and every request needs the pairing code. The connection is plain HTTP inside your network, so use a network you trust.
  • Or let iCloud do it. Keep a notebook in iCloud Drive ▸ Igneous and iCloud keeps it the same on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, with nothing to pair. Each notebook syncs one way or the other, never both, so two syncs can't fight over the same edit.
  • Or use any folder. Notes are files, so a folder Dropbox already syncs works too, and so does a git repository through Working Copy on iPhone and iPad. Igneous doesn't talk to Dropbox or git itself.
  • Sync is in beta. It's built to keep both versions rather than lose one, but while it's new, keep a backup of your notebook.
Sync inside your own network A Mac and an iPhone and iPad inside a dashed boundary labelled your network, joined directly. Outside the boundary, a crossed-out cloud: there is no Igneous server. YOUR NETWORK · BONJOUR · PAIRING CODE NO IGNEOUS SERVER Mac · serves the notebook iPhone, iPad · offline copy

Compare

Where your notes live matters.

How Igneous differs from the usual notes app. No speed claims about anyone.

Igneous Others
Where notes live Plain .md files in a folder you choose Often the app's own library, or the company's cloud
Open them in another app, no export Yes, as plain files. Query blocks show as code elsewhere Often only after exporting
Sync between your devices Mac to iPhone and iPad, directly over your own network (beta) Usually through a cloud service
Search by meaning On the device, where the system already has the model. Nothing downloaded, nothing sent Often a cloud service, or not at all
Built on Swift. Not Electron Often Electron on the desktop
Account needed to start No Some need one to start, and most need one to sync

“Others” describes popular notes apps in general as of October 2026, not any single one, and some share some of these traits.

Pricing

Igneous is free.

Free on iPhone, iPad and Mac. There's no subscription and nothing to unlock. Settings has an optional tip. It doesn't change the app, but it does help fund what comes next.

  • No account
  • No ads
  • No tracking
  • Your files, in your folder

FAQ

Questions, answered plainly

Is Igneous available yet?

Yes. Igneous is free on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and on the Mac App Store for the Mac. It's the same free app on both.

Does Igneous replace Obsidian?

It doesn't have to. Igneous opens the same folder and reads the same Markdown: wikilinks, embeds, callouts, frontmatter, drawings and canvases. It writes plain files back, so you can use both side by side. How quickly a note reaches your other devices depends on how you sync the folder.

Igneous also has its own full Mac app, if you'd like one app everywhere. Obsidian plugins don't run in Igneous.

Is Igneous built with Electron?

No. Igneous is written in Swift on Apple's own frameworks. Not Electron. The editor is a page shipped inside the app, shown in the system's web view, and that page is not allowed to touch the network.

What happens to my notes if I stop using Igneous?

Nothing. They're ordinary .md files and attachments in ordinary folders. Open them in Obsidian, VS Code, Finder, or any text editor on any system.

Are my notes sent to your servers?

No. There are no Igneous servers, accounts, analytics or trackers. Search by meaning, handwriting search and voice-note transcripts are all made on your device. Sync goes directly between your own devices, or through a folder service you choose, like iCloud Drive.

Writing Tools and dictation are Apple's own system features, covered by Apple's privacy policy. The privacy policy has the details.

Should I use iCloud Drive or sync from my Mac?

Either, notebook by notebook. A notebook in iCloud Drive ▸ Igneous is kept the same on every device signed in to your Apple Account by iCloud itself, and shows up in Files and in Finder. If you're signed in to iCloud with iCloud Drive on, that's where your first notebook goes.

Or keep a notebook on your Mac and let your iPhone and iPad sync with the Mac directly over your own network, with no account at all. That sync is in beta.

A notebook uses one or the other, never both: Igneous won't pair an iCloud Drive notebook through your Mac, because two syncs writing the same files would turn every edit into a conflict.

Can I use it where iCloud is blocked, like on a work phone?

Igneous doesn't need iCloud, an Apple Account or an account of ours. Notes can stay in a folder on the device, and sync can run straight from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad over your own network, or over a private network such as Tailscale. Nothing passes through a server of ours, because there isn't one.

If iCloud Drive is on, the first notebook is created in iCloud Drive. Turn iCloud Drive off, or move the notebook, if that is not where it may go.

Your organisation's rules still decide where work notes may go, so check them first.

Which devices does it need?

An iPhone or iPad with iOS or iPadOS 17 or later. Controls for Control Center, the Lock Screen and the Action button need iOS 18. Writing Tools needs Apple Intelligence: iOS 18 or macOS 15 or later, on supported devices and languages.

The Mac app needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.

Can I use the Action button?

Yes, on iPhones that have one. In Settings ▸ Action Button, choose Controls (iOS 18) and pick Quick Strike for a blank note with the keyboard up, or Igneous Action to run the mode you choose in Igneous's settings: a line or task in today's note, search, a canvas, a voice note, or Paste Link when you've just copied one. A Focus filter can change the mode with your Focus.

How much will it cost?

Igneous is free on iPhone, iPad and Mac, with no subscription. Settings has an optional tip. It doesn't unlock anything, but it does help fund what comes next.

How do I report a bug or ask for a feature?

Email support@getigneous.com. Every message is read, and what people send decides what gets fixed and built next. A screenshot or screen recording helps most.

Your notes are just files.
Keep them that way.

Igneous is on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Download on the App Store Download on the Mac App Store