Igneous

Support

Help, in plain text.

Igneous is a Markdown notes app for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Your notes are ordinary .md files in a folder you choose, and the app reads and writes that folder directly, so anything else that edits Markdown can edit them too.

What you need

  • A Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later, with Apple silicon or an Intel processor.
  • An iPhone with iOS 17 or later, or an iPad with iPadOS 17 or later.
  • To sync, the Mac and the phone on the same network, or joined by a VPN.

Igneous for Mac is a direct download rather than a Mac App Store app. The iPhone and iPad app comes from the App Store.

Where your notes are

  • On the Mac, a notebook is any folder you choose. The first time Igneous opens, it makes one called Igneous Vault in your Documents folder, with a short guided tour in it.
  • On iPhone and iPad, the first notebook is inside the app, and the Files app shows it under On My iPhone (or On My iPad) ▸ Igneous. You can add any other folder Files can reach, iCloud Drive included, with Add Folder from Files… under Settings ▸ General & Vaults ▸ Notebooks.
  • A notebook synced from a Mac is kept on the phone as an offline copy, inside the app, and works without a connection.

Igneous's own settings stay on each device. On the Mac they are in ~/Library/Application Support/Igneous/, and the pairing code is in the Keychain.

Pairing a phone with your Mac

Sync runs directly between your devices over your own network, with no account and no cloud service in between. On the Mac:

  1. Open Igneous ▸ Settings ▸ Web Server and turn on Run web server.
  2. Set Address to Local network. A phone cannot reach “This Mac only”.
  3. Under Pairing Code, find the eight-character code, shown as XXXX-XXXX. If there is none yet, choose Create Code.

Then on the iPhone or iPad:

  1. Open Settings ▸ General & Vaults and tap your notebook under Notebooks, then tap Connect to a Mac….
  2. Allow Igneous to find devices on your local network when it asks.
  3. Choose your Mac under Macs on this network, type the pairing code — capitals and the dash don't matter — and tap Connect.

If your Mac doesn't appear

Check that the server is running and set to Local network, and that both devices are on the same Wi-Fi. If it still doesn't appear, or you are connecting over a VPN, type the Mac's .local name or its IP address in Or type an address — the address is shown under Status on the Mac. Add the port only if you changed it from 8080, as in 192.168.1.20:9876. Other names for the Mac, such as one a VPN gives it, are refused; use its IP address on that network instead.

If a phone is lost

Choose New Code on the Mac. Every phone and browser using the old code is signed out at once; pair the ones you still have again with the new code. After ten wrong codes in a minute, the Mac refuses every code, right or wrong, for the next minute.

In a web browser

With the server running, open the address shown under Status in a browser on the same network and enter the same code. The browser asks once and remembers it.

Sending a diagnostics report

If something goes wrong, a diagnostics report helps us see why. On the Mac, choose Help ▸ Copy Diagnostics. On iPhone or iPad, open Settings ▸ System and tap Copy Diagnostics. The report goes onto the clipboard: read it if you like, then paste it into your message. Igneous never sends it anywhere itself — see Privacy.

Contact

Email support@getigneous.com. Say which device and which system version you are using, and paste the diagnostics report if you have one.