Hi there! A little background: I write down notes a lot to make up for my bad memory. I’ve been doing this for a few years, and it’s usually a few thousand words a day: some professional, some deeply personal. Because of this, I’m trying to be conscious about keeping these notes private. While I’ve made a few changes along the way to follow better privacy practices, I thought I’d post here and see what other ideas are out there.
Right now, I have a few thousand markdown files stored in iCloud with end to end encryption. It’s far from a perfect system: ideally I would get away from cloud storage, iCloud is closed source, and there’s no native linux client. While it’s more private, writing entirely on paper isn’t an option: typing is much faster, it’s easier to query, and I can do fun things with this data. I think my next shift is towards using syncthing to maintain copies of these notes across devices, as I often edit from various machines and want to maintain multiple backups.
Rather than asking directly for proposed solutions, I’ll ask: What should I be considering? Does the editor I use matter? Does this go down to operating system level? I think the answers are both of these are yes, but I don’t know what else I should be asking myself.
Consider installing NextCloud on a private virtual Ubuntu/debian server. You can deploy it via docker or other various ways to make this easy.
This can essentially grant you full control over your data as long as you trust wherever you host the server. You can install other open source apps on top of it - like only office which can give you live shared file editing like google drive or one drive.
Nextcloud has phone app access. NextCloud supports markdown. NextCloud is fully open source, and actively developed due to enterprise support contracts, kind of like Fedora. You could secure access over the internet through a VPN, https and every other hardening scheme.
If you don’t trust any infrastructure then host it on a laptop, so many reliable used devices can be picked up for cheap. Expand to other devices for redundancy as you become comfortable.
Feel free to create accounts for family and people you trust, freeing your community from monopoly.
Ask ChatGPT for the steps in between. This is my personal set up, feel free to ask me any questions ChatGPT can’t help with, though I may be slow to answer.
I would recommend Joplin, for these reasons:
- It’s digital (of course)
- It’s cross platform: iOS, Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android
- It’s fully open source
- It supports end-to-end encrypted syncing with different providers: Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, File system (for things like Syncthing), Nextcloud, WebDAV, S3 (Beta), and Joplin Server (Beta)
- It supports markdown editing
When looking for software in general, write down what you are looking for and what your requirements are. Then, consider if there are any conflicting requirements (e.g. “I want my handwritten notes to be transcribed, but I don’t want any kind of handwriting recognition”). From there, you can make tough decisions or find a compromise. Then, think about any problems that may arise in the future. Do you plan to switch operating systems to something like GrapheneOS? Do you want to move away from cloud storage altogether? From there, you can get a good idea of what to look for. Good luck!
What’s your current note taking process? Like do you pull out your phone and type stuff into it or do dictation or what?
I went the other direction and have a composition book or two a year worth of notes. If I want to give one to someone I just tear out a page. If I want to send one in email or a message I just take a picture of it.
I keep a little pocket notebook in my pocket and a big composition book in my computer bag.
What got me to that point, and the reason I asked about your current note taking, is trying to find what you’re talking about and realizing that it’s a pain in the ass, I don’t really use it or want to use it, it’s too ungainly to draw or scribble in, I don’t like it and it’s never at hand when I need it.
A little pad of paper in my back pocket, a pen and a sharpie in some other pocket and taking a few minutes a day to copy (manually sync lol) what gets jotted down in the moment to the composition book is easier and more manageable for me than a complex system that requires a computer.
I was just in a major natural disaster last year and while there were lots of things I didn’t prepare for and couldn’t have imagined, paper notes kept me sane and worked phenomenally.
Quillpad might be of interest.
It also syncs with nextcloud
I think you’re spot on: Markdown files with SyncThing. That’s my setup as well, you just can’t beat markdown files as a back-end for flexibility and future-safety in my opinion.
Some things to consider:
- Editor: The obvious no-nos are editors with built-in AI support or cloud storage. FOSS editors are highly recommended. If you find a good offline FOSS WYSIWYG-style markdown editor, let us know. I use Neovim myself, but I’m often asked for recommendations by non-geeks.
- Operating system: You should be fine on MacOS (for now), but Linux is a great option for desktop. Windows is a loose canon with their AI snapshot approach, definitely avoid. What are you syncing to? Mobile devices are a lot more difficult to keep control of.
- Encrypted devices: Make sure you have full disk encryption on all devices and on all your backups.
There’s Zettlr and Typora for WYSIWYG md.
Well, here’s a copy&paste from the KSP JNSQ modpage. Had mostly the forum header and iframes to clean up, not much else. Made in Typora.
Original here.
I’d really love an open-source WYSIWYG for android, but I’m stuck with obsidian currently.
Obsidian working with syncthing just fine.
Obsidian is closed source - if I shift away from my current system I’d prefer something open source.
Out of curiosity, any ideas why so many people around FOSS/linux spaces recommend obsidian, despite it being closed source?
There is an open source alternative called Logseq
Joplin would also work
Joplin makes it a bit harder to leave. Also your notes end up with a shitty file naming convention. I did wanted to like it, though.
I want to have my notes to be raw txt or MD.
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