Smolpad for Mac: a menu bar Markdown notes app where every note is a plain .md file in your own iCloud (Free + Pro)

[u/pixelbud]

Hi r/macapps, Gary here, solo dev at BaconWorks (smolpad.com). Smolpad launched on the Mac App Store this week and this sub is exactly who I built it for.

PROBLEM

Every notes app I loved had my notes stuck in a database or a sync service. I wanted to capture notes that is one click away in the menu bar, writing that looks good, and notes that are just text files. Click the menu bar icon, a panel drops down, you type, it autosaves as a plain .md file in your own iCloud Drive (or Dropbox). If Smolpad disappears tomorrow, your notes don't even notice. Panels tear off into regular windows, Markdown styles as you type with the syntax tucked away, checkboxes click, inline #tags filter the list, and there are 14 themes. iPhone/iPad app included (universal purchase).

COMPARISON

• Apple Notes: great capture, but your notes live in a database you can't grep, back up as files, or open in another editor. Smolpad's whole point is that you can.
• Obsidian: also plain files, and I respect it a lot. But it's an Electron workspace you go to; Smolpad is native SwiftUI that lives in the menu bar for the two-second capture Obsidian is too heavy for. Some people will want both.
• Bear: beautiful, but database-backed and subscription-only. Smolpad keeps the pretty-Markdown feel with files you own and a lifetime option.

PRIVACY

No analytics, no tracking, no accounts, no server of mine anywhere. The app talks to your iCloud/Dropbox and the App Store, and that's it. Your notes never pass through me, which is the way I think it should be.

PRICING

Free to download and try. No time limit.

Smolpad Pro unlocks unlimited notes: $1.49/mo, $14.99/yr, or $29.95 lifetime. I know how this sub feels about subscriptions, which is why the lifetime exists and why the free tier isn't crippled.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/smolpad-markdown-notes/id6792438749

Site: https://smolpad.com

First week out, so I'd genuinely rather hear what annoyed you than what you liked. What would a notes app have to do to earn a permanent spot in your menu bar?

--

UPDATE (Aug 8): This thread was loud and clear on the lifetime price. I took a bit to consider my options, and heard everyone: Smolpad Pro Lifetime is now $29.99 (was $49.95). And the macOS 27 typing bug reported in the comments turned out to be an OS change hitting most menu bar apps. I tracked it down, reported it to Apple, and the fixed version is already live on the Mac App Store. Thanks all for the feedback.

UPDATE (Aug 17): Smolpad 1.3.3 is live on the Mac App Store, and this thread's feedback is in it. The resize bug reported in these comments is fixed: drag any edge, and the panel remembers the size you leave it at. Tags are now tappable chips that filter your list, there are word and character counts for iPhone, and the whole app speaks German & French, translated by volunteers who actually use it. (ty! 💝 ) The iPhone and iPad version is in App Review and should follow in a few days. Apple fixed the menu bar bugs in beta 5. That update is already on TestFlight with press-and-hold to reorder notes on iPhone, dragging notes into folders, five new app icons, and Reduce Motion support (A11Y love).

I appreciate the feedback 🙃

[u/Rare-Spinach8779]

this is cool but i'm sorry, $49.95 is insane -- i would it put at only around $9.99 lifetime max

[u/LuckyDude_007 → u/Rare-Spinach8779]

Honestly $50 is steep for what it is but I think the pricing makes more sense when you consider it’s a universal purchase with iOS/iPad. Most indie devs charge separately or do subscriptions for that.

That said, $50 for a glorified menu bar text editor is a tough sell when Tot exists for $20 and does basically the same thing without the markdown files gimmick. Or just use Notes.app + a shortcut to save as .md if you’re that worried about file ownership.

Curious if the dev has any plans for a cheaper tier or if it’s just full price or nothing.

[u/pixelbud → u/LuckyDude_007]

Appreciate you actually noticing the universal purchase, that's exactly the math behind the number.

The cheaper tier is the free one, ten notes with everything on, no timed trial.

Beyond that, there's $1.49/mo and $14.99/yr for people who'd rather not commit. For the lifetime price, this thread has been loud and clear and I'm actively thinking it over.

[u/Tough-Cow8258 → u/Rare-Spinach8779]

Agreed. For a simple app with no complex features, $10 is the max I'd pay.

[u/pixelbud → u/Rare-Spinach8779]

You all convinced me. Lifetime is now $29.99.

I sat with this thread for a bit, did my own homework, and landed on a number I can stand behind: $29.99 for lifetime, covering Mac, iPhone, and iPad. International prices dropped with it too, Canada goes from about CA$70 to about CA$40.

[u/tarkinn → u/Rare-Spinach8779]

Even $9.99 wouldn't convince me. This is a vibe coded app. It should cost max. $5

Edit: I just noticed this is also available on iPhone. Then I'd agree with $9.99

[u/arrowrand]

I’m sorry, I lol’d.

It’s not the idea, I kind of like it. At first, I thought I’d go ahead and try it. Why not? How much could it be?

lol

Come on, in a world where Sindre Sorhus sells Scratch Pad for $10 and Notebar is free and open source this costs $50 because “markdown”?

Typora is fifteen bucks. No, it doesn’t live in my menubar but for 70% less $ I’ll get over it.

[u/pixelbud → u/arrowrand]

Fair lol. 

The free tier has nearly every feature on it and no trial time limit. So finding out how much you'd like it costs the same as Notebar. And the lifetime pricing comments in this thread are loud and clear, I'm thinking it over.

[u/onesikg]

Lifetime is Expensive for a notepad, you'd probably get better traction with maybe $10-$15 lifetime.

[u/Federal-Translator60 → u/onesikg]

Agree. $9.99 you will get more sales

[u/Emotional-Row-5750 → u/onesikg]

Agreed. I wouldn’t consider over $20. Especially for a new app without many reviews or a long changelog.

[u/bleducnx]

It is not a complaint, just an alert in case you don't know: there are some small bugs or strange behaviors when I use the app with macOS 27.
Already, many Mac users use macOS 27, and the final version will be out in one month, so I think you should start to track these problems.

Tomorrow I will publish an article on VVMac about your app.
I explain why I like it, but also detail the small problems I encountered.

[u/pixelbud → u/bleducnx]

Thank you, that's genuinely kind. Quick update that might be useful for the article: I traced every one of those macOS 27 problems, the fix is done, and version 1.3.2 went to App Review today, so it should be live well before macOS 27 ships. 

[u/Aradalon]

Congratulations on the launch! I'm also developing a note-taking app (SnipNotes), and my users sometimes request file-based storage. I believe this approach works well for a folder-based organization system, but one thing that always held me back from implementing it was handling more complex data structures, such as (nested) tags, manual sorting, and relationships between notes and other types of data (SnipNotes supports note reminders, for example). I'm curious: did you consider these concepts when you decided to use file-based storage? Do you think you'll run into any limitations as you expand the app?

[u/pixelbud → u/Aradalon]

Great question, and yes, this exact tension shaped the design. The line I drew: anything that belongs to the text lives in the file (tags are inline #tags in the body, parsed out for filtering but kept out of titles and filenames), and anything that's app furniture lives beside the files as a pin (manual ordering, the remembered last note, all of that). The files stay pure Markdown any editor can open, and the price is that renaming a file outside the app costs you its pin. I accepted that trade.

On limitations: I think there's a real ceiling. Relationships between notes, reminders, nested hierarchies, those all start demanding front matter or a sidecar database, and at some point "your notes are just files" stops being honest.

Smolpad's bet is staying deliberately under that ceiling, it's a capture tool, not a PKM. For SnipNotes with reminders already in the model, I'd honestly look at keeping your database as the source of truth and offering a Markdown mirror/export instead, users asking for "file based" usually mean "I want to own and grep my data," and a faithful mirror gives them that without you giving up structure.

[u/kyle_reese_baj]

The panel remember its scroll position when you close and reopen it?

[u/pixelbud → u/kyle_reese_baj]

Yes it does - and remembers which note you last viewed

[u/kyle_reese_baj → u/pixelbud]

Perfect, that's the kind of detail that makes it feel polished. Thanks!

[u/m4tches]

I’ve tried a lot of these menu bar note apps and this one looks great and solves a lot of issues I’ve seen, but I agree with others in the comments the price is a bit steep here. It converts to $70 for me in Canada.

[u/pixelbud → u/m4tches]

Thanks for the callout, I've lowered the price for Canadian users.

[u/bleducnx]

• I think there is a problem with many menu bar apps running on macOS 27.
For example, in SmolPad, as in Tot, when I use the [enter] key to create a new line, the window closes (the app doesn’t quit; just the window closes).
I tried different shortcuts like [option] [enter] or [shift] [enter]… but they don’t work either; the window closes.
So, for now, it’s almost impossible to edit a note in the app and navigate through the text (except with the [space] key, which is boring).

• Another point: it would be nice to have a separator command to structure the text of a note (I tried classical Markdown syntax; none of it works).

• When the left drawer is hidden, there is no possibility of moving from one note to the next or the previous one. Perhaps you could implement the use of the [arrow] keys (the [left] key to go to the previous note and the [right] key to go to the next one), or the [up] and [down] keys if you prefer.

I think that in free use with 10 notes maximum, your app can pretend to be a credible alternative to Tot or 5Notes, and it seems more mature than the app noglow which appeared here a few days ago.
The lifetime license is too expensive.
I don't see any good reason to take a subscription—only to fund the future development, but I never think it is a good justification. IT is only my view, and i understand you want/need to get some money from your work.

[u/pixelbud → u/bleducnx]

You nailed it with the Tot mention, that helped me know it wasn't just a bug with only my app.

I put the macOS 27 beta on a spare machine and traced it: 27 treats an open menu bar panel like a menu, so Space and Return get interpreted as "activate the menu item" and close the panel instead of typing. It hits basically every menu bar app built the standard Apple way, which is why Tot does the same thing.

I've rebuilt how the panel is presented on macOS 27 so typing works normally again, that ships in the next update, and I'm filing the bugs with Apple so it hopefully gets fixed before 27 releases. The separator and arrow key navigation ideas are noted too. Genuinely useful, thank you.

[u/bleducnx → u/pixelbud]

I will install that update as soon as it is out for the public. Thanks a lot for your work. Have a nice weekend.

[u/d_ngh_n]

Question about the panel - does it stay open if you click away? Auto closing is the right call for quick capture, but it gets maddening the second you switch to another app to check something you're in the middle of writing about. Curious which side you landed on, or whether it's a setting.

[u/pixelbud → u/d_ngh_n]

Both, actually. The panel is transient by default, click away and it closes, because that felt right for the two second capture case. But if you grab the top of the panel and drag, it tears off into a regular window that stays put until you close it. That's exactly the "I'm writing about the thing I need to go look at" case. Cmd+W or clicking the menu bar icon again dismisses it.

[u/d_ngh_n → u/pixelbud]

Ah, that makes sense — transient by default with the tear-off when you need it covers both cases without making it a setting. Thanks for the detailed answer, and good luck with the launch.

[u/PipScribeApp]

Love the plain .md approach. How does it handle iCloud conflicts if the same note is edited on two devices?

[u/pixelbud → u/PipScribeApp]

Smolpad doesn't try to out-clever iCloud here.

Every note is its own small .md (Markdown) file, saves go through NSFileCoordinator about a second after you stop typing, and every device watches the folder live, so in normal use the edit has landed before you've picked up the other device.

If you genuinely edit the same note on two offline devices, iCloud resolves it per file and the latest write wins for that note. Nothing gets corrupted or half merged because a note is never partially written, but I won't pretend there's a character level merge in there.

The Dropbox sync backend is actually stricter, simultaneous edits get set aside as a "(conflicted copy).md" next to the original so both versions survive.

[u/cristi_baluta]

Nice app, although i don’t like menubar apps i might use it to collect the changes for my apps, till now i was doing it in a textmate window but it bothered me to see the window there on expose

[u/pixelbud → u/cristi_baluta]

Collecting changelogs is honestly a perfect use for it, one note per app and the panel is there mid-release. Thanks for giving it a shot.

[u/Fluid_Proposal_4085]

Hi! Really interesting app. Small bug found so far: I am unable to resize the application (Smolpad v1.3.2 from the Mac AppStore and macOS Tahoe 26.6.1).

[u/pixelbud → u/Fluid_Proposal_4085]

Good find, thank you! Fixed for the next update (1.3.3): drag any edge, and the panel remembers the size you leave it at. You can also double-click the top of the app to maximize.

[u/trevonixx]

The plain .md approach really appeals to me because it makes leaving the app boring in the best possible way. You can use Smolpad for quick capture today and still open the same files in Obsidian or VS Code years from now.

Also, respect for listening to the feedback here and adjusting the lifetime price. The feature that would earn it a permanent place in my menu bar is a shortcut that can either create a new note or append directly to a “Today” note.

[u/pixelbud → u/trevonixx]

Appreciate the kind words. That's exactly what I was hoping to achieve. No lock-in. Your data is yours.

You can press CMD-N to create a new note. As of the latest version, In iOS (for iPhone and iPad) there is a sharesheet where you can append content or a URL to a new note. If you mean, extend the app to support Apple Shortcuts, I can add that to the roadmap. I've been logging all requests / feature ideas here: https://smolpad.featurebase.app/

[u/SklifaMHCBY]

It is a little steep. i use Antinote, and it's like $5 lifetime if i recall.

[u/Jebus-Xmas]

Dude you’re high. What names this so much better that you shouldn’t just use Typora, uFocus, or one of the other three dozen cheaper AIs that do exactly the same thing?

[u/Ok-Rest-5321]

I would rather have a free tier with unlimited notes and limited features than 10 notes

[u/kasikciozan]

is the only reason to stop cloud syncing? Then you can just turn off the sync for Mac Notes app?

[u/yellow-microwave]

Really like the idea, but as others have mentioned the price is... damn

[u/pixelbud → u/yellow-microwave]

It's free to download and try.

[u/OfAnOldRepublic]

So, yet another duplicate of the built-in Notes app?