Why your notes should just be text files

Every note app promises to be the last one you'll ever need. Most of them are lying — not maliciously, just because software gets discontinued, companies get acquired, and file formats get abandoned. The only note-taking decision that survives all three is refusing to lock your notes inside an app at all.

A vault is just a folder

In inkwell, a vault is any folder on your computer. There's no import step, no proprietary database, no hidden binary format. Every note is a real .md file sitting in a real directory, exactly where you can see it in Finder, Explorer, or a terminal. Delete inkwell entirely and your notes are still there, still readable, still yours — because they were never actually "inside" the app to begin with. inkwell just renders them nicely.

Frontmatter does the organizing, quietly

Every note gets automatic YAML frontmatter the moment you create it — an ID, a title, creation and update timestamps, a pinned flag, tags. You never have to write it by hand, but it's sitting right there in plain text if you ever want to edit it directly or script against it:

---
id: note_abc123
title: My Note
created: 2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z
updated: 2025-06-01T09:14:00.000Z
pinned: false
tags: [writing, ideas]
---

This is the part that matters most for durability: metadata that lives in the file travels with the file. Copy a note to another machine, sync it through a folder-syncing tool of your choice, or open it in a completely different editor — the tags and timestamps come with it, because they were never stored in a separate database that could get out of sync or left behind.

Compatible with the vault you already have

If you've already built up an Obsidian vault, you don't have to choose between the two. inkwell's vault format is Obsidian-compatible — point it at the same folder, and it loads every .md file it finds, preserving your existing structure exactly. Try inkwell on real notes without a migration step, and keep using whichever editor fits the moment.

Plain text plays well with everything else

Because a vault is just files in a folder, it plugs into tools that have nothing to do with note-taking. Put it under version control and every edit becomes a diffable commit. Back it up with whatever backup tool you already trust — the same one that backs up your photos and documents. Search it with grep or an OS-level search tool when inkwell's own ⌘K search isn't handy. None of that works if your notes are locked in a proprietary format only one app can open.

Read more about how vaults, frontmatter, and file storage work in the Getting Started docs.