Joplin
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What is Joplin?
Joplin gives you one place for notes and to-do lists that works on your computer, phone and even a terminal. Your notes live on your own devices and sync through a storage service you choose, such as Nextcloud or Dropbox. Notes are plain Markdown and can be end-to-end encrypted, so you are not tied to one company and others cannot read them.
Joplin is a note-taking and to-do app for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, with a terminal version as well. Notes are stored in Markdown, organised into notebooks and tags, and searchable on every platform. They can be synced through Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, S3, the file system or Joplin Cloud, with optional end-to-end encryption.
Core capabilities
- Offline first: all notes stay on your phone or computer, with or without a connection.
- Syncs through Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, S3 or a local folder.
- Imports Evernote ENEX files with formatting, attachments and metadata.
Notes, notebooks and editors
Notes are written in Markdown and organised into notebooks and tags, and full-text search works on all platforms. You can edit in a Markdown editor or a Rich Text editor, and the note stays Markdown underneath so you can switch at any time. Notes can hold images, videos, PDFs and audio files, as well as maths expressions and diagrams. The apps save earlier versions of each note, which can be viewed and restored in the desktop app.
- Markdown
- Rich Text
- Search
- Attachments
Sync to a service you choose
Joplin is offline first, so every device keeps a full copy of your notes. Sync can run through Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, S3, the local file system or Joplin Cloud, and switching between them is supported. End-to-end encryption can be enabled so that only you can read the synced data, including the storage provider. The terminal app can also sync on a schedule with the joplin sync command.
- Sync
- E2EE
- Nextcloud
- WebDAV
- Offline first
Install the apps under AGPL-3.0-or-later
Desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux and mobile apps for Android and iOS are available from joplinapp.org. The terminal app installs through npm with the joplin package and runs on macOS, Linux and Windows through WSL. The desktop and mobile apps can be extended with plugins and themes from the plugin repository. The apps are released under the AGPL-3.0-or-later licence, while Joplin Server uses a separate personal-use licence and Joplin Cloud is a paid hosted service.
- Desktop
- Mobile
- Terminal
- Plugins
- AGPL-3.0-or-later
Where it fits
Use cases
- 01
Move your notes out of Evernote
Export your Evernote notebooks as ENEX files, then open File > Import > ENEX in the Joplin desktop app. Each file becomes its own notebook, with formatted content converted to Markdown and attachments and metadata kept. Folders of plain Markdown files can be imported the same way.
- 02
Sync private notes across devices without trusting the host
Choose a sync target such as Nextcloud, WebDAV or Dropbox in the Synchronisation section of the Configuration screen on each device. On one device, open the Encryption settings, click Enable encryption and set a master password, then let it sync. Each other device receives the master key on its next sync and asks for the password, after which notes are stored encrypted on the sync target.
- 03
Save web pages and research as notes
Install the Joplin Web Clipper extension for Firefox or Chrome, then open the Web Clipper section of the desktop app's Configuration screen and follow the steps to connect it. Save web pages or screenshots from the browser as notes. The notes can then be tagged, searched and edited in the Markdown or Rich Text editor.