Apple Notes is genuinely good, and it's already on your Mac. For a lot of people, it's the right amount of app. This page is for the moment it stops being enough — when a project's notes spill past what a flat list of folders can hold.
Apple Notes is a filing cabinet. WIP Notes is a workbench.
Apple Notes is built to hold everything you might want to remember, forever, synced everywhere via iCloud. WIP Notes is built for the narrower job of active work — the project you're in the middle of, with a dedicated Note Pad, groups to keep it organized as it grows, and an export step for when the project ships.
| WIP Notes | Apple Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $27 one-time (5 Macs) | Free, bundled with macOS |
| Storage | Local SQLite database | iCloud (or local-only, if you turn sync off) |
| Sync | None by design — one Mac at a time | iCloud, across all your Apple devices |
| Account required | No, ever | Apple ID, for sync |
| Organization | Note Pads (per-project workspaces), groups, color labels | Folders, tags, pinned notes |
| Rich text, tables, images | Yes | Yes, plus Apple Pencil drawing and document scanning |
| Export | Markdown, PDF | PDF, limited |
| AI integration | Built-in MCP server — Claude/Gemini/ChatGPT read notes locally | Apple Intelligence writing tools (on-device, Apple's stack only) |
| Platform | macOS 14+ only | Mac, iPhone, iPad, web |
They're not really competing for the same job. Plenty of WIP Notes users still keep Apple Notes open for the quick stuff — a phone number, a grocery list. WIP Notes is where the actual project lives once it needs more than a folder can give it.
Apple Notes is free and genuinely good for quick, flat notes. WIP Notes costs $27 once because it does something Apple Notes doesn't try to do: give each project its own structured workspace, with groups, color labels, and export built for work that's actively in progress.
No, and deliberately so. Apple Notes syncs through iCloud so it's on every device. WIP Notes stays local to one Mac at a time (activatable on up to 5) — no cloud copy, no iCloud dependency, no account.
Export individual notes from Apple Notes as PDF or text and import them into a WIP Notes Note Pad. There's no direct one-click migration tool today.
WIP Notes ships a local MCP server so AI assistants you already run — Claude Desktop, Gemini CLI, ChatGPT Desktop — can search and read your notes directly from your Mac. See the AI setup guide.