The manual

01Getting started

SteelNote runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac. One purchase covers every device signed in to the same Apple Account.

The first launch

On first run you are asked where your notes are coming from. Pick your previous app and SteelNote shows you how to get an export out of it, or choose to start fresh. Nothing is compulsory. You can skip the whole thing and import later from Settings → Import.

You are then asked whether to turn on iCloud sync. Say yes and your notes live in iCloud Drive and appear on your other devices. Say no and they stay on that device only, under On My iPhone / On My iPad / On My Mac. You can change your mind later; see iCloud sync.

Making your first note

Tap + (or press ⌘N on a Mac). The first line of the note becomes its title. There is no separate title field, because a Markdown file has no separate title. Rename a note by editing that first line.

02Where your notes live

Every note is a plain .md file on disk. Not a record in a database that can be exported to Markdown: the file is the note. SteelNote reads and writes those files directly, and an index is kept alongside purely to make search fast.

This is the whole design, and it has one practical consequence worth stating plainly: if SteelNote disappeared tomorrow, your notes would be exactly where you left them, readable in TextEdit, BBEdit, Obsidian, iA Writer, or anything else that opens text.

Finding the files

• iPhone / iPad: Files app → iCloud Drive → SteelNote
• Mac: Finder → iCloud Drive → SteelNote, or use Settings → Open Notes Folder in Finder
• Local-only notes: Files app → On My iPhone → SteelNote

Folders you create in the app are real folders on disk. Folders you create in Finder show up in the app. It works in both directions because there is only one source of truth.

What a note looks like on disk

---
id: 8B4C1E2A-7F09-4D3B-9A6E-2C5F81D0B473
created: 2026-03-14T09:22:11Z
---
# Kitchen rebuild

Quote from the joiner: **£4,200**, six weeks.

- [ ] Measure the alcove
- [x] Send the drawings

See [[Suppliers]] for the worktop people. #house/kitchen

The block at the top is YAML front matter. It holds an identifier that lets sync track a note across renames and moves, plus the creation date. Other Markdown apps understand front matter and will leave it alone. If you delete it by hand, nothing breaks; SteelNote writes a fresh one.

Images and PDFs

Images and PDFs you insert are stored as ordinary files next to your notes and referenced from the Markdown with a standard link. They travel with the folder. Copying your notes folder copies everything.

03Writing

The editor shows formatting as you type while keeping the Markdown intact underneath. A heading looks like a heading; the # is still in the file.

Markdown that SteelNote renders

The toolbar

Above the keyboard on iPhone and iPad, and in the Format menu on a Mac, you will find bold, italic, code, headings, lists, checklists, quotes, links, tables, images, PDFs, the document scanner, horizontal rules and a generated table of contents.

Lists that continue themselves

Press Return at the end of a list item and the next marker appears automatically, indent included. Press Return on an empty item and the marker is removed. That is how you leave a list. Numbered lists count up on their own.

Tables

Insert a table and pick its size. Move between cells with Tab and ⇧Tab. Rows and columns can be added or deleted from the table's own menu. Wide tables scroll horizontally rather than squeezing the text. What gets written to the file is ordinary pipe-table Markdown.

Images, PDFs and scans

• Insert Image: from Photos, from Files, or straight from the camera
• Scan Document: the system scanner, cropped and deskewed, dropped into the note
• Insert PDF: appears inline in the note; tap to open it full-screen. It stays a PDF, it is not converted to images

Inserted media can be resized inline, copied, saved back to Photos, or deleted from its context menu.

Table of contents

Insert Table of Contents writes a list of links to every heading in the note. It is written as plain Markdown links, so it still works in other editors.

04Organizing

Folders

Create folders and nest them as deep as you like. They are directories on disk. Notes can be moved one at a time or in bulk: tap Select, choose several, then Move To….

Renaming a folder renames the directory and follows through to your other devices. Reorganize by Month takes a flat folder and files its notes into year-and-month subfolders, which is useful straight after a large import.

Tags

Write #tag anywhere in a note's body and it becomes a tag. Nested tags work with a slash: #work/clients/acme appears under work, and filtering by #work includes everything beneath it. Tags live in the text of the file, so they survive anywhere Markdown goes.

Pinning

Pin a note to hold it at the top of its list. Pins are per-folder, not global.

Read-only notes

Read Only in a note's menu locks it against accidental edits. Useful for reference material you open often and never mean to change. Toggle Allow Editing to unlock it again.

Sorting and the default view

Sort any list by Date created or Last modified in Settings. You can also choose which view SteelNote opens on at launch: All Notes, a particular folder, Tasks, whatever you actually use.

Recently Deleted

Deleting a note moves it to Recently Deleted, where it can be restored. Empty Trash removes it for good. Until then the file still exists on disk.

05Finding

Search inside the app

The search field looks at titles and at the full text of every note, including the parts you cannot see in the preview line. Results appear as you type. An index built for the purpose does the work, so it stays fast on a large library.

Search can be narrowed to notes that contain a checklist or contain an image, and scoped to the folder or tag you are currently looking at.

If a search finds nothing, SteelNote offers to create a note with that name. The fastest way to capture a thought is often to look for it first and discover it does not exist yet. It can also hand the query to a private DuckDuckGo search, either in an in-app reader or in your browser.

Spotlight

Your notes are offered to Spotlight, so you can find them from the home screen or from anywhere on a Mac without opening SteelNote first. Opening a Spotlight result takes you straight into that note.

06Connecting notes

Wikilinks

Type [[ and pick a note. The link is written as [[Note title]], which is the convention Obsidian and most other Markdown apps understand. Tap a wikilink to follow it. If it points at a note that does not exist, SteelNote offers to create it.

[[#Heading]] links to a section of the note you are already in, and scrolls there rather than opening anything.

Backlinks, mentions and related notes

At the bottom of every note, under References, you get three lists:

• Linked notes: notes that link here on purpose
• Unlinked mentions: notes that spell this note's title without linking it. One tap turns a mention into a real link
• Related: notes that share meaningful vocabulary with this one. Entirely local and deterministic; there is no model involved and nothing is sent anywhere

A reference you do not want to see again can be hidden, and Show hidden links brings them all back.

The Links view

Links in the sidebar shows the whole library's link graph at once: what points at what, and which links have no destination yet.

07Tasks

Any line written as - [ ] something is a task. Tap the box to tick it; the file is updated on the spot.

Tasks in the sidebar gathers every unticked box from every note into one list, with the note each came from. Tick it there and the change is written back to the original file. Below the list, Done today keeps what you finished today in view, which is the part most task lists get wrong.

There is no separate task database. A task is a line in a note, which means a task written on your Mac in another editor shows up here too.

08Daily notes

Daily Notes gives you one note per day, stored as Daily/2026-08-03.md. Today's note is created the moment you first open it and never before, so you do not accumulate empty files.

Two Shortcuts actions make this useful away from the app: Open Today and Add to Today, the latter appending a line without you having to look at the screen. There is a Daily Note widget and a Control for it too.

09Rediscover

Rediscover surfaces notes you have not opened in a long time. It is a deliberate counterweight to the way notes apps work: things you write are easy to save and easy to never see again.

It picks by how long ago you last opened something, nothing more. No scoring, no profiling, no network.

10Shortcuts, Siri & widgets

SteelNote is a native app, and this is where that shows. Eleven actions are available to the Shortcuts app, to Siri, and to Spotlight, with no companion app, no plugin and no URL scheme to learn.

Get Note Content and Search Notes are the two that make the rest composable: they return your text to the shortcut, so SteelNote can feed anything else on the system.

Widgets

• Quick Actions: new note, scan, search and daily note in one tile
• Folder Notes: recent notes from a folder you choose
• Daily Note: today, one tap away
• Rediscover: something you had forgotten

Home screen quick actions

Press and hold the app icon for new note, scan, photo and search.

11Getting things in

The share sheet

SteelNote appears in the share sheet across the system. Send it text, a link, an image or a document and it arrives as a note in your Inbox.

Files

Drop .md or .txt files into the SteelNote folder from Finder or the Files app and they become notes. There is no import step, because there is nothing to convert.

12Importing from another app

Settings → Import, then pick your export file. Imported notes land in a folder called Imports so you can look through them before merging them into your structure.

Importing the same export twice does not double your library: notes are identified by their content, so a repeat import is recognised.

If an individual file cannot be read, the import continues and tells you how many were skipped rather than abandoning the whole job.

13Getting things out

There is no export feature in the usual sense, because your notes were never locked up. Copy the folder and you have everything.

For a single note, the share menu offers:

• Export Markdown: the .md file itself
• Export PDF: a formatted PDF
• Share Text / Copy All: the raw text

14Appearance & typography

Settings → Appearance offers Light, Dark, System, and the dark steel theme the app is named for.

Editor typography

Under Settings → Editor you can set the body font, the heading font and the code font independently, then adjust:

• Text Size: or Follow System Text Size to track your Dynamic Type setting instead
• Line Height
• Line Width: how wide a line of text is allowed to get before it wraps, which matters most on an iPad or a large Mac display
• Paragraph Spacing and Paragraph Indent

These are display settings. They change how the text looks to you and never touch what is written in the file.

15iCloud sync

Sync is included. It is not an add-on, it is not a subscription, and it is not something that gets taken away if you stop paying.

Your notes sit in your own iCloud Drive, under your Apple Account. They are not routed through a server belonging to us, because there is no such server. Notes move between your devices the way any iCloud document does.

Turning it on and off

Settings → iCloud Sync. Turning it on copies your local notes up and verifies the copy before anything else happens. Turning it off leaves your notes on the device, local only.

When sync looks stuck

1. Check the same Apple Account is signed in on both devices, with iCloud Drive enabled.
2. Open the app on both and leave it in the foreground for a moment. Syncing happens while the app is running.
3. A large library, or a first sync, genuinely takes a while. The status line tells you what is happening.
4. If a device is behind, Push All Notes re-sends everything from that device.

Heavier tools live under Maintenance.

16Mac keyboard shortcuts

The Mac app is a Mac app: three columns, a real menu bar, Finder access to your notes folder, and Handoff, so you can start a note on your iPhone and pick it up on the Mac.

17Maintenance

Under Settings → Maintenance. Most people never need these. They exist because files in a cloud drive occasionally need a gardener, and it is better to hand you the tools than to pretend the situation cannot arise.

18Trial & purchases

SteelNote is free to try for 14 days, in full. No account, no card, no crippled features during the trial.

After that there are two ways to keep it, and no monthly option:

• Annual: renews yearly
• Lifetime: paid once, every future update included

Both cover iPhone, iPad and Mac on the same Apple Account, and both include sync. Changed device, or reinstalled? Settings → Restore Purchases.

Unlocking SteelNote also opts you into future betas if you want them. Look for Join Future Betas in Settings.

19Privacy

There is no SteelNote account, because there is no SteelNote server. Your notes go from your device to your iCloud Drive and back. We cannot read them; we do not have anywhere to read them from.

No analytics, no tracking, no advertising identifiers, and nothing sent anywhere when you search, link, or use Rediscover. All of it runs on your device against your own files.

The one thing that leaves the device is a web search, and only when you explicitly ask for one from the search field. It goes to DuckDuckGo.

Full detail in the privacy policy.