The Apple Note app for macOS and iOS is an outstanding app that allows you to manage your notes, to-do lists, and even photos with one app. Moreover, sync your data to iCloud and make sure your notes are synced among devices.

It is hard to find a real open source alternative for Apple notes with the same features for Android, but Markor becomes as an exception especially with its probability features. Here is why.

Markor

Markor is an open source note app for Android that supports Markdown, Todo.txt and Zim Wiki syntax.  

Furthermore, you can save your notes directly to your Android file system, export them as PDF or compress them in a Zip file.

To copy your note to the clipboard, you do not have to select your text, all is required is one simple click.

Markor works completely offline, and allows you quick access to create your notes, provides an auto-save functionalities with undo/ redo, as enables you to create unlimited notebooks and save them in any location you want.

Markor does not come with any ads or third-party tracker scripts. So, you can be sure about your privacy.

Because your data is saved in text file formats in your local file system, you can sync your files using sync clients as Dropbox, FolderSync, Nextclout, ownCloud and Syncthing.

The app is the brainchild of Gregor Santner, an Austrian software developer and open source enthusiast. Gregor wrote an amazing tutorials and tips about his app in his website, check it out.

Features highlight

  • Works for Android devices with a stunning performance on tablet screens.
  • Create notes and manage your to-do list using simple markup formats
  • Work completely offline - whenever, wherever
  • Compatible with any other plaintext software on any platform—edit with notepad or vim, filter with grep, convert to PDF or create a zip archive
  • Syntax Highlighting and format related actions—quick insert pictures and to-do
  • Convert, preview, and share documents as HTML and PDF
  • Notebook: Store all documents on a common filesystem folder
  • QuickNote: Fast accessible for keeping notes
  • To-Do: Write down your to-do
  • Markup formats: Markdown, todo.txt and Zim wiki
  • Share-Into: Share any text to Markor to save to a note, to clipboard, to reshare or to open a contained link in browser
  • Notebook is the root folder of documents and can be changed to any location on filesystem. Quick Note and To-Do are textiles
  • Highly customizable, dark theme available
  • Auto-Save with options for undo/redo
  • No ads or unnecessary permissions
  • Language selection—use other language than on the system

Technologies

  • Java, Android SDK, AndroidX
  • No dependency on NDK, 1 APK = all Android supported Architectures
  • Editor: Advanced component based on Android EditText
  • Android Studio
  • Preview: Android WebView
  • Editor syntax highlighting: Custom implementation for all supported formats
  • Markdown parser: flexmark-java
  • Zim/WikiText parser: Custom implementation, transpiling to Markdown
  • todo.txt parser: Custom implementation
  • Binary support: WebView html img/audio/video with support for most common formats
  • CI/CD: GitHub Actions
  • Build system: Gradle, Makefile

License

Markor is released as an open source project under the Apache 2.0 License.

The code of the app is licensed Apache 2.0 or Commerical (See LICENSE for details).
Localization & translation files (string*.xml) are licensed CC0 1.0.
Project is based on the unmaintained projects writeily and writeily-pro.


Resources

  1. Download from F-Droid
  2. Source code
  3. Website