Nota

Sticky notes for the Mac menu bar. Each note is a floating, translucent sheet of paper saved as a plain markdown file in iCloud Drive (iCloud Drive/Nota), so the notes outlive the app and can be read anywhere.

• Click the menu bar icon to show or hide your notes; right-click for the menu.
• Markdown renders as you type; the line holding the caret shows the raw syntax.
• nota://new?text=… makes a note (used by Loqui and Shortcuts); nota://toggle shows or hides them.

Build

macOS 26, Xcode 26. The Xcode project is generated from project.yml with XcodeGen, but the generated project is committed so a plain xcodebuild works:

xcodebuild -project Nota.xcodeproj -target Nota -configuration Release build

Checks

Tools/check.sh runs the list-editing tests and renders a sample note to PNG (light, dark, and with the caret revealing inline syntax). It needs only the command line tools, so it runs on a Mac without Xcode.

How notes behave

• Placed: pulled out and put somewhere on screen; translucent until hovered.
• Stacked: filed into the stack (right-click → Put in Stack), a small deck at the screen edge you can drag anywhere. Click it to search and pull a note out.
• Kept (eye): solid, and stays on screen even when your notes are hidden.
• The menu bar click shows or hides placed notes and the stack together.
• Pinned to a desktop (right-click): a placed note that stays on one desktop.

Markdown

Headings, bullets (nested with Tab / Shift-Tab), numbered lists, checkboxes (click to tick, ⌘↩ to make or tick one), quotes, --- rules, fenced code, code, bold (⌘B), italic (⌘I), strike (⌘⇧X), ==highlight==, links (⌘K) and bare URLs. Return continues a list; Return on an empty item ends it. Backspace at the start of an item removes its formatting.