Most local-first notes apps keep your notes as plain text, so I built a free, open-source one that encrypts them

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https://reddit.com/link/1xv9ms9/video/hfdo4fe96e1i1/player Hi r/SideProject, I'm GFrancV. This is my first post here. I've been building Notvex, a desktop notes app that keeps everything encrypted on your own computer. Why I built it Most local-first apps (like Obsidian) save notes as plain Markdown files. That's great for portability, but anyone with access to your disk, a backup or a synced folder can read them. I wanted a safe place for my own journal and recovery codes, and nothing I tried did both local-only and encrypted at rest without getting in the way. So I built it. How it works Everything lives in one encrypted file on your computer. Without your password it can't be read. There's no account and no cloud. The app only goes online to check for updates, and you can turn that off. No telemetry either. What writing looks like - Markdown editor with live preview - Tags, pinning, sorting and multi-tag filters - Command palette to jump to any note from the keyboard - Export one note or all of them to plain .md at any time, so you're never locked in How it's built (for the curious) - Electron + React 19, TypeScript throughout - SQLCipher for the database, Argon2id to derive the key from your password, XChaCha20-Poly1305 for the note content - A BIP39 recovery phrase, plus an optional key file as a second factor - The UI never touches crypto. Everything goes through IPC to the main process, and the master key never leaves it Honest limitations - Desktop only (Windows, macOS, Linux), no mobile yet - No sync, on purpose. You can copy the file wherever you like - Search covers titles only. Full-text search across encrypted notes is the next hard problem - If you forget both your password and your recovery phrase, your notes are gone. That's the trade-off Free and open source (AGPL-3), with no paid tier planned. GitHub: https://github.com/GFrancV/notvex · Site: https://notvex.vercel.app/ My question for you: does "encrypted local notes" explain the point quickly enough, or does it sound like something only security nerds need? I'd love honest feedback on how it comes across, from the site down to the first launch.   submitted by   /u/gfrancv [link]   [comments]