Offline markdown notes & kanban tasks
IOTHS
A fast, offline-first notes app for iPhone and iPad, with a real kanban board built in. Every note is a plain Markdown file — readable, portable, and yours forever.
Tasks, kanban, and focus
Notes that double as tasks
Any checklist inside a note turns it into a task note — no separate task manager to maintain.
A kanban board built for one
Switch between List, Tile, Kanban, and Thoughts layouts. Cards move lanes automatically as tasks get checked off — a kanban board built for one, not a team.
A work-in-progress limit that means it
Cap how many notes can be "in progress" at once, so focus stays real instead of aspirational.
Every task, one screen
A dedicated Tasks view flattens every open checklist item across your whole Library into one list.
Capture, fast
Type, dictate, or snap a photo
Camera, voice, and Share Extension capture land straight in Markdown.
PDF to Markdown
Convert a PDF to Markdown with on-device review before you save.
Tags, pins, and search
Tags, pinned notes, and quick search keep everything findable.
Widgets
A Home Screen widget for a glanceable view of what matters most.
No black box
Built on plain files
Notes are stored as .md files with YAML frontmatter — the same structure Obsidian vaults use. Nothing proprietary, nothing to migrate later. Open your notes in any text editor, on any device, at any time.
Private by default
Your notes stay on this device until you explicitly turn on a sync destination. There's no IOTHS account and no developer-operated sign-in. Usage analytics are off unless you turn them on, and even then they never include note content, titles, or tags. Nothing is sold. Nothing trains an AI model. Read the full Privacy Policy.
Unlock more storage
Full Unlock is a one-time purchase — not a subscription — that adds:
- Files folder storage, through any Files-compatible provider such as an Obsidian vault, Box, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive
- GitHub storage and sync, to a dedicated repository path
- GitLab storage and sync, to a dedicated project path
- Portable export — save your whole Library as a ZIP archive anytime
Capture, editing, reading, sharing, PDF conversion, tagging, task tracking, archive, and trash recovery are free, forever.
Why this exists
I built IOTHS for myself, first. I'd never found a notes app that actually fit — not functionally, not in how it felt to use — so I made the one I wanted. That's where it started: not to monetize it, not to be seen. Just to have it.
The icon is a small flirtation with complexity theory — a note dissolving into scattered blocks, the way Conway's Game of Life turns a handful of simple rules into patterns nobody predicted. Notes, todos, and tasks feel orderly until they don't. The same structure that organizes a day can just as easily spill into something stranger than intended.