Disclaimer
Is this project open source? Yes
Is this project completely free? Yes
Is this project vibe-coded beyond the author’s ability to comprehend how it works? No
Community Directory: Apple Notes Sync - Obsidian Plugin
Hi all 
I want to share a plugin I’ve been building: Apple Notes Sync brings your Apple Notes into your Obsidian vault as real Markdown files, and, crucially, syncs your edits back to iCloud, in both directions, from any OS (Linux, Windows, or macOS).
The itch I was scratching
My husband loves to share planning notes with me over Apple Notes; we plan trips, projects, the household to-do list, and dozens of other things there. The problem is that, since my only Apple device these days is an iPhone, that data is only accessible in one place. So every time I wanted to actually work with one of those shared notes, I was squinting at my phone, unable to link it to anything else, unable to fold it into the system where the rest of my thinking already lives.
With this plugin, those shared notes just show up in my vault as ordinary Markdown files — linkable, searchable, backlinkable, and editable right next to everything else. When I edit them, the changes go back to iCloud as if I’d typed them into Notes.app, so my husband sees them on his end too. It turned the single most tedious corner of my note-taking into just more notes in my vault.
What it does
- Bidirectional sync, not just export: pull remote changes and push your local edits, all from inside Obsidian. You edit in your vault; the plugin reconciles both sides.
- Notes shared with you come along: shared notes and shared folders sync too, each sharer’s notes tidily organized under their own folder.
- Connect a single folder: bind one vault folder to your Apple Notes and leave the rest of your vault untouched.
- One-click everywhere: ribbon icon, status-bar item, and commands (Pull, Push, Show status) all wired up. The status bar tells you at a glance whether you’re up to date or have local changes waiting.
- Optional scheduled sync: off by default; turn it on to pull-then-push every N minutes.
- Real formatting round-trips: headings, lists, checklists, quotes, tables, bold/italic/links all convert to proper Markdown and push back as the matching Apple formatting. Anything it isn’t 100% sure about stays read-only rather than risk a bad write.
It works outside Obsidian, too
The plugin is a thin front-end over a separate CLI I wrote called icloud-md ( GitHub - coddingtonbear/icloud-md: Your Apple Notes as real Markdown files, on any OS, bidirectionally synced with a `git`-flavored CLI · GitHub ) , which does all the real work including implementing the CloudKit protocol, three-way merges, conflict handling, version history. So even if you’re not an Obsidian user (or want to script things, or use git/grep/vim on your notes), icloud-md turns your Apple Notes into a plain folder of Markdown on any OS, no Mac required. The Obsidian plugin just puts a nice button on top of it.
Important honesty up front
This is not an official or supported Apple integration. It works by reverse-engineering the private CloudKit service behind iCloud, and every push makes real writes to your live Notes account — so data loss is a genuine possibility. Please:
- Keep the synced folder under version control (or otherwise backed up).
- Try it against a disposable test note before pointing it at anything you care about.
- Note it likely requires Advanced Data Protection to be disabled on the account.
It’s desktop-only (it shells out to a local CLI) and needs Node.js 20+. Sign-in happens through Apple’s own browser pages — the tool never sees your password.