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Different by design,
not by feature list.
Most notes apps promise the same three things: fast, simple, trustworthy. This page is the specific, checkable decisions that make ClearNote different from Evernote, Apple Notes and Notion — not a chart of checkmarks.
One app, built for one job. Not a faster Evernote, a cross-platform Apple Notes, or the notes corner of a bigger workspace tool.
Three decisions run through everything below: every client works fully offline, a sync conflict never quietly deletes anything, and AI only ever sees the passages of your own notes relevant to the question you asked.
What’s stored, where, and exactly what AI is allowed to see is on the privacy page. How migrating an existing archive actually works is on the import page.
What’s actually different
One engine, three real clients
The Mac and iPhone apps share one engine (ClearNoteKit) for storage, search and sync, and the web client speaks the identical sync protocol to the identical server — it isn’t a stripped preview of the “real” apps. The one thing it doesn’t do yet is scanning and OCR, which need a camera and run on-device on Mac and iPhone only.
Every device holds the whole library
Mac, iPhone and the browser each keep a complete local copy and search it locally, so browsing, editing and search keep working with no connection at all. The server’s job is to keep devices in step with each other, not to stand between you and your notes while you use them.
A sync conflict never erases anything
When two devices edit the same note while both are offline, ClearNote doesn’t pick a winner and drop the loser. The newer edit wins, and the older one is kept in that note’s revision history with a banner asking you to look at it — recoverable, not discarded.
AI that only sees what you ask about
Ask ClearNote searches your own notes on-device, sends only the matching passages to answer a question — never your library — and shows you exactly what it sent and which notes it came from. It’s off until you turn it on, it can’t edit or delete anything, and on Mac and iPhone you can use your own API key so nothing passes through ClearNote’s servers at all. Exactly what’s sent →
No ads, no tracking, anywhere
Not on this website, not in the apps: no analytics SDK, no ad identifier, no third-party script of any kind. What ClearNote actually collects →
An export that doesn’t need ClearNote
Everything, any time, as ordinary HTML, Markdown and attachment files with a documented manifest — readable in a browser or a text editor, on a machine with no network, whether or not you’re still using ClearNote. The format is documented →
Moving from something else
The differences above hold up regardless of where you’re coming from. These are the specific, stable facts worth knowing if you’re coming from one of these three.
From Evernote
ClearNote reads the ENEX files Evernote exports, rebuilds your notebook structure from the file names, and produces a report with the arithmetic in it — notes and attachment bytes found against notes and bytes actually stored. How importing works →
From Apple Notes
Apple Notes syncs only between your own Apple devices through iCloud, has no native Windows, Android or Linux client, and has no built-in way to export your whole library in one action. ClearNote runs as a native app on Mac and iPhone and as a full client in any browser, syncs through its own account rather than iCloud, and exports the whole library to ordinary files whenever you ask.
From Notion
Notion is a general-purpose workspace — databases, wikis, project trackers and documents, all in one tool — and note-taking is one of the things it does. ClearNote does one job: notes and tasks, with nothing to configure into existence first. If you want to move, export your workspace as Markdown & CSV and drop the .zip on the web app’s Import Notes: pages become notes, folders become notebooks, and links between pages are kept. How importing works →
See it, or bring your notes across
The Mac app is a free download and the web app is live for people with beta access. The iPhone and iPad apps are built and tested but not released yet — there is nothing to install, and no date to promise.