Where your notes live (and backups)
Local-first storage, the snapshots Notel takes on your behalf, and the full-library zip.
Notel is local-first: everything you create (notes, folders, attachments, recordings, settings) is stored on your Mac. Your note data leaves it only when you export, sync, back up, or share it yourself. Notel also makes a few non-note network requests: it validates your license at launch, checks for updates when enabled, and fetches a pasted link’s title and preview image from that website.
The automatic snapshots around iCloud sync (Coming soon)
Turning on iCloud sync makes Notel snapshot your notes locally first, before anything is uploaded or merged. There are two kinds, doing different jobs:
- A permanent snapshot, taken the very first time sync is ever switched on. It is never refreshed and never pruned, so it always holds the shape your notes were in before Notel touched the cloud at all.
- A timestamped snapshot, written every time you switch sync on, that first time included. Notel keeps the three most recent of these and prunes the rest.
Both cover the same ground: your notes, your preferences, your rich-text sidecars, and your attachments. The permanent one is a gate rather than a courtesy: the first time round, if it cannot be written, Notel refuses to merge cloud data at all, so your first sync never runs without a recoverable copy behind it. Once that snapshot exists, later syncs take its presence as proof and carry on.
The rolling launch backups
Separately from sync, Notel writes dated copies of notes.json and preferences.json every time it starts, keeping the last ten of each in that same Backups/ folder. These launch backups do not include rich-text sidecars or attachments, so they are a useful extra recovery layer rather than a full-library backup.
Restoring any of them
There is no restore button in Settings. Recovery is a Finder job, and because Notel is sandboxed its folder is not where you would guess, let the app take you there: Settings → Advanced → Attachment Storage → Open attachments folder, then go up one level to the Notel folder. Quit Notel and duplicate that whole folder before replacing anything. The iCloud snapshots and rolling launch backups have different contents, so use the matching files from the snapshot you chose rather than overwriting the live folder wholesale.
If that sounds fiddly, it is meant to be rare. Discord can walk you through it.
Your own backups
Because storage is local, Time Machine (or any Mac backup tool) already protects your notes. You can also export individual notes as Markdown, PDF, PNG, or .notelnote files whenever you want a portable copy; see Exporting and sharing notes.
The full-library backup zip
Settings → Advanced → Export/Import note data writes one zip containing every note, your settings, all attachments, and your archives, with a README inside explaining how to restore it. This is the way to move to a new Mac.
Importing is a replace, not a merge: Notel backs up your current data first, swaps in the backup, and relaunches. Unzip the file in Finder first and choose the “Notel” folder inside it when asked. If the folder is not a Notel backup, nothing is touched.
Limits
- Notel holds up to 150 notes. If you hit the ceiling, Notel offers to delete blank notes.
- A single note holds up to 10,000 characters.