--- title: I ditched the fancy notes apps for a system so simple it... description: A personal account of abandoning feature-rich note-taking apps in favor of a plain folder of Markdown and text files. The author explains why features like... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-the-fancy-notes-apps-for-a-system-so-simple-it-almost-feels-boring-rt1xg9cax twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I ditched the fancy notes apps for a system so simple it almost feels boring | daily.dev og:description: A personal account of abandoning feature-rich note-taking apps in favor of a plain folder of Markdown and text files. The author explains why features like... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-the-fancy-notes-apps-for-a-system-so-simple-it-almost-feels-boring-rt1xg9cax og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/rT1xg9Cax.png og:image:alt: I ditched the fancy notes apps for a system so simple it almost feels boring og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I ditched the fancy notes apps for a system so simple it almost feels boring **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 4 min read · 20 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary A personal account of abandoning feature-rich note-taking apps in favor of a plain folder of Markdown and text files. The author explains why features like templates, rich embeds, and web clippers turned out to be unnecessary, and how plain text files offer portability, longevity, and trivial backups. Three apps — Obsidian, Notepad, and Claude Code — all read and write the same files without owning them. Claude Code is highlighted as filling the one gap plain text had: cross-note synthesis and contextual search across files. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@sss93** · 4 upvotes > It’s wild how much time these summaries save me, from reading an article with points I will say “oh yeah I know that”. So, thanks ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Notion, Obsidian, and Apple Notes all lost to a plain folder of markdown files](https://daily.dev/posts/notion-obsidian-and-apple-notes-all-lost-to-a-plain-folder-of-markdown-files-jarfjy4ad) · XDA Developers · 25 upvotes · 12 comments - [I ditched half my productivity tools after Claude Code made them obsolete](https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-half-my-productivity-tools-after-claude-code-made-them-obsolete-zyulehv8x) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Please stop overcomplicating your notes — these lightweight apps do everything Obsidian does](https://daily.dev/posts/please-stop-overcomplicating-your-notes-these-lightweight-apps-do-everything-obsidian-does-ynfhllcvh) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#claude-code](https://daily.dev/tags/claude-code), [#markdown](https://daily.dev/tags/markdown) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-the-fancy-notes-apps-for-a-system-so-simple-it-almost-feels-boring-rt1xg9cax) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I ditched the fancy notes apps for a system so simple it almost feels boring","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-the-fancy-notes-apps-for-a-system-so-simple-it-almost-feels-boring-rt1xg9cax","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-the-fancy-notes-apps-for-a-system-so-simple-it-almost-feels-boring-rt1xg9cax"},"datePublished":"2026-07-13T12:33:48.820Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:25:06.004Z","description":"A personal account of abandoning feature-rich note-taking apps in favor of a plain folder of Markdown and text files. 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