A small place for thoughts before they disappear.
Nib is a tiny notes app for your Mac. Press ⌃⇧Space, type, and get back to what you were doing. Every note saves itself as a plain markdown file on your Mac. No accounts. No cloud. No folders.
Requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later. Apple silicon or Intel.
01Instant
Faster than opening a browser tab
Press ⌃⇧Space anywhere. The window floats up over whatever you were doing, cursor ready. Type the thing. Press ⌃⇧Space again and it is gone.
Nib remembers which window you used last and brings that one back. There is a nib in your menu bar too, and a setting to hide the Dock icon if you want Nib to live only up there.
02Privacy
Private by architecture, not by promise
Every note is one plain .md file on your Mac. No account, no cloud, no telemetry on your words.
You do not have to take this page’s word for it. Click the nib in your menu bar and choose Show Notes in Finder. It opens a folder of ordinary markdown files that any editor can read.
- Notes/
- B7E2…91A4.mdone note, pure markdown
- 4C09…D2F8.md
- A1F6…33B0.md
- index.jsona cache Nib can rebuild; the .md files are the truth
- Trash/deleted notes wait 30 days, then go
Saves are atomic, so a crash cannot corrupt a note. Deleted notes wait in the Trash for 30 days before they are gone for good.
03Calm
Nothing to file, nothing to name
A summon brings up your scratchpad. When a thought deserves to stay, press ⌘N: the note slides into history and a fresh scratchpad takes its place. Titles are just first lines.
Getting something back is just as plain. ⌘P lists recent notes. ⌘⇧F searches everything you have written: multi-word, ranked, and it finds café when you type cafe. A note can pop out into its own window, or float on top while you work somewhere else.
04Live markdown
Writing that looks finished while you type
Headings, bold, italic, links, inline code, code blocks, lists, and checkboxes style themselves as you type. Syntax marks stay on the line you are editing and fold away when the caret leaves it, so a note reads clean while it is still half a thought.
Type # Groceries, press the down arrow, and the # melts into a heading. Checkboxes are real: click one and it is done. The window at the top of this page runs that moment on a loop.
05Native
Genuinely native
Nib is built for macOS 26 Tahoe: Liquid Glass materials, a real AppKit text engine, keyboard-first everything. Light theme, dark theme, or follow the system. Text size is adjustable, and Nib can launch at login so the shortcut always answers.
Even the menu bar icon is a template image that takes the system’s tint. Small details, but they are the whole point.
06Keyboard
The keyboard reference
Everything in Nib answers to a shortcut.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌃⇧Space | Summon or dismiss Nib, focusing your most recent window |
| ⌘N | New note; the current scratchpad slides into history |
| ⌘P | Recent notes |
| ⌘⇧F | Search all notes |
| Return / ⌘Return | Open a result, or open it in its own window (in the switcher) |
| ⌘⌫ | Trash the selected note (in the switcher) |
| ⌥⌘T | Float the window on top |
Open. Type. Done.
Nib is a notarized direct download, about 3 MB. Updates arrive through the app itself.
Requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later. Apple silicon or Intel.