
Joplin
An open source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation capabilities.
- Free Personal • Open Source
- Note-taking
- Todo List Manager
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- iPad
- Google Chrome
- Termux
- Firefox
What is Joplin?
Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format.
Notes exported from Evernote via .enex files can be imported into Joplin, including the formatted content (which is converted to Markdown), resources (images, attachments, etc.) and complete metadata (geolocation, updated time, created time, etc.). Plain Markdown files can also be imported.
The notes can be synchronised with various cloud services including Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, their own service (paid) or the file system (for example with a network directory). When synchronising the notes, notebooks, tags and other metadata are saved to plain text files which can be easily inspected, backed up and moved around.
The application is available for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS. A Web Clipper, to save web pages and screenshots from your browser, is also available for Firefox and Chrome.
Features:
- Desktop, mobile and terminal applications.
- Web Clipper for Firefox and Chrome.
- End To End Encryption (E2EE)
- Synchronisation with various services, including NextCloud, Dropbox, WebDAV and OneDrive.
- Import Enex files (Evernote export format) and Markdown files.
- Export JEX files (Joplin Export format) and raw files.
- Support for to-dos and tags
- Support for notifications in mobile and desktop applications.
- Offline first, so the entire data is always available on the device even without an internet connection.
- Markdown notes. Support for extra features such as math notation, checkboxes and Fountain (screenwriting markup language).
- File attachment support, images, etc.
- Search functionality.
- Geo-location support.
- Supports multiple languages
- External editor support - open notes in your favorite external editor with one click in Joplin.
Security & Privacy
Features Vote on or suggest new features
- Support for MarkDown
- Cloud sync
- Privacy focused
- Web clipper
- Local Storage
- Android Sync
- Works Offline
- Encrypted Notes
- Support for WebDAV
- Note-taking
- Tagging
- Ad-free
- Todo List Manager
- Write files in markdown
- Synchronization
- Hierarchical structure
- File Sync
- Multiplatform
- Encryption
- Sync with Dropbox
Supported Languages
- English
Comments and Reviews Post a comment / review all • positive • negative relevance • date
Categories
Backup & Sync • Office & Productivity • Web Browsers • File Management • Business & Commerce • Security & PrivacyPlatform details
Tags
- Linux
- Security & Privacy
- Customer Support
- File Organizer
- Alarm
- fountain
- webdav-sync
Lists containing Joplin
The Best (and the rest) of Personal Knowledge Management Software [2022] • The ultimate F-Droid setup (200+ Apps) • Edge/Chrome Extensions • List of my favorite Freeware/FOSS





Summary
Our users have written 117 comments and reviews about Joplin, and it has gotten 570 likes
- Developed by Laurent Cozic
- Open Source and Free Personal product.
- Subscription that costs between $2 and $50.
- Written in
- Average rating of 4.6
- 574 alternatives listed
Apple AppStore
- Last Release:
- Average Rating 4.25
GitHub repository
- 30,991 Stars
- 3,508 Forks
- 306 Open Issues
- Updated
Popular alternatives
- 1
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- 3
Recent user activities on Joplin
breedessin12 doesn't think Obsidian is an alternative to Joplin
agobreedessin12 thinks Standard Notes is an alternative to Joplin
agohedefgiris liked Joplin
ago
As 100% paranoid I trust only things that stay with me, that's why I write notes and save part of webpages to local storage. A long ago I started to use Evernote, that time it was almost only solution for such kind of task. But Evernote is terrible, really. Well, if we write a note with Evernote WYSIWYG editor then no problem, but if you saved web-page or even its part then problems stars. Evernote is trying to keep original HTML/CSS formatting of page and adopt it for internal editor, but its viewer can't show it identically, moreover it doesn't allow edit raw code of saved elements. It feels like fight against MS Word. For the reason I have a lot of broken and unreadable notes in Evernote postponed to "someday-edit". But I will never fix them, it's impossible except rewriting everything with hands, but I don't want to do it with Evernote, who knows how it will be works tomorrow. :)
A time later I found another organizer Laverna, it allows to solve some problems of Evernote with text notes, and Markdown format guarantees that data could be saved even in worst situation. But Laverna has ton of critical bugs, it’s just dangerous to work with it because next release could brake everything. Here you can read why I hate it.
Finally, I found quite perspective Evernote alternative, at least for desktop, like Laverna with no critical bugs but much better. :) Joplin brings together better of two worlds: Markdown layout with inline HTML code. When features of Markdown not enough for well looking formatting just add HTML code, or even use TeX syntax. Joplin works with extra fast TeX math rendering engine KaTeX what allows to view notes containing hundreds of math notions and symbols just for a second.
UPD1: It's amazing, I found the aspect recently and suddenly for me. You also can use CSS styles to format Markdown! Therefore, you even doesn't need to keep HTML structure for things like "image wall"! See the screenshot below!
CSS styles to format Markdown layout
UPD2: WebClipper now supports full HTML clipping as non-editable note with local resources!
UPD3: Some major additions were made:
UPD4: A long-awaited feature is here now. When importing MD files create resources for local linked files! This largely closes the issue of processing attached images. Now you can finally export the note, make batch manipulations with the files, and then import it back. For such a fan of do copy-paste Images to Joplin like me, this is great news.
PROS:
CONS:
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Some exposition
[Edited by M_O_Z_G, January 21]
This is the best review I've ever seen outside of a full, published article. You're awesome.
Reply written ago
Yourmother, thank you! I like to write about things I like, glad to see that it's helpful! Joplin is ultimate and only solution, I think.
Reply written ago
This is an impressive review. Thanks a lot for giving such a detailed overview of the app!
Reply written ago
UPD1: It's amazing, I found the aspect recently and suddenly for me. You also can use CSS styles to format Markdown! Therefore, you even doesn't need to keep HTML structure for things like "image wall"! See the screenshot below! CSS styles to format Markdown layout
Reply written ago
UPD2: WebClipper now supports full HTML clipping as non-editable note with local resources!
Reply written ago
UPD4: A long-awaited feature is here now. When importing MD files create resources for local linked files! This largely closes the issue of processing attached images. Now you can finally export the note, make batch manipulations with the files, and then import it back. For such a fan of do copy-paste Images to Joplin like me, this is great news.
Reply written ago
This is an absolute gem. Replacing Evernote is a holy grail of privacy-oriented people who want to stay productive. Joplin does this better and more simply than any other program I've found to date. It's genuinely difficult to describe how relieved I am to have found it and given it a chance.
It's biggest advantages are:
Disadvantages:
Note that Joplin is new. Its stated intention is to replace Evernote. It's likely some of its shortcomings are going to be addressed in the future.
Are notes/resources locally encrypted?
Reply written ago
snakyjake4, no, only remote files are encrypted.
Reply written ago
There are links between notes! https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/1449
Reply written ago
Very nice note manager with tons of features.
Not as easy or quick knowledge management tool or brainstorming app to use as CintaNotes.
Another issue is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO PASSWORD PROTECTION OR ENCRYPTION out of the box. Anyone with admin access to your computer can get the contents of your notes and anyone with access to your computer account just needs to start the program to open all the notes.
There's encryption for syncing notes but not for local storage.
There's also no easy way to backup or restore data and there's no way to have multiple profiles, "files" or databases like with CintaNotes or CherryTree; or change users like in Standard Notes.
In Windows for instance you'd have to create whole new Windows User Accounts for each separate profile, database or user that you'd like to use Joplin with and log in and out of accounts to do this which needless to say is very impractical.
Besides those issues the software has lots of features and is a very good knowledge management tool but I wouldn’t use it for important stuff.
If someone else has admin access to your personal computer, I'd say you have a lot more problems than just whether Joplin encrypts files or not. If you're using a managed system from your employer or school, technically they own the machine and everything on it (in most jurisdictions), not you. You can created encrypted storage as a user that the admin cannot touch using something like TrueCrypt or numerous other in situ encryption packages that create virtual volumes in files. Why should Joplin re-invent the wheel? Local storage should be managed locally by the user.
Reply written ago
If you let people login to your computer with admin access, you shouldn't use your whole computer for anything important actually. Even full disk encryption wouldn't save you here.
Reply written ago
Joplin is very good. It is independent and not tied to certain companies, e.g. OneNote to Microsoft, or Google Keep to Google. So, we can effectively sync stuff using apps that's available on desktop and mobile. By the time I am writing this review, I am trying my best to move from Google Keep to Joplin because of Google Keep desktop app that didn't even exist.
free to sync use microsoft onebox cloud
Lightweight and idiot-proof, which is what I needed.
Great software, very similar to Evernote, except it is open source and more privacy-oriented.
Two things that I don't like about it:
It is also slower than ZIM Wiki (about the same as Evernote).