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Comment by slmjkdbtl | Hacker News Reader

To me the biggest block for using any plain text format for daily stuff is I need a good mobile - laptop sync method that I can easily read / write and manage files on both mobile and laptop, does anyone have any recommendation? The best choice I can think right now is SimpleNote which I've been using for notes for a long time, but is there a way I can actually use .txt file instead of text been stored somewhere in a database.

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I use my Gmail drafts as permanent, in-sync notes (with subject as the title of each note) Why?

- No extra app needed

- Keeps them quite hidden / private / secure

- Always easy access (I always have emails open)

- In sync with different devices

> Gmail drafts

> Keeps them quite hidden / private / secure

Not hidden from Google obviously :) At that point, why not just use Keep at that point to get proper support for notes?

ha, well, nothing to hide to that extent.

I don't know about Keep, but it's another app, which is kind of my point - I already use Gmail.

There's also cli access to Keep. And Google keeps on improving integration of mail,calendar,tasks and keep.

cli access to keep --> no its unofficial api gkeepapi would not trust with my gmail credentials

Though limited android keep app has one simple intent using which i create all my notes

I recommend https://syncthing.net/

Works with all file formats, from photos and movies to text files. Cross platform: Linux, Windows, Android, probably also Mac and BSD.

Update: And it's end-to-end encrypted and free, open-source software.

I use syncthing for notes across iOS and macOS devices and I wouldn't say it's great. It works most of the time until it doesn't, until one client all of a sudden stops syncing and then you gotta figure out where it's hanging. Couple of days ago it was the macOS syncthing app. Just wouldn't start, wouldn't show an error. Usually it's the iOS helper app "Möbius Sync" not actually syncing in the background. It's annoying but still better than using a cloud provider.

I suspect the experience is better on Android.

It is much better on Android

Note that work on the official android app is discontinued

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android --- "Discontinued This app is discontinued. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version."

If you find Syncthing too chatty and is a bit suspicious to what it connect to, you can really to set it up to only connect explicitely between nodes in a Tailscale network for example.

I just use SyncThing.

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