Knopo

A native (AppKit, no Electron) macOS outliner in the Logseq tradition - your notes are blocks, pages are trees of blocks, and everything lives as plain Markdown files you own. Local-first, no account, no lock-in: the app is just a fast index and editor over a folder of .md files. Close Knopo and your graph is still a readable, greppable, git-able directory of Markdown.

• Outliner editing - every block is a node: Enter splits, Tab/Shift+Tab indent/outdent, Alt+↑/↓ move, click a bullet to zoom in, click the triangle to fold. Markdown renders inline; the focused block shows raw source.
• Plain Markdown, byte-stable - each block maps to a line in the file, and an untouched block re-serializes exactly as written, so round-tripping never churns your files.
• Page links [[Page]] - with stub pages, link autocomplete, and graph-wide rename that rewrites every reference.
• Block references & embeds - ((block-id)) to point at a block, {{embed …}} to transclude a block or page read-only.
• Tags #tag - labels (not pages), with a generated, click-through tag view.
• Queries {{query …}} - a live, read-only result list from a small closed filter language: tags, page references, task state, and properties combined with and / or / not.
• Tables - GitHub-style pipe tables render as a real grid, fitted to the window (or to their content, per table), with links and tags live inside cells.
• Journal - a daily-notes home that scrolls back through previous days.
• References - linked and unlinked references surfaced per page.
• Search & find - ⌘K full-text search across the whole graph (SQLite FTS5), ⌘F find within the current view.
• Right sidebar - ⌘/Shift-click opens pages and tag views as side-by-side cards for reference work.
• Windows & tabs - open several graphs at once, each in its own native window or tab (⌘T for a tab, Open Graph… to repoint one). The same graph open in two places stays in sync.
• TODO / DONE blocks and slash commands (/link, /date, /embed, …).

Some smaller touches: favourites & recents, content zoom, adjustable line spacing, and block background colors.

See the user guide for full documentation.

Knopo uses Logseq's block model without copying all of its design choices. Quality and stability take priority over feature count. Each feature is chosen and reviewed on its own merits, rather than added just because another app has it.

• Markdown files - Markdown is the source of truth and the app is disposable. The graph stays readable, greppable, git-friendly, and byte-stable, so editing never churns your files.
• On-demand loading - the whole graph is never held in RAM; pages load on demand, so memory and startup stay flat as the graph grows.
• Indexed navigation - a rebuildable SQLite index (.knopo/cache.db) backs search, backlinks, tags, and queries, keeping navigation cheap on large graphs.
• A real text editor - Knopo uses AppKit and SwiftUI. The block you're editing is an actual macOS text view, so typing feels like it does everywhere else on the Mac. Web-based editors rebuild native behaviour by hand and rarely nail it.
• Small and quick - no bundled browser, so it's a few megabytes, launches instantly, and stays light on memory and battery for something you keep open all day. (To be fair, that's mostly a dig at Electron, there are leaner web shells.)
• Fits the system - real macOS window tabs, and dark mode, accent color, and accessibility settings that follow the moment you change them.

The trade-off is reach: Knopo is macOS-only, where web apps run everywhere from one codebase.

The closest neighbour is Logseq - same outliner model, open source, block references, embeds, and queries - but Electron. Knopo uses native macOS components and is macOS-only.

Early but very useable. On-disk conventions may still change.

A graph is a directory. Knopo lays out and maintains:

<graph>/
  pages/         # one Markdown file per page
  journals/      # one file per day
  assets/        # pasted/linked images and files
  .knopo/        # rebuildable cache (SQLite index, config) - safe to delete

The Markdown files are the source of truth; .knopo/ is derived and can be regenerated at any time.

A Swift Package - builds, runs and tests with the Command Line Tools, no Xcode required.

swift build                                    # build
./scripts/test.sh                              # run the test suite (Swift Testing)
KNOPO_GRAPH=/path/to/graph swift run Knopo     # run against a graph folder

KNOPO_GRAPH defaults to ~/Documents/Knopo; the folder is created and seeded on first launch. To produce a double-clickable .app, run ./scripts/build-app.sh release - that step needs Xcode, for the app icon only.

The interface is English and picks up any language you add. To add one, see Localization/README.md.

This app is not notarized, so macOS Gatekeeper blocks a downloaded copy on first launch. To run it, either:

• strip the quarantine flag - sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/Knopo.app, or
• open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

On macOS 15 (Sequoia) the old Control-click → Open shortcut no longer bypasses Gatekeeper for un-notarized apps; use one of the above.

Building from source avoids this entirely - a locally built .app isn't quarantined - but needs the Swift toolchain (the Xcode Command Line Tools).