apple notes codemode

Apple Notes is a black box for most local AI agents. This skill bridges that gap, allowing your agent to read, write, and manage your macOS Apple Notes database directly. It solves the problem of manual note entry and the difficulty of searching across hundreds of fragmented notes by providing a high-speed Python execution environment for note data.

What it does

• Note Management creates, updates, reads, or deletes individual notes with support for folders and titles.
• Bulk Processing executes Python scripts via code_mode to perform mass edits or complex filtering across your entire library.
• Structural Organization lists, creates, and manages folder hierarchies to keep your local database clean.
• Intelligent Search filters notes by folder, keywords, or metadata to find specific information without manual scrolling.
• Local Summarization processes note content locally to generate summaries or extract action items without leaking data to external APIs.

How it works

1. Connect the apple-notes-codemode MCP server to your local macOS environment.
2. Execute simple requests like "create a note" using direct tool calls for instant updates.
3. Automate complex tasks by writing sandboxed Python scripts using the codemode library for multi-note operations.
4. Confirm any destructive or bulk actions through the agent's built-in safety prompts before changes are finalized.

Frameworks & tools

This skill requires macOS and the apple-notes-codemode MCP server. It utilizes a sandboxed Python environment with access to standard libraries like datetime, json, and re for logic execution.

Why this beats prompting it yourself

Standard prompts cannot access the Apple Notes SQLite database or AppleScript interface directly. This skill provides a specialized "Code Mode" that executes logic locally on your machine, preventing the context window from being flooded with raw note data while allowing for sophisticated conditional logic that standard tool-calling cannot handle efficiently.

Use cases

• Project Archiving move all notes containing "Project Alpha" from the last year into a specific archive folder.
• Information Synthesis find all notes from the "Meetings" folder and create a new summary note of recurring themes.
• Content Tagging batch append specific text or "tags" to every note modified within a certain date range.
• Quick Capture instantly save snippets of code or meeting transcripts directly into a new note without leaving the terminal.

Known limitations

Requires macOS and a locally running MCP server. Cannot access iCloud notes that are not synced to the local Mac. Direct deletion is a "soft delete" to the Recently Deleted folder.