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Exporter reads apps on your Mac and writes what it finds as files in a folder you choose, then keeps those files current as you keep using the apps. Every app is set up the same way, in one sheet of three pages: connect it, choose where its files go, choose what syncs.

Install

Get Exporter from the Mac App Store (download), where it is listed as “Exporter: Notes to Markdown”. It runs on macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon. There is no account and nothing to sign in to.

Connect an app

On first launch a welcome takes you through Apple Notes. Every other app starts on Exporter’s home: an app that is not connected is one row with “Connect” at its end. Bear and Logseq show only when they are installed.

1. Press “Connect” beside the app, then the button on the sheet’s first page, like “Open Apple Notes Folder”.
2. A folder panel opens already inside that app’s data folder. Choose nothing inside it and press “Select This Folder”. Logseq and Documents ask for a folder of your own instead: the graph, or the folder your documents are in.

That is the whole permission: no Full Disk Access and no macOS prompt. Exporter reads that one folder, read-only, and remembers it.

Choose where the files go

The sheet’s next page offers a folder in Documents, or your Obsidian or Wander vault; press “Use This Folder”. For any other folder, press “Options…” on the last page, or later “Change…” beside “Saves To” on the app’s card. How deep the folder is decides where the files land:

you choose	files land in
your home folder, or a folder right in it, like ~/Documents or ~/Dropbox	a new subfolder inside it, like ~/Documents/notes-export
a deeper folder, like ~/Documents/notes	that folder, as it is

“Saves To” on the card shows the real folder. Give each app its own folder, like ~/Documents/notes and ~/Documents/messages; the MCP server serves every one of them, wherever it is.

Run the first export

The sheet’s last page asks what syncs, and its button counts what it will write, like “Sync 100 Notes Free”. “Continue in App” closes the sheet while it writes; the app’s card shows how far it is. When it finishes, the card’s line says when it synced, and real-time sync is on for that app: from then on a change in the app is written to its file on its own. Later syncs are “Sync Now” on the card.

Each export folder also gets .exporter/, the record of each run that the Export log (the clock icon) shows. What else lands in the folder, and every field inside the files, differs per app: each app has its own page in the docs, like Apple Notes.

What keeps running

• closing the window stops nothing: the app keeps syncing, with its Dock icon, until you quit it. Quitting stops real-time sync and the MCP server
• Settings > “Open at Login” starts Exporter after a restart, so syncing picks up on its own
• Settings > “Show in Menu Bar” adds a menu bar icon with each app’s status, and the window no longer opens at launch
• real-time sync has no switch. It starts with an app’s first “Sync Now” and stops when you press “Disconnect”, which forgets the app’s folder and leaves the exported files where they are
• with the app quit, exporter sync from the command line catches up

Unlocking

Each app exports free up to its allowance (Bear and Logseq have no limit), and whatever it exported keeps syncing free. The unlock button on an app’s card is a one-time purchase for that app, no subscription, and “Restore Purchases” brings it back on another Mac (pricing).

What full resync removes

“Full Resync” on a card asks first, then removes only the files Exporter wrote in the export folder. Then it exports again and picks the free items again. Anything else in the folder stays: your own notes, an Obsidian vault’s .obsidian, a folder of documents. Still, give every export a folder of its own, so its files and yours stay apart.

A normal sync removes only files Exporter wrote itself that no item produces any more.

Backups

The export folder is a mirror: an item you delete in its app is removed from it on the next sync, so it is not an archive. For dated copies that never change, Back up Apple Notes sets up nightly snapshots with the command line. Restoring means copying files back: Exporter never writes into your apps.