Your notes are yours. In Nodes that isn't a slogan - it's how the app is built. Your writing lives as ordinary files on your own disk, and the whole experience runs on your Mac.
Plain files on disk
Your notes are stored as real files inside the app's storage folder:
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Markdown notes | ~/Library/Containers/com.nvm.nodes/Data/Documents/MarkdownFiles/ |
| PDFs | ~/Library/Containers/com.nvm.nodes/Data/Documents/PdfFiles/ |
| Images | ~/Library/Containers/com.nvm.nodes/Data/Documents/ImageFiles/ |
| Snapshots | ~/Library/Containers/com.nvm.nodes/Data/Library/Application Support/Nodes/Backups/ |
Because they're just files, they're easy to back up and easy to take with you. Time Machine covers the live library automatically; the snapshots folder is deliberately left out of it, since Time Machine is already versioning the originals and needn't version the copies too. To move your library into an iCloud or Dropbox folder, a Git repository, or anywhere else, use the built-in export - it gives you a clean, neatly-named copy you can put wherever you like. Nodes keeps the connections, tags, and search index separately, so the content itself stays clean and portable.
On-device, private
There's no cloud account, no sign-in, and no data harvesting. The on-device AI that suggests tags and writes descriptions runs locally - your notes never leave your machine to make it work. For the formal details, see our privacy policy.
No lock-in
Nodes is a place to keep your writing, not a trap for it. Whenever you want a clean, neatly-named copy of everything, export your library and walk away with all your markdown intact. The door is always open - which is exactly why it's a comfortable place to stay.