eins78/apple-notes

Apple Notes (Read Only)

Read notes via Notes.app AppleScript. No creating, updating, or deleting notes.

Prerequisites

• Notes.app running and synced
• Automation permissions granted (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation → Terminal/Claude Code → Notes)
• If first access attempt times out, ask user to check for macOS permission dialog

Reliability: always wrap osascript with timeout + retry

Notes.app's AppleScript bridge hangs intermittently. AppleScript-internal with timeout of N seconds does NOT kill a wedged osascript process — wrap with shell-level timeout and retry.

notes_query() {
  local script="$1" attempt
  for attempt in 1 2 3; do
    result=$(timeout 15 osascript -e "$script" 2>&1) && { echo "$result"; return 0; }
    sleep 2
  done
  echo "ERROR: Notes query failed after 3 attempts" >&2
  return 1
}

Reasonable defaults: 15s timeout, 3 retries, 2s sleep. Bump to 30s for full-text search across many notes. If all retries fail, report and move on.

Scripts

List folders

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/list-folders.sh              # All folders across all accounts
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/list-folders.sh iCloud       # Only iCloud folders

List notes in a folder

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/list-notes.sh                        # iCloud/Notes (default)
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/list-notes.sh "Shopping"             # iCloud/Shopping
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/list-notes.sh "Notes" "Gmail"        # Gmail/Notes

Output: note name | modification date (one per line)

Read a note

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/read-note.sh "Shopping List"             # Search all accounts
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/read-note.sh "Meeting Notes" "iCloud"    # Specific account

Returns metadata header + HTML body.

Search notes by name

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/search-notes.sh "recipe"                 # Search all accounts
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/search-notes.sh "recipe" "iCloud"        # Specific account

Output: note name | account/folder | modification date (one per line)

Direct Commands

For quick one-off access without scripts:

# List all iCloud folders
osascript -e 'tell application "Notes" to get name of every folder of account "iCloud"'

# List all note names in a folder
osascript -e 'tell application "Notes" to get name of every note in folder "Notes" of account "iCloud"'

# Read a note body (returns HTML)
osascript -e 'tell application "Notes" to get body of note "Note Name"'

# Count all notes
osascript -e 'tell application "Notes" to count every note'

Notes

• Note bodies are returned as HTML — use for display or pipe through a converter for plain text
• Note names are case-sensitive in AppleScript queries
• Searching large numbers of notes can be slow — scope to a specific account when possible
• The whose name contains filter is case-insensitive
• Notes.app must be running — scripts will launch it if needed, but sync may take a moment