Instant floating sticky notes for macOS, saved as plain markdown files you fully own
Stik exists for the three seconds between having an idea and losing it. From anywhere on your Mac, Cmd+Shift+S drops a floating post-it over whatever you are doing; you type, hit Escape, and get straight back to work. The note is already saved as a plain markdown file in ~/Documents/Stik/ - no account, no cloud sign-in, no onboarding questions.
Because every note is an ordinary .md file, you own the data completely. Open notes in any editor, sync the folder through iCloud Drive, Dropbox or Syncthing, or push it to a git remote and Stik keeps it synchronized in the background. Notes that deserve attention can be pinned to the desktop, where they stay on top of everything else.
Despite the tiny footprint, the editor handles full markdown with syntax highlighting, wiki-links, task lists, tables, slash commands and a vim mode. Cmd+Shift+D dictates into the current note through WhisperKit on the Neural Engine, Cmd+Shift+C appends selected text from any app to a Clips note, and semantic search runs on-device through Apple's NaturalLanguage framework. Any note can be encrypted with AES-256 and reopened with Touch ID. Stik needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, speaks English and Simplified Chinese, and its anonymous analytics are strictly opt-in.
We covered the idea behind it in our article: https://www.freewares.org/blog/stik-catch-a-thought-before-it-vanishes
Floating capture window over any app, Escape to dismiss
Notes persist instantly with nothing to press
Every note is a .md file in ~/Documents/Stik/
Point iCloud Drive, Dropbox or Syncthing at the notes folder
As plain markdown files in ~/Documents/Stik/. You can open them in any editor and sync the folder with iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Syncthing or git.
No. Search, folder suggestions and dictation all run on-device. Anonymous analytics are off by default and strictly opt-in, and note content is never collected.
Yes. Any note can be encrypted with AES-256 and reopened with Touch ID.