A calm place to write.

A simple notes app with nothing to learn and no account to make. On Mac, iPad and iPhone, with every note kept as an ordinary file you can open in other apps.

We’ll email you an invite to the beta, and again when Soot launches.

Settle into writing.

Good typography, gentle colours and familiar folders. Soot is a native app, so it’s fast and everything is where you’d expect it to be. You never have to name or save a note: its first line becomes the title, and Soot saves as you type. And it works offline.

Soot on a Mac: a warm grey sidebar with folders for Journal, Projects, Reading, Recipes and Travel; a list of notes with previews; and a note called Skye in October open on the right, with headings, a list, a small table, a quote and a task list, all shown without visible Markdown marks.

Soot on a Mac in dark mode: a dark sidebar with folders for Journal, Projects, Reading, Recipes and Travel; a list of notes with previews; and a note called Skye in October open on the right, with headings, a list, a small table, a quote and a task list, all shown without visible Markdown marks.

Just your words.

Your notes look like notes, even while you write. Headings look like headings and bold looks bold.

Each note is saved as Markdown: plain text with a few symbols for formatting. Soot keeps the symbols out of sight, so you can forget about the format and get on with writing. If you prefer to see them, you can choose to show them on the line you’re editing, or all the time.

Find your colour.

Twelve themes for your editor, each with a light and dark mode. Pick the one that feels like yours.

Give your assistant something to work with.

Soot comes with instructions for AI assistants to find, read and save your notes on your Mac.

Their answers can draw on what you’ve already written down: the model of your boiler, the plans for your next trip, what you decided last time and why. Ask your assistant to find something, turn rough ideas into a draft, or save something you’ve worked out together.

Works with the Claude app and Claude Code, and with ChatGPT, Gemini CLI and Cursor.

Keep your notes. Whatever happens.

On your Mac, every note is a Markdown file in a folder you choose. Open it in another app, back it up your own way, or move the whole folder somewhere else. On iPad and iPhone, your notes are in the Files app.

If you ever stop using Soot, your notes are already there. There’s nothing to export.

Your notes, on all your devices.

Start a note on your Mac. Pick it up on your iPad or iPhone. With Soot Pro, sync keeps them in step.

Your notes and their titles are encrypted on your device before they’re uploaded. Soot doesn’t have the key, so Soot can’t read them.

Sync is optional. Without it, your notes stay on the device you wrote them on.

A note called “Weekend in the Highlands” on a MacBook Air, beside the folder list and the Scotland folder. — The same note on Mac, iPad and iPhone.

A note called “Weekend in the Highlands” on a MacBook Air in dark mode. — The same note on Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Made by one person, with opinions.

Soot is made in Edinburgh, Scotland, by Rob Schmitt. I wanted a notes app that anyone can use without knowing what Markdown is, and that keeps plain files underneath for those of us who care about that sort of thing rather too much. I was also set on making Soot beautiful, because I get an unreasonable amount of pleasure from things looking just right. There’s more about why Soot is the way it is on the About page.

Free to write.

The editor is free, and no editing features are locked behind a paywall.

To sync your notes between devices, you’ll need Soot Pro. It’s $2.49 a month or $24.99 a year, and the yearly plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

Soot Pro is the only way Soot makes money. There are no ads, no tracking and no analytics, in the apps or on this site, and nothing about you is sold.

Sound like your kind of notes app?

Leave your email and we’ll invite you to the beta, then let you know when Soot launches.