Notes that write like notes
Rich text by default — bold, italics, lists, links. Prefer Markdown? Switch any single note over and back without losing the content.
Version 1.0.7 · Windows · macOS/Linux beta
A canvas you
A canvas you
think on
Notes, images, files, links and video sit as cards on an infinite board — and you draw the connections between the ones that belong together. No folders of orphaned documents. No lock-in.
Optional account for cloud sync. Your boards stay local unless you turn that on.
See it in action
Watch the full walkthrough
Cards, connections, groups, search, export — everything, in one video.
What it does
Built for thinking sideways
Linear documents are good at conclusions and bad at getting to them. Jinn Notes gives you room to spread the problem out.
Connections, not hierarchies
Drag a wire between any two cards. A card takes as many connections as you need, and adding one never displaces another.
Anything can be a card
Images with a full-size lightbox, any file type opened in its own app, web links with previews, YouTube playing inline, and bare text labels for titling regions of the board.
Paste and it knows what you meant
An image becomes an image. A YouTube URL becomes a video. A link to a picture is downloaded and embedded. A file path copies the file in. One shortcut, six different right answers.
Groups become folders
Box related cards into a group, then let Jinn Notes mirror that structure on disk — with a preview of every planned move, and nothing touched until you say so.
Search the whole board
Titles, note text, filenames, captions and link URLs. Matches stay lit and everything else recedes, so you keep your bearings.
Sync when you actually want to
An optional account turns on sync to Jinn Notes' own storage or your own Google Drive. Skip it entirely and everything stays local, no account required.
A closer look
Every screen, unretouched
These are captures of the shipping build, not mockups.
Double-click to write
Cards are read-only until you mean to edit them, so a stray click moves a card instead of putting a cursor in it. The toolbar carries just what a note needs — and the T button flips that note between rich text and Markdown.
Your files stay yours
A project is just a folder
There is no library, no database, no proprietary blob. You pick a folder; Jinn Notes puts a .canvas file in it and copies the files you add alongside, under their own readable names.
- Saved as JSON Canvas — the open format behind Obsidian Canvas, readable by other tools.
- Browsable in File Explorer. Syncable with whatever you already use — OneDrive, Dropbox, git.
- Saves are atomic — written to a temporary file and renamed into place, so a crash can't leave a half-written board.
- Uninstall and your work is still sitting there, in the folder you chose.
On disk
Deep-sea vents/ ├── Deep-sea vents.canvas ├── vent-diagram.png ├── 2019-survey.pdf └── Research/ ├── paper.pdf └── Papers/ └── old.pdf
Groups on the board become subfolders here — only when you ask, and only after you approve the list of moves.
Get it
Free, and yours to keep
Jinn Notes runs on Windows, with early macOS and Linux builds available too. Free, no subscription.
Microsoft Store
Automatic updates and a one-click install. The recommended way to get Jinn Notes on Windows.
Get from the StoreWindows — direct download
A standalone installer for Windows 10/11 on x64. Installs to Program Files for all users — Windows will prompt for admin approval.
JinnNotes-Setup 1.0.7 · 97 MBWindows SmartScreen may flag it as from an unrecognized publisher on first run — this build isn't code-signed yet. Choose "More info" → "Run anyway" to continue.
Beta — early build
macOS
Apple Silicon & Intel (x64, via Rosetta on Apple Silicon). Not notarized, so Gatekeeper will block it by default — right-click the app, choose "Open," then confirm.
JinnNotes-1.0.7-macos-x64 · 134 MB
Beta — early build
Linux
x64, packaged as a self-contained folder — extract and run
./JinnNotes, no install step.
Windows requires version 1809 (build 17763) or later, 64-bit. Roughly 350 MB once installed on any platform — Jinn Notes bundles its own rendering engine so it does not depend on anything else being present.
What's changed
Version log
The short version of every release. Every build is free to update to.
-
v1.0.7 · Current
Fixes from real use, plus macOS & Linux
- YouTube videos actually play in the app again.
- Creating a new canvas while signed in and synced now offers the same folder-location and starter-content choices as a local project.
- First macOS and Linux builds (beta).
-
v1.0.6
A round of everyday fixes
- Closing the app with unsaved changes now offers Save, Discard, or Cancel — not just a plain warning.
- Dragging a card by its title moves it again, instead of selecting the text underneath.
- Dropping a new image or file onto an existing card replaces its contents instead of stacking a duplicate on top.
- Google Drive projects can now be organized into folders that mirror your board's groups, same as local projects already could.
-
v1.0.3 – v1.0.5
Interface refresh
- Sign-in redesigned, including a proper "Sign in with Google" button.
- The toolbar decluttered into two floating action bars around the canvas, both larger and easier to hit.
- Live status toasts and themed tooltips throughout, replacing the browser's plain defaults.
- The Google Drive folder picker now shows what's already in a folder before you sync into it.
-
v1.0.2
Accounts and cloud sync
- Optional sign-in with email/password or Google.
- Sync a project to Jinn Notes' own storage, or straight to your own Google Drive.
- An in-app update checker that never blocks startup and stays silent with no connection.
-
v1.0.0 – v1.0.1
First release
- The node-graph canvas itself: notes, images, links, YouTube embeds, and groups.
- Projects as plain folders on disk, saved in the open JSON Canvas format.
- "Organize files," reconciling a project's folder to match its board's groups.
Give the idea some room
Stop flattening your thinking into a document that was never shaped like your problem.
Download Jinn Notes