Markdown notes that float above everything on your Mac.

Press ⌘+. from any app. Capture a thought, transcribe a meeting with speaker labels, or run a CLI agent in the terminal. Nothing leaves your machine.

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Launch checklist

•Finalize pricing and payment flow

•Write onboarding copy

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Mote

Vault

Launch checklist

Finalize pricing and payment flow · Write onboarding copy · Record demo...

Meeting notes — design review

Went through the hero section with the team. General consensus: copy is too vague...

Brand guidelines

Primary: #e8743b (orange) · Background: #0a0a0a · Font: SF Pro Text...

Pricing research

Raycast: $96/yr Pro · Antinote: $5 once · SideNotes: ~$10/yr...

Daily note — Mar 19

Morning focus: finish landing page. Afternoon: record demos...

Building Better Products with Constraints

Design Thinking Academy

The best products come from embracing limitations

3:01 / 12:04

Untitled

Design Review — Weekly3 participants

You

Sarah

Mike

Untitled

Vault

Daily note — Mar 19

Meeting notes

Reading list

Brand guidelines

No file open

Open a note to start editing

Product roadmap thoughts

We need to prioritize the onboarding

redesign before the launch.

Select template...

No Template

Journal

Meeting

Search notes...

Mote

Vault

No notes

Why is CSS like this

Spent 20 minutes centering a div.

Flexbox betrayed me. Again.

5:00

— What did you get done?

What did you get done?

Enter submit·Cmd+Enter end·Shift+Enter newline

Tasks

Review hero section copy

Send update to early users

New task

theverge.com/ai-productivity

The Verge

The return of the personal workspace

By Alex Morgan · 6 min read

After a decade of cloud-first tools, a new wave of desktop software is quietly putting the local machine back at the center of how we work.

The shift is most visible in note-taking, where apps that run fully on-device — no accounts, no sync servers — are seeing a surge in adoption among writers, researchers, and engineers who want their text to stay where they put it.

The appeal is simple: speed, privacy, and a workspace that belongs to you. When your notes live in plain files on your disk, there is no vendor lock-in, no migration story, and no outage that can take your work offline.

Untitled

Search commands...

Clip PageSave the current webpage as markdown

Promote to VaultSave this note into your Obsidian vault

⌘⇧E

Switch NoteOpen the note switcher

⌘O

Open Daily NoteToday's journal entry

⌘D

Insert TemplateApply a frontmatter template

Select template...

No TemplatePlain markdown

JournalDaily entry with frontmatter

MeetingAgenda, attendees, action items

ResourcesLink with tags and source

Editor

Write Anywhere. One shortcut to summon, type your thought, keep working.

Ridiculous power, in a tiny window.

Same shortcut, different jobs: videos, meetings, web clips, tasks, your terminal.

Write without switching.

Mote floats above every window on your Mac. Hit ⌘. and it appears instantly — type a thought, format in markdown, and get back to what you were doing. No dock, no app switcher, no context lost. The panel stays on top whether you're in a browser, IDE, or Figma. Your notes are always one shortcut away.

Appears over any app with ⌘.Full markdown with live renderingStays on top — never loses focus

Fast because it's native.

Swift and AppKit, everything on-device, under 150 MB. No Electron.

⌘

One Shortcut Away

Summon Mote from anywhere with a single keyboard shortcut. It appears instantly — no dock, no app switching.

Local & Private

No cloud. No accounts. No tracking. Your notes live on your Mac and nowhere else.

Native Swift

Built with Swift and AppKit. No Electron. Launches in milliseconds and uses minimal resources.

⌘

⇧

Promote to Vault

Your best scratch notes deserve better than a drawer. One shortcut files them into your Obsidian vault — named, formatted, permanent.

# Heading
Some **bold** text
And `code` too

Live Markdown

Headings, bold, code, tasks — rendered inline as you type. No preview pane, no split view.

Get Mote pilled, try it free for 3 days.

Still need more? Continue scrolling.

Download for Mac See Pricing

One app, all local files, no subscription.

See how Mote compares to other floating note tools.

Feature	Mote	Raycast Notes	Antinote	SideNotes	Tot
Price	$19 once	$96/yr	$5 once	~$10/yr	$20 once
Unlimited notes		5 free			7 max
Floating				Side panel
Live markdown
YouTube mode
Transcription
Obsidian			Limited export
Tasks
Web clipper
Focus timer
Claude integration
Local-first					iCloud

Swipe to compare →

Native.

Pure Swift. Pure performance. No Electron.

Private.

Everything stays on your Mac. No cloud, no accounts.

Fast.

Think in milliseconds. Appears instantly with a shortcut.

Yours.

$19 once. No subscriptions. No recurring fees.

Still shipping— see the roadmap→

$18.99$24.99

One-time purchase · lifetime updates

Unlimited notes
Lifetime updates
Local transcription — no cloud, no accounts
Obsidian vault export (⌘⇧E)
Native Swift — under 150 MB, even while transcribing
macOS 15+ (Sequoia)

Get Early Bird Price Or download the free trial first→

Payment issues? marcel@getmote.md

Markdown notes that float above everything on your Mac.

Ridiculous power, in a tiny window.

Write without switching.

Fast because it's native.

One Shortcut Away

Local & Private

Native Swift

Promote to Vault

Live Markdown

Get Mote pilled, try it free for 3 days.

One app, all local files, no subscription.

Native.

Private.

Fast.

Yours.

Questions?Join the Discord!