Meet Your Markdown Notebook

FlatNotes is the notes app for people who got tired of walled gardens. Every note is a plain markdown file on disk, exactly the way you wrote it, with no database to corrupt and no proprietary format to escape from later.

You get a fast web UI, full-text search, and hashtag-based organisation. Behind the scenes, it's just a folder of .md files sitting in your ElfHosted storage, ready to be grep'd, rsync'd, or dropped into any other editor that speaks markdown.

Think of it as the friendly middle ground between a napkin and Notion. Simple enough to actually use every day, structured enough to find anything six months later.

Why FlatNotes Makes Life Easier

• Your notes live as .md files in your own directory, so moving them into Obsidian, VS Code, or a git repo takes zero export work.
• Search is instant across every note, every tag, and every attachment, with no "building index" spinner blocking you from thinking.
• Tagging happens as you type. Drop a #hashtag anywhere in a note and it shows up in the sidebar. No clicking through menus, no database fields to configure.
• The editor stays out of your way. Write, save, read, done. No ribbons, no "AI suggestions", no onboarding tour.
• Paste images straight from your clipboard and they get dropped next to the note as real files, not base64 blobs wedged into a JSON column.

Product Highlights

Writes and reads plain markdown files, period. If ElfHosted went away tomorrow (we won't), you'd still have a directory full of notes that every editor on the planet can open.

Full-text search powered by a proper index, with hashtag filtering and quick-access "recently modified" so the note you were just editing is always one click away.

Clean web UI that works on desktop and phone, with a dark theme for late-night scribbling and a distraction-free mode when you need to focus.

Image and file attachment support, with pasted screenshots landing as real files in your notes directory so you can back them up like everything else.

Keyboard shortcuts for everything that matters: new note, save, search, switch tabs. Once you learn four of them, you never touch the mouse again.

Technical Specifications

• 📝 Note Format: plain markdown (.md) files, stored as-is on disk
• 🗃️ Storage: no database required, notes live under /config/flatnotes on your ElfHosted volume
• 🔍 Search: full-text index with hashtag filtering and quick-access views
• 🖼️ Attachments: paste-to-upload images, first-class file support
• 🔐 Authentication: fronted by ElfHosted SSO, with optional app-level password or TOTP via ElfBot
• 📱 Compatibility: any modern browser, mobile or desktop
• 🧝 Magical Feature: gives you a folder of text files you can back up with a single rsync, which in 2026 counts as wizardry

Let ElfHosted Handle the Heavy Lifting for FlatNotes

• No Docker logs to tail, no config files to hand-edit. Spin it up from the ElfHosted store and it's online in under a minute, with SSO already wired in.
• Your notes directory is backed up on the same schedule as the rest of your ElfHosted config, so a clumsy delete is a rewind away.
• Updates to new FlatNotes releases roll out automatically in the background, so you get improvements without reading release notes at midnight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do my notes actually live?
As .md files on your ElfHosted storage, under the flatnotes folder in your config volume. You can browse, edit, or download the directory via FileBrowser at any time.

Can I edit notes outside the web UI?
Yes. Anything you edit via FileBrowser, WebDAV, or your own editor is picked up by FlatNotes on the next search or page load. There is no lock-in and no separate sync step.

Do I need a login for the app itself?
FlatNotes sits behind ElfHosted's single sign-on by default, so your ElfHosted account is the only login you need. If you want a second layer, you can turn on the built-in password or TOTP auth via ElfBot.

Is there a mobile app?
The web UI is mobile-friendly and installs as a PWA on iOS and Android, so you get a home-screen icon that behaves like a native app. You can also drop into the notes directory from any mobile markdown editor that speaks WebDAV.

What happens if I cancel my subscription?
You can download your full notes directory before the billing period ends. Because it's just .md files, there is nothing to migrate, just a folder to keep.

How does search handle large note collections?
The index is rebuilt incrementally on every save, so search stays instant even after thousands of notes. Heavy imports (say, a dumped Obsidian vault) get indexed in the background without blocking the UI.

FlatNotes is the notes app you pick when you want your words to outlive the tool you wrote them in. Plain files, fast search, and a UI that trusts you to know what you want to write.

Start a seven day free trial of FlatNotes on ElfHosted and see how much lighter a notes app can feel when it does one thing well.