Export your notes as Markdown - why every capture app should let you leave

Every notes and tasks app eventually faces the same question from its users: can I get my data out? The honest answer for many apps is “sort of”: a JSON dump you cannot read, a CSV that loses structure, or an export locked behind a paid plan.

Jot’s answer is a folder of Markdown files. Every current note and todo, readable in any text editor, forever, whether or not Jot still exists.

What the export does

From Settings, choose a folder. Jot creates a new Jot export YYYY-MM-DD folder inside it, with a Notes folder and a Todos folder, and writes one Markdown file per capture, named with its date and title, plus a short README:

• Plain text you can open in Notepad, VS Code, Obsidian or anything else.
• One file per item, so other tools can link, move and search them individually.
• No proprietary format and no account needed.

The database stays the source of truth inside Jot; the export is a copy you own outright.

Why Markdown

Markdown is plain text with light conventions for headings, lists and emphasis. It has three properties that matter for an export:

1. Human-readable without any app.
2. Widely supported: notes apps, wikis, static site generators, editors.
3. Durable: a text file from 1995 still opens today.

A database file is better for an app to work with. A Markdown file is better for a person ten years from now.

Good uses for the export

• Moving to a notes app. Obsidian, Logseq and others read a folder of Markdown directly.
• Archiving. Export at the end of a year or project and put the folder somewhere safe.
• Searching with other tools. Windows search, grep, VS Code’s search, whatever you prefer.
• Peace of mind before a reinstall. The Microsoft Store build keeps its data in the app’s own storage, which uninstalling removes. Export first.

Why this matters more than features

Local-first software makes a promise: your data is yours. That promise is only real if you can take the data and leave. Lock-in through an unreadable format is just a slower version of a cloud service shutting down.

The local-first software essay from Ink & Switch puts it well: data ownership includes the ability to access your data without the original software. A readable export is the minimum.

Other ways to get at your data

• Daily backups: Jot keeps a week of daily local backups of the database. See backups that are just files.
• The database itself: it is SQLite, which you can query directly. See read your own database.

Things the export does not do

• It is a snapshot, not a live sync. Each export goes into a new dated folder, so a later export never overwrites a copy you may have edited.
• It does not import back. Jot is not trying to be a Markdown editor.
• It includes current items, not deleted ones.

Jot is on the Microsoft Store, and the Markdown export is part of the free tier, because a way out should never be a paid feature.

Jot is a quick-capture app for Windows: one hotkey, one line, back to what you were doing. What it is, or what is still unproven.