Standard Notes is an encrypted, open-source note-taking application built on a simple premise: your notes are end-to-end encrypted and only you can read them. The company cannot see your content. Neither can anyone who breaches their servers. This guide covers how to set up Standard Notes, configure extensions, use sync across devices, and how it compares to popular alternatives like Obsidian and Notion.

Why Encrypted Notes Matter

Most popular note-taking apps store your data in plaintext on their servers. Notion, Evernote, Apple Notes (without Advanced Data Protection), and Google Keep all have technical access to your notes. This means:

Employees can potentially read your notes
A server breach exposes your content
Legal requests (subpoenas, warrants) can compel the company to hand over your notes

For personal journaling, health information, financial records, passwords, or anything professionally sensitive, this is a meaningful risk. End-to-end encryption means the encryption happens on your device before the data is transmitted. The server stores only ciphertext.

Standard Notes uses XSalsa20 and Poly1305 (via the libsodium library) for note encryption, with keys derived from your password using Argon2id. The protocol is documented publicly and has been audited. Notes are encrypted individually, so a key compromise affects only what was encrypted with that key.

Creating an Account

Go to standardnotes.com and create a free account. You need only an email address and a password.

Your password is your encryption key. If you forget it, your notes are unrecoverable — Standard Notes has no master key and no password reset that can decrypt your data. Use a long, unique passphrase generated by your password manager and store it safely.

During registration, Standard Notes generates a recovery code — a 64-character string that can regenerate your encryption keys if you need to log in on a new device but have forgotten your password. Store this in your password manager or a secure offline location. Treat it with the same care as your password.

Installing Standard Notes

Standard Notes has apps for:

Web: app.standardnotes.com (encrypted in transit; runs in your browser)
Desktop: Windows, macOS, Linux (Electron app; available as .deb, .rpm, AppImage, Flatpak, and Snap)
Mobile: iOS and Android (available on App Store and Google Play; also on F-Droid via the standard-notes-foss variant)

The Linux AppImage:

chmod +x standard-notes-*.AppImage
./standard-notes-*.AppImage

Or via Flatpak:

flatpak install flathub org.standardnotes.standardnotes

All clients are open source at github.com/standardnotes.

The Free Tier vs Paid Plan

Standard Notes has a generous free tier that includes:

Unlimited encrypted notes
Sync across all your devices
End-to-end encryption (always, on all plans)
Tag organization
Passcode lock and biometric lock on mobile

The paid plan (Productivity, around $90/year or $15/month) adds:

Extensions and editors (rich markdown, spreadsheet, code editor, task manager)
File attachments (encrypted file uploads)
Version history (restore previous versions of notes)
2FA support for your account
Encrypted backup to cloud storage

For most personal use, the free tier is sufficient. The paid plan is worthwhile if you want rich text editing, file attachments, or work primarily in markdown.

Writing Notes: Editors

Standard Notes’ default editor is a plain text editor — simple and fast. With a paid plan, you unlock additional editors:

Super — the flagship rich editor introduced in recent versions. It supports rich text formatting, markdown shortcuts, tables, checklists, images, and code blocks. It looks similar to Notion’s block editor.

Markdown Basic — a split-pane markdown editor with a live preview. The preview pane shows rendered markdown in real time.

Code Editor — syntax highlighting for code snippets, based on CodeMirror. Useful for storing configuration files or scripts.

Spreadsheet — a basic spreadsheet editor for tabular data.

Tasks — a dedicated checklist/task manager view.

All editors store content as encrypted notes. Switching editors on a note changes how the content is displayed, not the underlying storage.

Organizing with Tags and Notes

Standard Notes uses a flat structure with tags for organization. Unlike Notion’s nested pages or Obsidian’s folders and links, Standard Notes keeps it simple:

Tags can be applied to multiple notes; a note can have multiple tags
Nested tags are supported (in the paid plan): Work/Projects/Alpha creates a hierarchy
Smart views filter notes by tags, pin status, or other properties
Pin, archive, and trash manage note lifecycle

There are no folders in the traditional sense, but nested tags provide equivalent organization. If you’re migrating from a folder-based system, map your folder hierarchy to nested tags.

Sync and How It Works

Sync is automatic and real-time. Any change to a note is immediately encrypted on your device and synced to Standard Notes’ servers. On other logged-in devices, the change appears within seconds.

Conflict resolution: If you edit the same note on two devices simultaneously, Standard Notes creates a conflict copy — it never silently overwrites either version. You’ll see a note tagged (Conflicted Copy) and can merge the content manually.

Offline access: Notes are stored locally on each device. You can read and edit notes without an internet connection; changes sync when connectivity is restored.

Third-party storage options: Standard Notes offers integrations to automatically back up your encrypted notes to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or your own S3 bucket. These backups are encrypted — even if someone accesses your cloud storage, they see only ciphertext without your keys.

Configuring Encrypted Backups

In the desktop app, go to Settings → Backup and Data Export.

Local backups: Set a folder for automatic local backups. The app periodically writes an encrypted backup file to this location.

Cloud backups: Connect a cloud provider from the Backup section. Standard Notes uploads an encrypted export automatically.

For manual export: File → Export All → Encrypted creates a .zip file containing all your notes in encrypted form. Store this in a safe location as a disaster recovery archive.

Security Settings Worth Enabling

Passcode lock: On mobile, enable a separate app passcode (different from your device PIN) in Settings → Security → App Passcode. This ensures the app requires authentication even if your device is unlocked.

Biometric lock: Enable Touch ID / Face ID as a convenience unlock, with the passcode as fallback.

Automatic lock: Set the app to lock after 5 minutes of inactivity.

Two-factor authentication (paid): Enable TOTP-based 2FA in Settings → Account → Two-factor authentication. Add the QR code to Aegis (Android) or Raivo (iOS). This protects your account even if your password is compromised.

List app in notifications (disable): On mobile, go to your phone’s notification settings for Standard Notes and disable notification previews — you don’t want note content visible on the lock screen.

Standard Notes vs Obsidian vs Notion

Feature	Standard Notes	Obsidian	Notion
End-to-end encryption	Yes (all plans)	No (files stored locally)	No
Local storage	Yes	Yes (primary)	No (cloud-only)
Open source	Yes	Partial (app is proprietary)	No
Sync	Via Standard servers	iCloud, Obsidian Sync (paid), Syncthing	Native cloud
Rich editing	Paid plan	Yes (Markdown)	Excellent
Backlinks / graph view	No	Yes	Yes
File attachments	Paid plan	Yes (local)	Yes
Price	Free / $90/yr	Free / $10/mo sync	Free / $10/mo+
Best for	Encrypted private notes	Knowledge base, writing	Collaboration, wikis

Obsidian stores files as plain Markdown on your local filesystem, giving you full control without vendor lock-in. But it has no built-in encryption — if you want encrypted notes in Obsidian, you need to store your vault in a Cryptomator-encrypted folder. Obsidian is excellent for linked knowledge management and writing; Standard Notes is better for genuinely private notes.

Notion is a powerful productivity platform but entirely cloud-based with no encryption for your content. It’s appropriate for team wikis and project management, not for personal sensitive data.

Who Should Use Standard Notes

Standard Notes is the right choice when your primary requirement is that no one but you can read your notes — not the vendor, not their staff, not an attacker who breaches their servers. It’s ideal for:

Personal journaling with sensitive content
Health and medical notes
Legal and financial records
Research notes you don’t want indexed or exposed
Anything that falls under attorney-client privilege, therapy notes, or personal security planning

If your primary need is a powerful knowledge base with linking, graph views, and collaborative editing, Obsidian or Logseq serve those use cases better — just understand the privacy tradeoffs of each.

For private, portable, encrypted notes with reliable cross-device sync and an audited security model, Standard Notes remains one of the best tools available.