Product
What thousands of one star reviews taught me about notes apps
I gathered up the public complaints about sixteen notes and task apps. The top one is the app not working, and the one that grew the most is about getting into your own notes.
The Catchlight Journal
Notes on privacy, focus, and building software slowly.
Field notes from building a private notes app in the open, plus practical guides on capturing thoughts, protecting them, and getting more done with less friction.
Featured
Privacy
What happens to your notes when the app shuts down
One read-later app gave its users seventeen days to get their things out. Whether your notes survive a closure is settled long before the email arrives.
Comparisons
The best encrypted and secure notes apps (2026)
Every notes app here is encrypted. That word sorts nothing, so this is a roundup by the two things that do, who holds the key and who has checked the lock.
Product
How I actually use it
A link I haven't been back to, 10 thoughts on one page, and the thing I'm most looking forward to building.
Craft
You don't need a note taking system
Cornell, PARA, Zettelkasten. Each of them asks you to decide where a thought belongs at the exact moment you have it, and that's the one moment you can't possibly know.
Craft
Your phone is a casino, your notes app doesn't have to be
Infinite scroll and autoplay aren't accidents of design. They're how the app makes money, which raises an awkward question about every other app on your phone.
Privacy
What open source actually buys you in a notes app
Open source is on a lot of privacy pages and it doesn't mean free, it doesn't mean audited, and it doesn't mean safe. Here's the one thing it does mean, which happens to be the thing that matters.
Privacy
How iPhone locks a note, and what the lock leaves out
There's a lock in the Notes app and it's better than most people assume. The gap isn't the lock itself, it's everything sitting outside it.
Privacy
End-to-end, zero-knowledge and on-device aren't the same
Part three of the series. Three phrases turn up on almost every privacy page, and they get used as though they meant one thing. They answer three different questions, and the one in the biggest letters answers the smallest.
Privacy
Who holds the key, and why it's the whole game
Part two of the series. Every app can say your data is encrypted and mean it. The question that actually separates them is who kept a copy of the key.
Privacy
What encryption actually is, in plain words
Part one of a short series. The word "encrypted" is on everything now, so it's stopped meaning much. Here is how I actually think about it, no maths and no padlocks.
Privacy
Can Apple read your notes?
The short answer is yes, in most cases. Here's why, what "encrypted in iCloud" really means, and what to do if that bothers you.
Comparisons
The best private notes apps with no account (2026)
A roundup of note-taking apps you can use privately, some with no account at all, and how to tell real privacy from the marketing kind.
Privacy
The UK quietly lost Advanced Data Protection. Here's what it means for your notes
Apple pulled its strongest iCloud privacy setting for new UK users. Here's what it did, what changed, and how to keep your notes private now.
Privacy
What zero-knowledge actually means for your notes
Many claim their app is secure, but most of them don't mean what you assume. Here's a way to tell the difference in about 10 seconds.
Product
One Take. Why notes, tasks and reminders belong together
The three-app shuffle is a habit, not a rule. What changes when a single thing can be all three at once?
Privacy
Your notes shouldn't need an account
Sign-up walls are there to collect you, not to help you. A look at what "no account" is actually buying you.
Comparisons
Apple Notes is great, until it isn't
A look at where the default starts to creak, and who should probably just stay put.
Craft
The quiet case for offline-first
Why an app that works with no connection ends up faster, calmer, and more private almost by accident.
Craft
How I designed the Iris
The little mark on every Take carries more weight than it looks. Here's how it earned its place.
Privacy
A password manager for your thoughts
Twelve words, held only by you. What a Privacy phrase is, and why I refuse to call it a seed phrase.
Craft
Where the names came from
Catchlight and Obie aren't words I made up. I borrowed them from people who spent a century learning to light a human face, and there's a real person in one.
Craft
The story behind Catchlight
Why Catchlight exists, from a broken privacy promise to a name borrowed from old cinema.
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