Export From the Notes App Using a Script
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- macmost.com/e-... In Mac Notes you can only export one note at a time as a PDF file. With the help of a script, you can quickly and easily export all of your notes to html files as a backup or archive. You can also save notes this way to clear out your Notes app.
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This video was extremely helpful! Thank you!
I used the following code to add the creation date of the note as the first line of the HTML file before the body of the note.
app.write(notes[i].creationDate().toString(), {to: file});
app.write(notes[i].body(), {to: file});
I'm sure folks could do something similar to put the creation date in the file name.
This video should be on top when I search from "exporting notes on mac". You are brillant, thank you so much, theres no other tutorial in youtube like this I believe.
This is awesome. I made a couple of simple modifications to not ask the user anything, and this script gets called in the background every once in a while from my launch daemon, and all notes are backed up to a particular folder in dropbox regularly without any interruption/action from me. Since I also use time machine, this means that I can easily go back in time to see versions of every note without being restricted by the free dropbox account time limits or whatever. Thank you for doing this!
can you share your script please?
Thanks for the video. Would like to see more of these scripting tutorials for Mac apps
Ho my! This is gold. Thank you for the effort to explain so elaborately.
Thank you man! I opened my notes after updating the latest round and ALL of them were gone. I finally found a local-only copy on my Mac and wanted to export to get out of Apple's WACK notes app. Worked like a charm on M1.
Hi! Thanks for this, been searching for a way to do this to my 3,000+ notes for years! Wondering if there is a way the code can be tweaked to also export date & time data for each file?
I want to know this too -- have you found anything that can do this?
This is GREAT. Thank you for sharing.
How sad that this is even necessary; it should be a basic feature of Apple Notes to export a batch of notes to PDF, text, or HTML. Thanks for this.
AFAI'm concerned this is another of Apple's strategic measures to lock you into their ecosystem by specifically denying you any means to move your data to another platform, for instance to Simplenote, which is fully cross platform. I'm the peculiar variant of Macs + Android phone, so I can never have the Mac-to-iOS seamless experience. It's kind of predatory but I certainly get it, how Apple protects its value proposition by maintaining its walled garden.
@macmostvideo I'm getting an error saying the following:
Script Error:
Error on line 26: Error: File wasn't found.
Please help. Thank you.
A+ explanation, thank you.
Gary, Thank you for videos! You are so much help during this difficult time. Can you tell me the best way to send a fax on a Mac or any Apple device? I don’t have a landline. I appreciate your help.
Use the site faxzero.com
This is very cool, Thank you!! btw, can the script save each note into .pdf?
THANK YOU THANK YOU. You are The Macfather :)
Gary, This is great. Are there any updates to this with Ventura? I saw that your drawings came through. Will this include all attachments and links as well? Appreciate all you do. You are truly an encyclopedia of useful Mac / Apple information. Have a great weekend!
Today I would just use the Export as PDF function in Notes to do this. Only if you need to bulk export maybe as a backup would I do something like this.
I have got in the habit of using the convenience of accessing Notes App availability on lower right corner of my iPad. It is handy if I have a topic I often think about I can open the app and create a note which could be a few sentences or it could be several pages. It’s handy as I can gather them all in a folder.
Well, I have been doing this on a specific topic that I now want to bring into a document to fine tune them and send to a professional to review the content.
Is copying one at a time the only way for my purposes, meaning to turn some of them into a document like a google doc or I considered a pages document. Something where I can send them where they look good to read.
Maybe I should be not using notes for that purpose.
I would welcome any thoughts on how to capture my thoughts as described and then later take some of those and create perhaps one typical document.
Charlie
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!
Thanks! this is just what I'm looking for. Why not open a github repo or organization.
You can automatically make the names safe filenames with more code:
var notename = notes[i].name();
var safefilename = notename.replace(/[^a-z0-9]/gi, '_').toLowerCase();
var filename = saveWhere+"/"+safefilename+".html";
Thank you.
Thanks a lot for this! Is there any way to keep the folder organization of the Notes app? I.e., to export all notes from each folder into separate new folders containing the htmls?
Perhaps with a lot more work. I don't know if you have any coding experience so it could be difficult.
@@macmost Thanks a lot for the prompt reply. I have no coding experience... Unfortunately...
Very useful! Could you share your script, please 🙏
It is on this post at the site. macmost.com/export-all-of-the-notes-on-your-mac-using-a-script.html
@@macmost Looks like that code has some missing lines.... got error. Copied the differences by viewing the video.. but then got a "Error -10000: AppleEvent handler failed."
@@ajimenez251 It works, exactly as-is. Are you sure you are using JavaScript, not AppleScript? Do you have any Notes with odd characters in the titles?
@@macmost I did choose JavaScript. I cut and pasted the code from the site and the for loop line was missing part of the code: "for(var i=0; i -1) {" instead of "for(var i=0; i
@@ajimenez251 I fixed that. Web browsers were treating the < like html code. Copy and paste should work now. In fact I just tried it (new document in Script Editor, copy and pasted right from the page). When you run it in Script Editor does it give you any more information, like a line number or more details.
Hello Gary, I am trying to automate this process and I used much of the same code but instead of choosing a folder, I set a predetermined folder and required the program to pull all files from notes. However, I keep getting an error message that the folder is not found although I copied the path and pasted it. Any tips?
Very helpful video, thank you! How would you save notes organized in folders?
Not sure if there is a good way. Experiment and see what you can do.
Tried it and it didn't work. I changed to Javascript and ran it. It gave the message: Error: Error: AppleEvent handler failed.
Same for me also
Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful method. I only cannot make it out how to cope with notes in Russian: they convert as ????? (text inside the note is all question marks). Even if I paste them into decoders it doesn't help. Maybe someone knows how to fix the encoding?
It always ends with undefined, I am wondering if that is normal. Also, how do you export picture, since I have several scanned documents I would like to export. THANK you!!
legendary !!! wow.
sorry why it say error The document “exporter note.scpt” could not be saved. (Error -1,752)
Hi Gary!
Thank you very much for this great video. I have two questions if it's OK:
1. I have notes in Hebrew and it changes the Hebrew characters to ?, is there a way to handle it?
2. I’m familiar with programing but not with javascript, if I want that the date of creation would be added to the exported note, where and how should I add the line “creationDate”?
Thanks a lot!
WHAT A NIGHTMARE!! WHO THE HELL HAS TO DO ALL THIS WORK WITHOUT ANY MISTAKE?
Using a script like this isn't for everyone. Note that in the current version of macOS you can just use File, Export as PDF.
Hi there, is this valid as of today on Monterey, and the upcoming Ventura. Thanks.
Should be usable, but at some point since I made this video you can now just export as a PDF from the File menu. Use that instead.
@@macmost Can’t do multiple files with that though. Need to regularly back up.
Hi Gary. It’s been 3 years since you posted this video. Is it currently possible to easily export data from either the Notes app or the Reminders app to a third-party app? Thank you.
From Notes today you can now simply export as PDF or to Pages. From Reminders, not sure what you are looking for, but you can print to PDF or copy and paste. Exporting from Reminders doesn't make sense in the same way though.
@@macmost Thanks. Apparently I have outgrown the Reminders app. It is recommended that you do not exceed 1 GB of data in the reminders app. I have already far exceeded that. I use it quite often for work and personal use. Therefore, I am considering exporting its data to a reminder app that can handle more data. But the app needs to be one that allows attached images. I would prefer it to be one that’s compatible with Siri as well.
I’m missing something. Is there a way to export 1,900 notes to individual pdfs?
Thanks
"…more modern programming language…"
You realize, don't you, that AppleScript AND JavaScript were BOTH inspired by the HyperTalk language in the HyperCard application to assign custom actions to buttons and page changes.
JavaScript is in no way "more modern," it just looks more like a typical programming language than AppleScript does.
indeed. Though E6 is not the same as JS was in those days. I think he just means it is more commonly used and apple didn't support it for automator tasks until recently?
Can you do this with any app that uses an .sqlite database? For example the application Sidenotes holds the notes in an .sqlite databse. How do we export those bad boys?
The dev of the app told me that it's doable but did not give me any instructions on how to do so lol.
Exported the text of my notes nicely, but didn't export any of the video attachments unfortunately. Is that possible?
The current version of Notes has an export as PDF. Try that.
Gary: 2022, June. I want to use your script but all the notes start with an image-character. I used a paid pdf-to-word web program and some funny set of chars appears in the filename (on Ubuntu) and the chars look fine in the Word doc. I dont know if one could scrip that out of the mac though. Just want to tell you that the CHARS are not a problem.
Taking each file individually out of Note and (the enormous difficulty) of keeping track of which files have been exported and which have not -- This is a challenge.
iOS 15 has made improvements in NOTES that made it possible to move SET OF FILES to a new folder in NOTES. there are say 9000 files so I will do that to make keeping track of hundreds of notes files a bit more reliable.
I looked for an email to you in the macmost site but didnt see any authors attribution for the article even.
It would be swell to do this with a script. Hey I was willing to be a javascript novice for this problem. Cant be that different from any other language and I do have a friend to check for details.
-- email for you?
Gary, I'm getting 2 errors from the code I copy & pasted I hope this is ok, but I'm not able to move forward, Error on line 9: Error: List is empty and Error -50: Parameter error I working on MAC. I take it this works even if they are in the trash folder, but not that long a few days.
Probably something to do with the name of your note or something else about it. The trash may have something to do with it. Try different things. Also, note that today (2022) you can simply use File, Export as PDF.
Thank you, if I find the notes location and copy all of it including the attachments, can I return it all by pasting them back to my original mac folder?
Doubtful it would be that easy. But try it and see.
@@macmost Will do! Can you make a code to export all of the notes as multi pdf? Not just one by one?
Thanks again
@@Magnificent1393 Not sure. It would take a lot more work.
OSX10.13.3 I have over 4000 notes. I want to export them all to individual PDFs. The loop would be: select note > Export as PDF > click Save. Select the next note down. Repeat.
Sorry, thought I already responded to this. No way to do it in bulk other than select them all and export as a single big pdf. Why do you have 4000 notes?
@@macmost Apple only allows a single note at a time to be exported as a PDF. I have 4000+ from saving every password to everything, including Newton, from 1993.
Is there a way to use this mail? I want to create a pdf for each of my flagged or tagged mails, then delete them.
You don't need a script for that. Just select all of the email messages you want to export, and choose File, Export as PDF.
@macmostvideo How do we export with date/time created at start of file name so the files are easily sortable. (I have hundreds or thousands of notes, because, well, they're notes! I never thought to title them.... I've used notes like long post it notes & I've never titled a post it note. :D
Not sure if it is possible, but look through the documentation in Script Editor and see what properties you can grab to use for a different file name with the date or time.
Is there a way to export attachments as well?
Not using a script. You can just drag-and-drop if you need to export an attachment.
How can I modify to export to pdf? Thanks in advance!
In the current version of the Notes app that is just a regular option in the File menu. No need for a script at all.
Your Java script exports all notes. The Export as pdf only exports the first selected note, even if all notes are selected.
@@JayGalvin8888 Yes, only one at a time. There is no way to export as a PDF using JavaScript.
Hello. Thanks for script, good job ! How to export notes on UTF8 mode ? It's for special caracters (é, è, ...).
Not sure if you can. Play around with it. And remember you can always use the Export function in Notes to save as a PDF too.
macmostvideo 300 notes to export 😆
Export should be possible as an .note !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! => Finder is ideal to halt EVERYTHING
Thanks Gary, I followed along the presentation but in terms of replicating it, it's pretty much beyond my pay grade. I just don't have that expertise. My objective is to export Apple Notes, and then be able to import that file into Simplenotes.
Reason? I use Android phones and there's no Apple Notes client for Android. (Yes I can SEE my notes via icloud.com, but I can't create notes using Android and have them show up on my Mac in the Mac-to-iphone seamless way.)
Hi Gary, Great video ! I copied the code and added the "var notes = notesApp.accounts.byName('iCloud').notes;" for my emojies... Unfortunately I'm getting this message Error -1700: Can't convert types. Do you know what I'm doing wrong here ? Thanks !
Hard to say. You've got to debug it and try things.
@@macmost thanks Gary :)