Otium
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Plain notes. Native speed.

Otium is a fast, native note app for the Mac. Your notes are plain Markdown files that render as you write, every note is a few keys away, and vim is there if you want it.

Download for Mac
$ brew install --cask otium

Free. The whole app.

A live demo: each key shown at the bottom right is applied to the note, with a short turn in Vim Mode at the end.

Write, read and find, all from the keyboard.

A note app that renders as you write, reads like a page, splits like an editor and finds anything in a few keys. Written once in a Rust core, drawn natively on the Mac.

  • Live preview

    Headings, checkboxes, links, tables and Mermaid diagrams render in place. Only the line you are on shows its Markdown.

  • Reading mode

    ⇧⌘R

    One key puts the rendered page where the editor was. Press Esc and you are writing again where you stopped reading.

  • Splits and panes

    Split, move, swap and resize panes, by keys or by dragging. The pane with the keys is always outlined.

  • Find anything

    ⌘P

    Open any note in a few letters, search every line of every note with a preview, replace across notes, jump by outline.

  • Links and tags

    Wiki links and tags complete as you type. References show what links here, and links follow a note when it moves.

  • Plain files, your vaults

    Every note is a Markdown file in a folder you own. Keep several vaults; a git project can be one. No lock-in.

  • Focus and export

    ⇧⌘⏎

    Clear the screen to write, pick any font and line width, then export a note as PDF or HTML, or print it.

  • Vim, if you want it

    ⇧⌘J

    A full engine: motions, text objects, registers, macros, :s. Turn it off and Otium is a plain Mac editor.

Ten thousand notes in under a second.

The scan, the parser and the index run in Rust. On a new vault, a new Mac or a cleared cache, every note is read, parsed and linked in under a second.

Cold start: every note read and parsed

0.754s

28× faster than Obsidian

Warm start: every note known

0.164s

6× faster than Obsidian

10,000 notes, 40 folders, 39 MB on an Apple M1 Pro. Fastest of three runs each, same machine, same files. Otium times the core alone; Obsidian includes its window. Real vaults will move both numbers.

Your notes, without opening the app.

Otium is a first-class source in Look, the launcher. Every note is a searchable row with a preview and actions, updated the moment you save.

  • note invoiceOnly notes matching invoice, with a live preview
  • nn buy milkA new note on disk. Otium does not even need to be running
  • todayOpens or creates today's daily note
  • ⏎ on a noteOtium comes forward, cursor where you left it

Bring your colorscheme.

Five themes, each with its own Dock icon. Pick one and this page switches with it, the way the app does.

The app is free. All of it.

Every editing feature stays free. Later, if you want your notes on several devices without managing sync yourself, Otium Sync will handle it.

Free

Now
  • The whole app, every editing feature
  • Multiple vaults
  • Sync it yourself with iCloud, Dropbox or git

Otium Sync

Later
  • Sync through Otium's servers
  • Version history and restore
  • Notes stay plain files on every device

Start writing in plain Markdown.

For macOS. From the Mac App Store or Homebrew.

Mac App Store
$ brew install --cask otium