Apple Notes Migration Deep Dive

Overview

Migrating to or from Apple Notes requires understanding that Notes stores content as proprietary HTML with no REST API for bulk operations. All automation goes through JXA/osascript on a local Mac. This guide covers the four most common migration paths with production-tested scripts. Key challenges include: HTML-to-Markdown conversion fidelity, attachment extraction limitations (JXA cannot export binary attachment data directly), and iCloud sync delays that affect timing of bulk imports.

Prerequisites

• Written scope, migration owner, encrypted backup, rollback decision, and retention policy for both source and destination.
• A synthetic pilot corpus that includes formatting and attachment edge cases but contains no production data.
• A durable manifest keyed by source identifier and a target environment/folder that has been explicitly approved.

Instructions

1. Run export, conversion, and import as separate, inspectable phases; do not stream unreviewed note bodies into a destination.
2. Sanitize HTML/Markdown and filenames, encrypt intermediate artifacts, and keep content out of shell arguments and logs.
3. Pilot a small batch, reconcile source and destination manifests, then obtain owner approval before each larger batch.
4. Make imports idempotent and stop on a timeout, conflict, or attachment-fidelity gap; do not retry blindly.

Migration Paths

From	To	Method	Attachments
Apple Notes	Obsidian	JXA export HTML → convert to Markdown → vault	Manual via Shortcuts
Apple Notes	Notion	JXA export JSON → Notion API import	Re-upload required
Obsidian	Apple Notes	Read .md → convert to HTML → JXA create	Not supported via JXA
Evernote	Apple Notes	File > Import from Evernote (built-in)	Preserved automatically
OneNote	Apple Notes	Export to .enex → Import from Evernote	Partial preservation

Step 1: Pre-Migration Backup

#!/bin/bash
# Always back up before migration
BACKUP_DIR="$HOME/notes-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)"
mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"
osascript -l JavaScript -e '
  const Notes = Application("Notes");
  const data = Notes.defaultAccount.notes().map(n => ({
    id: n.id(), title: n.name(), body: n.body(),
    folder: n.container().name(),
    created: n.creationDate().toISOString(),
    modified: n.modificationDate().toISOString(),
    attachments: n.attachments().length
  }));
  JSON.stringify(data, null, 2);
' > "$BACKUP_DIR/full-export.json"
echo "Backed up $(jq length "$BACKUP_DIR/full-export.json") notes to $BACKUP_DIR"

Step 2: Apple Notes to Obsidian

#!/bin/bash
VAULT_DIR="$HOME/obsidian-vault/Apple Notes Import"
mkdir -p "$VAULT_DIR"

osascript -l JavaScript -e '
  const Notes = Application("Notes");
  Notes.defaultAccount.notes().map(n => JSON.stringify({
    title: n.name(), body: n.body(),
    folder: n.container().name(),
    created: n.creationDate().toISOString(),
  })).join("\n===NOTESEP===\n");
' | while IFS= read -r line; do
  [ "$line" = "===NOTESEP===" ] && continue
  title=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.title' 2>/dev/null) || continue
  body=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.body' 2>/dev/null)
  folder=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.folder' 2>/dev/null)
  created=$(echo "$line" | jq -r '.created' 2>/dev/null)

  # Convert Apple Notes HTML to Markdown
  md=$(echo "$body" | sed 's/<h1>/# /g; s/<\/h1>//g; s/<h2>/## /g; s/<\/h2>//g' \
    | sed 's/<li class="done">/- [x] /g; s/<li>/- /g; s/<\/li>//g' \
    | sed 's/<br[^>]*>/\n/g; s/<[^>]*>//g' | sed '/^$/N;/^\n$/d')

  safe_title=$(echo "$title" | tr '/:*?"<>|' '-' | head -c 80)
  mkdir -p "$VAULT_DIR/$folder"
  printf "---\ncreated: %s\nsource: apple-notes\n---\n\n%s\n" "$created" "$md" \
    > "$VAULT_DIR/$folder/$safe_title.md"
done
echo "Migration complete: $(find "$VAULT_DIR" -name '*.md' | wc -l) files in $VAULT_DIR"

Step 3: Obsidian to Apple Notes

#!/bin/bash
# Import Markdown files into Apple Notes
VAULT_DIR="${1:-$HOME/obsidian-vault}"
COUNT=0
find "$VAULT_DIR" -name '*.md' -type f | while read -r md_file; do
  title=$(head -20 "$md_file" | grep -m1 '^# ' | sed 's/^# //')
  [ -z "$title" ] && title=$(basename "$md_file" .md)
  # Convert Markdown to Apple Notes HTML
  body=$(cat "$md_file" | sed 's/^# \(.*\)/<h1>\1<\/h1>/; s/^## \(.*\)/<h2>\1<\/h2>/' \
    | sed 's/\*\*\([^*]*\)\*\*/<b>\1<\/b>/g; s/\*\([^*]*\)\*/<i>\1<\/i>/g' \
    | sed 's/$/<br>/g' | tr -d '\n')
  osascript -l JavaScript -e "
    const Notes = Application('Notes');
    const note = Notes.Note({name: '$title', body: '$body'});
    Notes.defaultAccount.folders[0].notes.push(note);
  "
  COUNT=$((COUNT + 1))
  sleep 1  # Throttle for iCloud sync
done
echo "Imported $COUNT notes"

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Notes missing after import	iCloud sync delay	Wait 5-10 minutes; check on another device
HTML formatting garbled	Unsupported HTML tags in source	Pre-clean HTML; strip to Apple Notes subset only
Special characters in title	Shell escaping issues with JXA	Use JSON encoding; pipe through jq
Attachments not migrated	JXA cannot write binary attachments	Use Shortcuts "Add Attachment to Note" action
Duplicate notes after re-run	No dedup in import script	Track imported note IDs in a local manifest file

Output

A migration produces a protected source receipt, conversion exception report, destination manifest, reconciliation result, and rollback decision. The routine receipt uses opaque identifiers and counts; note titles, bodies, and attachment names remain in controlled artifacts only.

Examples

Migrate a five-note synthetic pilot into a dedicated test folder, compare every manifest key and expected formatting exception, then delete the pilot destination under the test policy. For a production migration, move in bounded approved batches and pause immediately if the reconciliation count or attachment handling differs from the signed plan.

Resources

• Mac Automation Scripting Guide
• Obsidian URI Protocol
• Notion Import API

Next Steps

For data format details and HTML conversion, see apple-notes-data-handling. For macOS version compatibility during migration, see apple-notes-upgrade-migration.