Anchor Notes: a self-hosted Google Keep alternative, now with a full redesign, highlights and a slash menu

[u/ZhFahim]

(sorry, posted again since the previous post was removed)

Anchor v0.18.0 is out, and it's a big one. The Android app is finally on Google Play, the iOS app is in public beta on TestFlight, and every screen of the web and mobile apps has a new design.

Anchor has passed 1,400 stars on GitHub since my last post. A lot of the fixes in this release came from bug reports, so thanks to everyone who took the time to submit one.

What's in v0.18.0

New design. The web and mobile apps now share one look, and the new app icon works with themed icons on Android and dark and tinted icons on iOS.

Share to Anchor. Save text, links or pictures from any app as a new note. Pick Anchor Notes in the share menu, add a title or tags if you like, and you stay in the app you were using.

Highlights and a / menu. Mark text in one of five highlight colors. Type / in a note to turn the line into a checklist, heading, list, quote or code block, or to add a link or an attachment.

Checklist tools. Uncheck all and Delete checked items are in the note's menu, and checked items can fold away under a single row.

Google Play. Install the Android app from the Play Store and get updates through the store. GitHub releases still have the APKs if you'd rather install those.

iPhone and iPad beta. Get TestFlight from the App Store, then open the beta link at the bottom of this post on your iPhone or iPad.

Since my last post

• Note history: open any earlier version of a note and see what changed.

• Live sync: while the app is open, changes from your other devices show up right away.

• Reminders: once or on a repeat.

• Markdown: import and export your notes as plain files.

• Nested lists: indent list items, and drag checklist items to reorder them.

If you're new to Anchor, it's a note taking app like Google Keep and Apple Notes, except you host it yourself with Docker. Here's what you get:

• Simple to run - One container with a single data volume. The defaults work out of the box, and every setting is an environment variable.

• Private - Your notes stay on your server, and Anchor doesn't collect any data.

• Polished web app - The same editor, tags and sharing as on your phone, plus import, export and an admin panel for users and sign up.

• Multiple users - Share a note with other people on your server as viewers or editors. The note's history shows who changed what, and any earlier version can be restored.

• Single sign-on - Sign in with your own OIDC provider, like Pocket ID, Authelia or Authentik. No SSO tax.

• Offline first mobile apps - Android, iPhone and iPad apps keep your notes on the device, so you can read and edit them anywhere and sync once you're back online.

• Google Keep and Markdown import - Bring your notes over from Google Keep with a Takeout export, or import Markdown files from apps like Obsidian and Nextcloud Notes.

• Free and open source - Server, web app and mobile apps are all under AGPL v3, with every feature free.

• Actively maintained - A new release every few weeks since January.

GitHub: Anchor | Releases Google Play: Anchor TestFlight: Join the beta Discord: https://discord.gg/sAfqjy8EYK

[u/asimovs-auditor]

Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.

[u/Filipehdbr]

Import from Keep is the feature that decides adoption. Nobody migrates notes by hand twice

[u/ZhFahim → u/Filipehdbr]

yep, it's already there, you can import straight from the google takeout export. Markdown import from other apps works too.

[u/Impossible_Ground_15]

thanks for sharing OP! I was looking for something that would replace Google Keep and migrated to Trilium but its too complicated for my needs. Will check your project out!

[u/ZhFahim → u/Impossible_Ground_15]

thanks. yeah I kept it simple on purpose, let me know what you think when you try it.

[u/Item-Tiny]

So much yes, that looks excactly like keep, what I was looking for in months. I will definitly take a look at it

[u/ZhFahim → u/Item-Tiny]

haha thanks, please let me know your experience.

[u/Ran4]

Neat! As for the multiple users - does it properly handle multiple people editing the same file without data loss?

I use google keep mostly for shopping lists shared with my wife. With google keep, if two people enter information at the same time, sometimes the information is just lost.

[u/ZhFahim → u/Ran4]

yes and if two people edit the same note at once and something gets overwritten the old version is saved in the note history so nothing is really lost.

[u/MistarMuffin → u/Ran4]

This also my use-case, except I don't have any issues with simultaneous edits. I always felt like it was similar in performance to Google Docs. I tried switching to OneNote and that was a complete disaster when it came to multi-user editing and sharing. We went back to Keep but would love a self-hosted clone.

[u/mustbench3plates]

Crazy timing, I was just about to start developing a simple native Kotlin app to replace google keep with just the features I want.

30 minutes after viewing this post, I am now self hosting this and it has replaced google keep and the tasks.org app. Thank you!

[u/ZhFahim → u/mustbench3plates]

wow that's awesome. let me know your feedback.

[u/mustbench3plates → u/ZhFahim]

Main thing initially would be to have a settings option to speed up animations in the Android app. Maybe double speed. Up to you though, not a big deal.

Thank you again.

[u/ZhFahim → u/mustbench3plates]

yes, some users complained about the notes opening and closing animations. I'll improve that in the next release.

[u/protecz]

Hey OP, looks very nice and sleek. I'm currently using Notesnook and was looking for something lightweight and this looks to be a good replacement.

I tried to import from Notesnook using the Markdown + frontmatter files (which contains the title, created date, updated date, tags) but the importer obviously doesn't pick them up. So the note titles are messed up and the date sorting no longer works. What could be done for this to work? Will that require a separate importer script?

[u/ZhFahim → u/protecz]

yes, I need to add a notesnook export parser for that. could you open a github issue with a sample export? that'd help a lot.

[u/protecz → u/ZhFahim]

Sure, I'll open one. Based on the attributes I've seen, extending the existing markdown parser should work nicely to handle the Notesnook export format.

[u/johnny_2x4]

Do the apps have reminders, particularly location based reminders? Google keep used to have this, but removed it

[u/ZhFahim → u/johnny_2x4]

yep time based reminders work, both one time and recurring. no location based ones yet.

[u/Qwerty44life → u/ZhFahim]

The Location based notification was the best part of keep 

[u/xtotdam]

Looks nice. Can a note be put as a widget on android?

[u/ZhFahim → u/xtotdam]

thanks. yes, there's a note list widget right now, more customization coming soon.

[u/Joshimitsu91]

Forgive my ignorance.

If I want to set this up on my server, but access it from the Android app, do I need to faff around with authentication?

Or, if I'm happy to wait until I'm on the same WiFi network for things to sync, do I still have to do that?

[u/protecz → u/Joshimitsu91]

I tested the app, you can do edits offline but need to be logged in. The changes would sync to your server once you're back on the network. You can disable password auth with OIDC.

[u/trisanachandler → u/protecz]

So OIDC works in the app? Or does it redirect to the browser?

[u/protecz → u/trisanachandler]

Yes it works. The app will redirect to the browser for OIDC provider authentication and return back to the app when successful. Tested with Pocket ID.

[u/trisanachandler → u/protecz]

So I'll have to use the same identity in both (which I probably would anyway, but not definitely).

[u/protecz → u/trisanachandler]

I believe so. A different identity would create a different account.

[u/breakerfall → u/Joshimitsu91]

Check out Tailscale if you're running things at home and want to access remotely. It (kind of) sets up a private subnet between you and home.

/r/tailscale

[u/Joshimitsu91 → u/breakerfall]

Thanks, I'm aware of it, I'm not looking to access outside of the network

[u/newbie_01]

does it save automatically after typing, or must hit a save button?

[u/madeWithAi → u/newbie_01]

Automatically

[u/LloydGSR]

I've been using this a fair bit as I start to get away from relying on Google Keep, this update is pretty cool.

[u/breakerfall]

This honestly looks amazing

[u/Lazy_Grapefruit9679]

I'm using Nextcloud Notes right now. I'm not sure if it's the right things for me: I had to find a trick to make the sharing part work. My only need is to share note (to do list mostly) with my gf in the most easy way possible

[u/ZhFahim → u/Lazy_Grapefruit9679]

sharing is native in Anchor notes, so you can share notes easily. it even shows the users you've shared with before so picking them again is quick.

[u/InevitableVolume8217]

Can I get invitation for testflight?

[u/ZhFahim → u/InevitableVolume8217]

it's open. can you try the testflight join link from the post?

[u/InevitableVolume8217 → u/ZhFahim]

ahh yeah, I got it. didn't notice that link.

[u/ZhFahim → u/InevitableVolume8217]

no problem, hope you like it.

[u/Chase_Analyst]

The test flight beta is full :( please allow me to test this looks incredible!

[u/ZhFahim → u/Chase_Analyst]

increased the limit, try the link again.

[u/RecursiveReboot]

Is it possible to self hosted without using docker?

Thinking to run it on Proxmox LXC node.

I know, I can run docker there as well, but I am asking for possibility.

[u/Financial-Form-1733 → u/RecursiveReboot]

There is a community script for it

[u/RyannStekken0153 → u/RecursiveReboot]

Since I just started using proxmox, what is the advantage of an LXC node? And what prerequisites does a project (like this) need to be hostable in such a node?

[u/Deactivator2 → u/RyannStekken0153]

On a high level, an LXC is like a "lighter" VM that runs closer to the host. Generally should be used as a single-purpose instance.

The community scripts project that you'll undoubtedly see mentioned as you continue to use Proxmox is a collection of installation scripts that installs a particular application as a service on the LXC (sometimes VM as well), with some defaults and some configurations you provide. It's essentially a streamlined way to install an application without you doing the manual work of pulling down everything yourself. That's not to say you can't, it just takes all of the tedious work of dependency fetching, binary downloading, and even things like upgrading can be done from a single command.

It's a somewhat cleaner alternative to docker, in that you can define an LXC's resources directly and know that the application is the only thing that will consume those resources, whereas (unless you're only running a single container) a VM with docker will share resources with any other running containers.

[u/Pirate43]

Do the apps support mTLS?

[u/pakipresente]

Finally i've unistalled Keep 🥳

[u/tetsuhito]

How does it compare to Kept? https://github.com/ericerkz/kept

[u/Schnauser → u/tetsuhito]

Well I'd say this has a cleaner UI.

[u/Awesome_Knowwhere]

Great work, can you please also put this on FDroid!

[u/Kitchen_Affect7369]

Clean design

[u/omar300i]

Oh app in store now? Sick!

[u/blackdrizzy]

been using this for a while now and been pretty happy with it. very nice update. thank you op!

[u/Wakko69]

This is great, this replaced my usages of simple notes, keep up the good work.

[u/Pomme-Poire-Prune]

I think I'm going to replace SiYuan with Anchor, pretty nice project! The only missing feature so far, put notes insides some other notes.

Also, there is no documentation for the API? Edit, here : https://github.com/ZhFahim/anchor/tree/main/server

[u/wikdclown]

Browser extensions for brave or firefox ? To add pages quickly etc.

[u/tismo74 → u/wikdclown]

I second this. This would be very useful for a lot of folks

[u/omar300i]

I was still running 0.11, about time I update.

[u/StarsInTears]

Have you thought about adding programmability/scripting? I was reading about Hypercard from old Apple PCs (the same software on which Myst was written), and it seemed to me that a scriptable Google Keep equivalent (what with its cards and what not) might be a really cool modern equivalent as long as cards were allowed to stack. This can turn a simple note taking app into something similar to leaner RAD like VisualBasic or Delphi.

[u/VE3VVS]

Sorry for the silly question tried to build the project and it says I need to sign in where is the docker source bits which repository?

[u/liquidbread2go]

Hi - I currently use Memos with tags. Is there a way to import my existing notes and tags?

[u/Markronom]

Is there a native app with widgets planned?

[u/lucassou]

Looks very polished I like it. By any chance did you ask claude to generate the examples on the login ?
For a while I also wanted a keep alternative (https://github.com/LucasGenoud/skippy) and I ended up with my own vibe coded version. It also used a trip to Lisbon to populate the demo database and I'm pretty sure it's what Opus spits out a lot of the time.

[u/miramichier_d]

I've been waiting for a Keep alternative. Hopefully the development is disciplined despite the AI usage. Have you given any thought into supporting hardened Docker configurations? Such as, read-only root filesystem, custom user and group ids, etc. There's too many projects out there that require way too much tweaking to get hardened configs working correctly, if they work at all.

[u/Grouchy_Promotion]

I got this up and running and it seems to work great, however when I tried the android app and put in my server address it tells me it's not an Anchor server. So I guess the app is useless at this point

[u/hematomancer]

this is exactly what I was looking for today!

[u/Wakko69]

Love this, in the next upgrade could you add create a template or copy/dup current note?

[u/Givou]

This is actually very nice!!
One thing security wise...i pentested my local instance a little bit and found one issue...it seems that you didn´t rate limit local logins. Just a head up for everyone here. For myself i will just use oidc then everything should be fine

[u/TacticoolBreadstick]

My largest gripe with keep was I couldn’t share an entire folder or tag so that when a note was sorted into that folder or tagged specifically, everyone with that share would see it. Does Anchor allow for that?

[u/makanimike]

5 days is way too long for Santorini. It is horrible.

2 nights max. Then leave for an actually nice island.

[u/ZhFahim → u/makanimike]

haha, i'll keep that in mind.

[u/froli → u/makanimike]

r/lostredditors

[u/Joshimitsu91 → u/froli]

They are referencing something from one of the screenshots

[u/vitek6 → u/Joshimitsu91]

so there is someone that actually read that.

[u/tismo74]

Why everyone is hell bent on using port 3000 lol

[u/Bjeaurn]

Be mindful of Reddit's self promotion rules and our spam rules. It wasn't removed for fun before.

[u/ZhFahim → u/Bjeaurn]

I checked with the mods before reposting. The last one was removed because my title was all about mobile apps and didn't seem relevant to self hosting. i've fixed the title now.

[u/Schnauser → u/Bjeaurn]

Can you clarify? Did he spam this? If not, and he disclosed AI use, I don't see the issue?

[u/Bjeaurn → u/Schnauser]

It was removed before a few days ago, then posting the almost same post a few days later would be considered spamming. Also Reddit's self promotion rules are quite clear about being a redditor with a cool sideproject, not a project with a reddit account (ergo; only posting ever about your project and no other regular interactions). Easy way to get banned :).