Where Tangent Notes Stores Your Notes and How to Access Them

Updated

Tangent Notes stores your notes as Markdown files locally on your device. Because they are plain Markdown, you can open, read, and edit them with any text editor, and nothing is locked into a hidden or proprietary format. This applies to the desktop app for Mac, Windows, and Linux described on tangentnotes.com; the site does not describe a hosted or proprietary cloud storage layer.

What "local Markdown files" means in practice

Tangent works directly with files on your own machine rather than syncing notes into a service-specific database. The site states that notes are stored as Markdown files, that any text editor can read or write them, and that "nothing is hidden from you." In practical terms:

  • Format: each note is a .md file, readable as plain text.
  • Location: on your device, in the folder(s) you work from — the site does not publish a fixed default path, so confirm the folder when you first create or open notes.
  • Portability: the same files can be opened outside Tangent without an export step.

Checking access with another tool

To verify your notes are genuinely portable, use a short test:

  1. Create a note in Tangent and give it a distinctive sentence.
  2. Locate the file in your file manager (search for the sentence or the note title).
  3. Open it in a plain text editor or another Markdown app.
  4. Confirm the text appears unchanged, then edit it there and reopen it in Tangent.

Expected result: the edit shows up in Tangent because both apps are reading the same file. If it does not, you are likely looking at a different copy of the file — check the folder path.

What this means for backup and sync

Because the files are ordinary local files, backup and sync are your responsibility and your choice: any tool that copies or syncs folders (including versioned backup or a cloud-synced folder) can handle them. The site does not describe built-in cloud sync, so don't assume notes appear on another device automatically. If you rely on a synced folder, keep in mind that simultaneous edits from two devices can create conflicting copies — the same caveat as any plain-file workflow.

Limits to keep in mind

  • Linking and maps live in the app. Tangent's linked notes, sliding panels, and branching map are features of the app's interface; other editors will show the Markdown text, not that visualization.
  • No published storage spec. The site does not document a default notes directory, file-naming rules, or how links are encoded in the files, so verify these yourself before committing a large collection.
  • Licensing is separate from storage. Tangent is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, with source on GitHub — relevant if you want to inspect how files are handled, but it does not change where your notes live.

Bottom line: if owning your data in an open, editable format matters to you, Tangent's local Markdown approach fits — provided you set up your own backup or sync and accept that the linking and map features are app-specific.