Privacy
No server of ours holds your notes.
OpenMarkdown is a static web page that edits Markdown files on your own device. Nothing in it needs an account, and there is no copy of your vault anywhere we control. This page says what is stored, where, and what leaves your device — and when.
Last updated 19 September 2026.
What the app stores, and where
| What | Where it lives | Who can read it |
|---|---|---|
| Your notes and attachments | The folder you opened, on your disk — or, if you chose a browser vault, your browser's private storage for this site | You, and any program you give the folder to |
| Vault settings, plugins, themes | The vault's .obsidian/ folder, in the formats Obsidian writes | You |
| Recovery snapshots, unsaved text after a crash | Your browser's storage for this site | You |
| Keys for AI providers or sync | Your browser's storage, wrapped by a key the browser will not export; never in the vault | You |
| The app itself | Your browser's cache, so it opens offline | Nothing private in it |
Clearing this site's data in your browser removes everything in this table except a vault folder on your disk, which clearing site data never touches.
Sync is end-to-end encrypted
Sync is off until you set it up. When it is on, each note is encrypted on your device before it is sent, and only your devices hold the keys. The relay that passes changes between them stores ciphertext it cannot read, whether it is the hosted relay or one you run yourself. Keys never appear on screen; a new device is paired with a ten-character code, and a printed recovery kit is the way back if you lose every device.
What a relay can see is what any server that passes messages sees: that an account exists, when devices connect, and how much encrypted data they exchange. The hosted relay admits accounts individually.
If you sign in (optional)
Every feature works signed out. Signing in, from the account page at openmarkdown.ai/app/account, keeps a balance of credits you can spend in our other apps; OpenMarkdown itself charges for nothing. If you choose to, you sign in with one of these, each handled by its own provider:
- Google — Google authenticates you and shares your email address with our account server, which uses it to identify your account.
- A crypto wallet — your wallet signs a sign-in message; your public address identifies your account.
- Nostr — your Nostr public key identifies your account.
Our account server, at auth.openmarkdown.ai, stores that identifier, your balance and a history of credits bought and spent. Your browser keeps a session token in this site's storage so you stay signed in. The account page is the only part of the app that talks to the account server; the editor never does, and no note, file name or vault content is ever sent to it. Signing out removes the session from this browser.
Credits are paid for on the account server's own pages: card payments through Stripe, or directly on-chain for crypto and Lightning. We never see or store a card number, a seed phrase or a private key.
AI is off by default, and on your device first
- Nothing AI-related runs, downloads or sends until you turn it on in Settings → AI, and then each feature is switched on separately.
- Where a feature can run on your device, it does: the browser's built-in models, or a model downloaded once to your browser — which asks first and tells you its size.
- A local server (Ollama, LM Studio) or a cloud provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google) is used only if you add it, with your own key. The first time text would leave your device, the app asks; every result says where it ran.
- Text recognition in images and PDFs, grammar checking and dictation run on your device.
When the app talks to other sites
Only when you ask it to. The occasions are:
- The plugin and theme store reads the public directory and each plugin's release from GitHub when you browse or install.
- A community plugin you install may reach the services it was written for — a Git host, a sync service, an AI provider. That is the plugin's behaviour, as it would be in Obsidian; read its description before installing.
- Embeds and web panes load the page or video you linked (YouTube, Vimeo, a site in a web pane).
- Downloads you agree to: pandoc for extra export formats, language data for text recognition, on-device models.
The companion browser extension, if you install it, makes those requests on the app's behalf for sites that do not allow a web page to reach them, and asks your permission for each site before it does.
This website
openmarkdown.ai serves static files. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics and no advertising, and loads nothing from any other site. The web server keeps standard access logs (IP address, time, the file requested, browser) to diagnose faults, deletes them on a rolling basis, and does nothing else with them.
Not affiliated with Obsidian
OpenMarkdown is an independent open-source project. It opens Obsidian vaults and implements Obsidian's MIT-licensed plugin API, but it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Obsidian or Dynalist Inc., who own the Obsidian trademark. This policy covers OpenMarkdown only.
Questions
Open an issue on the project's GitHub. The source is public, so every statement on this page can be checked against the code.