Antholier in detail

The more you write, the clearer your mind becomes

Antholier is a macOS app for daily notes and hierarchical notes in one folder.
The notes stay as text files on your disk, so you can switch apps, back them up, and still own the contents.

Switch Daily / Notes / Search on the left, and write on the right. Open the preview beside the editor when you want to check headings and how the page looks.

A daily note is about that day. A note is something you grow by topic or project.
You can move between the two from the same window.

You choose the folder. The contents are ordinary .txt and .md files.

• Open and edit them in any other editor
• Back them up or sync them wherever you like
• They are not locked inside the app

Small notes pile up as files, and later they are there when you need them.

Morning — open today on the Daily tab and write a plan or a thought.
While you work — grow a topic note on the Notes tab.
Later — find it again from a word or a folder name on the Search tab.

• Edit plain text, and preview it in the pane on the right
• The Outline tab lists the structure. Tap a heading to jump there in the editor
• Checkboxes in the preview write back into the text
• The editor and the preview scroll roughly together
• ⌘B / ⌘I / ⌘K insert bold, italic, and a link

[[note name]] in the text becomes a link in the preview. Click it to open that file. A daily note opens on the Daily tab. Anything else opens on the Notes tab. The editor keeps the [[ ]] characters, so another editor still sees ordinary text.

• [[note name|label]] keeps the destination and changes only the label in the preview
• [[folder/note name]] names a place under the base folder. A path inside Notes or Daily works too
• If one file name matches, [[note name]] is enough. [[2026-10-17]] is that day's daily note
• When several files share the name, you pick one
• ⌘-click a missing link to create it as .md under Notes. [[Work/Spec]] becomes Notes/Work/Spec.md. This does not create daily notes or anything in Data
• Type [[ in the editor and the existing notes appear. Choose with the arrow keys, then Return inserts [[note name]]
• [[note name#heading]] opens the file and does not scroll to the heading

Text inside code, ![[embed]], and anything that starts with \[[ is not a link. Renaming a file does not rewrite [[ ]] in other notes.

Info lists Header, Tags, Wikilinks, then Backlinks.

• Header is the YAML at the top of the file
• Tags are #tag in the text and tags in the YAML. Click one to search for it
• Wikilinks are the [[ ]] links from the open note. Click one to open that note
• Backlinks are the other daily notes and notes that point here with [[ ]]. The list is kept in Data/wikilinks.json. Saving a file writes that note's wikilinks. [Update] at the end of the list on the Info tab rereads the folder and rebuilds the list. The same list appears at the end of the preview. Click an item to open it. A note that says [[2026-10-14]] shows up on 2026-10-14, not on the note that contains the link

• Open and close folders, create them, rename them, and drag them
• Pin the notes you use often so they stay at the top. The note list has an icon for switching the sort
• All lists notes across folders

• Search the text, file names, and folder names together
• Type # and the tags in your notes appear. Choosing one searches for that tag. Antholier does not keep a separate tag file
• The search field starts empty when you launch. The history stays
• You can return to an earlier search from the history
• Choose a result and you are in the editor

• Open a day from the month calendar or from the list for this month
• Jump to yesterday, today, or tomorrow in one click
• With holiday data, holidays and weekends are colored

• Folders are on the top of the sidebar. The note list is below
• Click a folder icon to open or close its children
• Single-click opens a note. Double-click renames it

Everything is stored in the base folder you choose.

(base folder)
├── Daily/          … one file per day
├── Notes/          … notes and subfolders
└── Data/           … pins, holidays, and other supporting files

Open the folder and the contents are right there. That is the base Antholier stands on.

1. Launch Antholier
2. Press ⌘O if you want to choose the folder you will grow
3. Write today's line on Daily, or create the first page on Notes
4. When the page gets long, open the preview and check the shape on Outline
5. When you are used to it, History (⌘P), search, and pins make it faster to come back

From the day you write it, it stays in your folder.

Daily notes and topic notes live in one app, and the contents stay as ordinary text files in a folder. They are not locked in an app-specific archive, so backups and other editors are easy to use alongside Antholier.

In the base folder you chose. Until you choose one, Antholier uses its default folder. Change it with ⌘O.

Daily fits a record of the day, a diary, or a daily memo. Notes fits a document you grow by topic or project. Both live under the same base folder, and search and History (⌘P) can open either.

The preview handles headings, emphasis, lists, quotes, tables, code blocks, links, and checkboxes. Wikilinks such as [[note name]] open from the preview. ⌘-click creates a note that does not exist yet.

The preview treats about one line in the editor as one line. A line you end with Enter stays a separate line in the preview.

A blank line starts a new paragraph. You do not need the usual Markdown habit of two spaces at the end of a line.

No. The eye icon shows and hides it. For a long document, the Outline tab is useful too.

Yes, if the base folder is inside a folder those tools sync. The notes are files, so they travel with the sync you already use.

Holidays are orange on the calendar, and the holiday name appears in the daily note's title. The country follows the Region in the Mac’s System Settings, under Language & Region. The United Kingdom shows UK holidays, and Japan shows Japanese holidays. The language menu does not change the country. It does choose the language of the holiday names.

Antholier downloads holidays for the region’s country only. Files for other countries are left alone. For that country, every file that exists in Japanese, English, or German is saved in Data in the base folder. Japan gets jp_ja.ics and jp_en.ics (https://calendars.icloud.com/holidays/country_language.ics). There is no jp_de.ics, so that file is not saved. The current language chooses which saved file is shown. German uses jp_en.ics. If that language’s file is absent, Antholier uses a saved file in the order English, Japanese, German. Google’s holiday calendars are not used.

In Japan, Antholier also downloads the Cabinet Office CSV (https://www8.cao.go.jp/chosei/shukujitsu/syukujitsu.csv) and saves it as Data/syukujitsu.csv. On a shared day, only Apple’s name is shown. The CSV fills days Apple does not have. Outside Japan, this CSV is not used.

A download runs when the saved file is missing, and again about a month after the last one. If the connection fails, the saved file is used. If neither can be read, holiday colors and names are absent.

In Japan, in the years they share, the Cabinet Office CSV and Apple’s holidays fall on the same days. From 2025 through 2027, no day appears in only one of them. Six days differ in the name alone: the CSV says 「休日」, and Apple says 「振替休日」 or 「国民の休日」.

The span is different. The years shift when each source is updated.

Daily notes open past days too. Holiday names through 2024 are only in the CSV, so a file placed there fills those days. From 2028 on, they are only in Apple’s holidays until the Cabinet Office publishes the next CSV. On a shared day, Apple’s name is shown.

The app saves the files. You do not need to place them yourself.