Lanternote

A fast, private desktop app for very large folders of Markdown notes.
Read, edit, search, query and map 200,000 notes on Windows, macOS or Linux — no account, no cloud, no graphics card needed.

Download · Features · Performance · User guide · Build from source · Changelog

_{20 seconds on a made-up folder of 139,434 notes: quick open · full-text search · Command Center · galaxy · link graph}

Why Lanternote

• Built for size. Tested on a real library of 190,000+ notes and 2.5 million links: it reopens in 1–2 seconds and searches in milliseconds.
• Runs on any PC. The link graph and the galaxy are drawn without a graphics card. Portable: one .exe, no installation, no admin rights.
• Your files stay yours. Plain .md files in a folder you choose. Nothing is uploaded, nothing phones home, everything works offline.
• More than a reader. Live queries, task lists, calendars, Kanban boards, canvases and a Command Center page — all stored as ordinary Markdown.
• Works with your AI assistant. Claude and other MCP assistants can search and, if you allow it, edit your notes — every AI change keeps the old text.

Features

Command Center One page with what matters today — projects, due dates, open tasks, a calendar, recent notes. It is built from an ordinary note you can edit.	Your notes as a galaxy Every star is a note, every arm a folder, and notes you edited this week shine. Zoom in to read names, click a star to open it.
Link graph on any PC The Map engine lays out hundreds of thousands of notes once, in the background, and draws them like a digital map — no GPU required. A Live GPU engine is there when you have one.	Editing that protects your work Auto-save, per-note undo, [[ and # completion, paste images, rename with link updates, and version history. If a file changes on disk while you edit, you choose which version to keep.
Search everything, instantly Full-text search across every note, accent-insensitive, with tag: filters. Quick open (Ctrl+O) finds any note by name as you type.	Live queries Tables, lists, task lists and month calendars from ```dataview blocks, written in the Dataview query language — refreshed as your notes change.
Tasks and calendars Collect tasks from every note, sort them by due date and tick them right in the results — the note is updated on the spot.	Kanban boards Drag cards between lanes. Boards are plain Markdown notes in the common board format, so they stay readable anywhere.
Canvas Lay out notes, text and links on an infinite board. Canvases use the open JSON Canvas format.	Connect an AI assistant Built-in MCP server: search, read, run queries, list tasks and — only if you allow it — write. Limit it to chosen folders; every change is logged and reversible. For Claude Desktop, just double-click lanternote-<version>.mcpb from the release.

Also included: wiki links with headings, blocks and aliases · embeds (![[note]], images, audio, video) · backlinks and outline · front-matter properties · tags and nested tags · callouts · highlights and comments · Mermaid diagrams · note templates · daily notes · image viewer · command palette · print to PDF · light and dark themes.

Performance

Measured on a real-world library of 190,522 notes, 2.49 million links (728 MB), and on a made-up 139,000-note folder used for all pictures in this README.

Download

Get the file for your system from the latest release:

Then click Open a folder and choose your notes. Next time Lanternote reopens the same folder and note.

Only want your AI assistant to read your notes? Download lanternote-<version>.mcpb from the same release and double-click it: Claude Desktop installs the extension and asks for your notes folder. It is read-only unless you turn on Let the AI edit notes, and it works on Windows, macOS and Linux.

[!NOTE] The app is not code-signed yet, so your system may warn you the first time:

• Windows SmartScreen: More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click Lanternote.app → Open → Open. If macOS says the app "is damaged", run xattr -cr /Applications/Lanternote.app once.
• Linux: on Ubuntu 24.04 and later, if the AppImage does not start, run it with --no-sandbox.

The macOS and Linux builds are new: every feature is tested on both systems by CI, but please report anything that looks wrong. Settings, the index cache and recovery copies are kept on each computer (%APPDATA%\Lanternote on Windows).

Press F1 in the app for the built-in guide, or read the illustrated user guide.

Privacy

Lanternote reads and writes only the folder you open and its own settings folder. It has no account, no telemetry and no update check; all libraries are bundled, so it runs without a network connection.

The only exception is one you turn on yourself: when you connect an AI assistant, the notes it reads are sent to that assistant's provider. You can make the connection read-only and limit it to chosen folders.

Build from source

Requires Node.js 22 or later and Git. Build outside folders synced by OneDrive or Dropbox — node_modules and the builds are large.

git clone https://github.com/ericthai-labs/lanternote.git

cd lanternote

npm ci          # installs dependencies and bundles the editor into src/vendor

npm start       # run from source

npm run dist:win   # portable .exe and .zip in dist/

node tests/mcp.js                                    # AI connection, 35 checks

node scripts/drive.js <test-folder> tests/editing.js # UI scenarios — see tests/README.md

node scripts/bench-index.js <folder> <words>         # index and search timings

npm run media -- <work-folder>                        # rebuild guide, adverts and README pictures

Contributing

Bug reports and suggestions are welcome in Issues. Pull requests are welcome too; by submitting one you agree that it may be released as part of Lanternote under its licence.

License

Lanternote is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0:

• ✅ Free for personal use, study and hobby projects, and for noncommercial organisations (charities, schools, public bodies).
• ✅ You may read the code, change it and share changes for noncommercial purposes, keeping the copyright notice.
• ❌ Commercial use — including internal use at a company — needs a separate licence. Open an issue to ask.

Bundled open-source libraries keep their own licences, listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.

Acknowledgements

Lanternote stands on excellent open-source work, including Electron, CodeMirror, cosmos.gl, marked, DOMPurify and Mermaid.