https://github.com/ChrLipp/notes-import

Parses Apple notes SQLite databases
https://github.com/ChrLipp/notes-import

apple notes sqlite-database

Last synced: 9 days ago
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Parses Apple notes SQLite databases

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/ChrLipp/notes-import
• Owner: ChrLipp
• Created: 2018-10-08T06:28:10.000Z (about 6 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2024-03-09T10:24:05.000Z (8 months ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-08-02T15:49:08.717Z (3 months ago)
• Topics: apple, notes, sqlite-database
• Language: Groovy
• Size: 180 KB
• Stars: 39
• Watchers: 1
• Forks: 5
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: readme.md

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README

        
# Apple Notes database parser

## About

Apple Notes data is stored in a SQLite database. Some month ago the data has been stored in the file

`/Users//Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/NotesV7.storedata` respectively

`NotesV6.storedata` for the prior version. The notes have been stored in a HTML subset in clear text.

Then Apple kept the file but didn't update it anymore. Instead, a new location was used:

`/Users/christian/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/NoteStore.sqlite`. The data is not

in clear text anymore. I needed the access badly, because my MacBook Pro was defect (spilled a bottle

of wine over it), my last backup was long ago and I didn't sync into iCloud.  

So I found [apple_cloud_notes_parser](https://github.com/threeplanetssoftware/apple_cloud_notes_parser),

a Perl script which showed me how to parse the data. However, they have a small bug in calculating the

length of the data, so you will get only the first 27 chars or so of the note.

I decided to port the code to Java (ok, to Groovy) to be able to fix that. I could have adopted the

perl script but I thought I will have to strip the HTML fragments, but this was wrong. In the new

format, there are no HTML fragments any more. Anyway, even if I used it only once, the script evolved

based on feedback.

## Usage

Copy the database (location above) to the input folder, rename it to `NoteStore.sqlite` and start the

script with `./gradlew runScript`. You will receive a file per document in the output folder.

Afterwards I created empty notes and copy/pasted the notes back to Apple Notes again (at this time with

activated iCloud sync).

## Remark

I also tried to copy the whole database to my new MacBook, but this didn't work.

## Tested with

    openjdk version "21.0.1" 2023-10-17

    OpenJDK Runtime Environment Homebrew (build 21.0.1)

    Groovy Version: 4.0.19

## Acknowledgement

- [Duncan Brown](https://github.com/duncanjbrown) provided a PR to obtain name, structure and creation timestamp for all notes

## Links

- Found another statement, didn't test it: https://github.com/ydkhatri/mac_apt/issues/46#issuecomment-766418508