What makes Dash more private than other notes apps?

Where the notes live. Cloud apps such as Notion and Evernote keep your notes on their servers, behind an account, encrypted with keys they hold. Dash keeps notes on your device with no account and no connection required. Sync is off unless you turn it on, and when it is on, notes are encrypted before they leave.

How does the encryption work?

Lock a note and Dash encrypts it with AES-256-GCM, using a key derived from your password with PBKDF2-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations and a unique salt. Open it with the password, or with Touch ID on the Mac and Face ID on iPhone.

Can Dash read my notes?

No. By default there is no server and no account, so there is nothing for us to read. With optional Dash Sync on, every change is encrypted on your device with a key that never leaves your devices; the relay stores ciphertext it cannot open.

What happens if I lose my device?

Notes that exist only on that device are gone with it, which is the price of keeping them off a server. Export encrypted .dashpack backups to storage you control, or turn on Dash Sync to keep an encrypted copy in step across your own devices.

Yes, under the MIT licence. The code is on GitHub, so the privacy claims on this page can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Dash Notes

Free on iPhone

Private by design

A Private Notes App That Keeps Notes on Your Device

No account, no tracking, no server unless you ask for one. Notes live on your Mac or iPhone, and the sensitive ones get a lock.

Get Dash for Mac Read on

Updated September 2026 · Dash team

Most notes apps are private the way a hotel room is private: the door locks, and the management has a key. Your notes travel to the company’s servers, sit there encrypted with the company’s keys, and are tied to an account with your name on it. A private notes app should not have a management.

Dash keeps notes on your device. There is no account to create and nothing is uploaded unless you decide it should be. Lock a note and it is encrypted with AES-256; lock the app and it locks itself when you step away. The Mac app costs $14.99 once; the iPhone app and the web app are free. The code is open, so all of this can be checked.

How Dash compares

Where the notes live decides who can read them.

Feature	Apple Notes	Notion
Works without an account	Local folder
Notes stay on the device by default
Vendor cannot read your notes	Locked notes
Lock individual notes
Lock the whole app
Buy once, no subscription needed	Free	Free tier
Open source

Notes with no management. Dash is $14.99 once on Mac, free on iPhone.

Get Dash for Mac

The problem with cloud notes

When you write in a cloud notes app, three things happen that you did not ask for. The note is copied to a server you do not control. It is filed under an account that identifies you. And it becomes part of a database that is a target: for attackers, for legal demands, and increasingly for AI features that read it to be useful. Encryption “at rest” does not change this, because the company holds the key.

None of that is sinister; it is how a service works. It is just the wrong shape for a diary, a password hint, a medical note, a draft you are not ready to show, or anything else you would rather not see in a breach notification.

What private means in Dash

Offline by default. Dash works with no connection and no account. Notes are files on your device, and nothing leaves it unless you share or sync on purpose.
AES-256 on the notes you lock. A locked note is unreadable without its password, even to someone holding your unlocked Mac.
No copy anywhere else. No server and no account by default; with optional sync on, the relay only ever holds ciphertext.
Keys made and kept on your device. Salts and keys come from the platform’s secure random generator and are never transmitted.
Lock the app, not just a note. A master password with Touch ID or Face ID, auto-lock after 1, 5, 15 or 30 minutes, instant lock with Cmd+Shift+L.
For the worst day: a duress password that opens a decoy set of notes, and self-destructing notes that delete themselves on a timer.

What Dash does not do

There is no analytics in the app and no tracking on this site’s behalf inside it. There is no account, so there is no profile of you to sell or leak. Nothing you write trains a model: if you want AI help, Dash talks to a model running on your own machine through Ollama, LM Studio or similar, and never to a cloud.

Mac, iPhone and the web

The Mac app is a one-time $14.99 purchase. The iPhone app is free on the App Store, and the web app is free and runs on anything with a browser, Android included. To keep them in step, Dash Sync is an optional subscription at $4.99 a month or $47.99 a year with a seven-day trial: devices pair with a QR code and a short code, the vault key never leaves them, and the relay stores only encrypted blobs. Without sync, move notes with an encrypted .dashpack export.

One purchase. Two platforms. Sync only if you want it.

You never need a subscription to take notes.

Get Dashthe same app, on both platforms

Mac

iPhone

Freeon the App Store

No purchase, no trial, no account

Same encryption, Face IDWorks fully offlineNo account to makeFree on the web too

Download

OptionalAdd Dash Sync

Keeps Mac, iPhone, iPad and web in step, encrypted on your device first. Dash works completely without it — notes, encryption and everything else.

$4.99 / mo

or $47.99 / year · 7-day trial

Start free trial

Secure checkoutSSL encryptedAlready purchased? Recover your download

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

Encrypted notes appAES-256 on any note, and how the optional sync stays end-to-end encrypted.Offline notes appWhy notes that work with the Wi‑Fi off are the private ones.Privacy-first note takingWhat zero-knowledge design means in practice.

Your notes. Your device. Nobody else’s server.

$14.99 once on Mac. Free on iPhone.

Get Dash for Mac App Store