$mdflow open --ios
Your workspace on iPhone and iPad
A free native app on the same account. Nothing to sync, nothing to pair.
$cat the-problem.txt
“My notes app is a browser tab I can't reach from a queue.”
Most of what you want to do with notes on a phone takes fifteen seconds: check what a document said, tick something off, dump a thought before it evaporates. A browser tab is the wrong shape for all three — and it is not in the share sheet, not on the Action Button, and not something Siri can write to.
So the phone app is not a smaller version of the web app. It is the capture-and-check half, done natively, on the same documents.
$mdflow ios --browse
Sign in and find things
One account, the same workspaces, the same folder tree — and search that reads bodies, not just titles.
- Four ways in. Sign in with Apple, Google, GitHub or Microsoft — the same four providers as the web, on the same account. No pairing step, no second subscription.
- The tree you already have. Favourites, a Recent section with the five most recently updated documents, and the top-level folders — tap in and walk a tree of any depth. Switch workspaces from the toolbar.
- Search, not just titles. The whole workspace by title andbody text, opening a match directly. Pull to refresh, and every document shows a relative “edited 5m ago”.
- Reads like the web. GitHub Flavored Markdown — headings, lists, task lists, tables, code blocks, blockquotes, dividers, and images referenced by URL — plus a persistent text-zoom control.
$mdflow ios --edit
Editing that saves itself
Quick edits on the move, with the file management you would expect rather than a read-only viewer.
- Autosave with a visible state. Debounced autosave and a live Saving… / Saved / Not saved indicator; a pending edit is flushed when you leave the screen. Unlike the web, autosave on the phone is not Pro-gated.
- Real file management. Create documents in a folder, rename, move with an indented folder picker, delete, favourite. Create, rename and delete nested folders too — new titles are normalised to end in
.md. - Paths that match the web. Copy a document's full path —
MDflow / Workspace / Folder / Document.md— using the same convention as the browser, ready to paste into an agent prompt. - Out through the share sheet. Share or export any document as a real
.mdfile through the system share sheet.
$mdflow ios --tasks
Tasks, on the phone where you finish them
Not a separate to-do app: the same - [ ] lines in the same documents, parsed by a port of the web parser.
- The same checkbox lines. A Documents / Tasks switch turns the home screen into the task list. The phone runs a port of the web parser, so
(YYYYMMDD)due dates and(email)owners written on either surface read correctly on the other. - Grouped and filtered. By document and by heading, filtered by status (all, outstanding) and by due date (today, this week, next week), with its own persistent text zoom.
- Tap to complete. With a completion sound and a success haptic. Open a task in a sheet to change its text, its done state or its due date — overdue chips show red, today amber.
- Quick-add anywhere. A quick-add button with a destination picker, or an “Add new Task” row inside any document's card. With no destination chosen it writes to a
Tasksdocument in aniOSfolder.
$mdflow ios --capture
Capture from anywhere in iOS
The reason a native app earns its place. Six entry points that do not require opening MDflow first.
- Share to MDflow. Send text or a file from any app's share sheet. The capture is queued on the device — so it works offline, and even signed out — and imports into an
iOSfolder next time the app opens. - Open in MDflow. Registered as a system Open-With target for
.md,.markdownand.txtfrom Files, Mail, Safari, AirDrop and other document apps. The file imports immediately and opens in the editor. - Action Button and Control Center. A New Note control for the Action Button, Control Center and the Lock Screen controls gallery. One press starts a note and opens the app on it.
- Siri and App Shortcuts. Open a document by name, search documents by title, create a note with an optional title and text, or append a line to an existing document.
- Home-screen widget. A small configurable Document tile: pick a document, tap the tile, land in it. Add several widgets for several documents.
- Spotlight. Document titles across every workspace are indexed into iOS system search. Only titles — never bodies — and every entry is removed on sign-out.
$mdflow ios --encrypt
Encrypted notes, opened with Face ID
The same format as the browser and the CLI, so one password opens a document in all three.
- One format everywhere.
mdflow-enc:v1— PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations, then AES-256-GCM. A note encrypted in the browser opens on the phone with the same password. - Editable once unlocked. Every autosave re-encrypts the document before it leaves the device. The server never receives plaintext.
- Face ID after the first time. The derived key is kept in the device Keychain behind biometric protection, so it reopens with Face ID or Touch ID instead of the password.
- No recovery. Lose the password and the document is gone. That is what client-side encryption means — see the encryption page for the full picture.
$cat limitations.txt
What the app deliberately leaves to the web
A universal iPhone and iPad app with a single-column layout, following the system light or dark appearance. It requires iOS 26.5, and it does not try to be the whole product:
- No image upload. You can view images in a document; adding one is desktop-only.
- No sharing, collections, comments or version history. Those are wider-screen work and stay on the web.
- No offline reading or editing. Capture queues offline; opening a document needs a connection.
- Workspaces switch, but aren't managed. Creating, renaming and deleting a workspace happens on the web.
$man mdflow-ios --faq
Questions
Does the iPhone app cost extra?
No. The app is free, it signs in to the same MDflow account, and nothing inside it is Pro-gated — including autosave, which is a Pro feature on the web. Its App Store privacy manifest declares no tracking and no collected data.
Do I have to sync anything?
No. There is no pairing step and no second copy of your notes on the device. The app reads and writes the same documents as the website, so a change made on the phone is the change, not a copy waiting to merge.
Does it work offline?
Only for capture. Share-to-MDflow queues on the device and imports when the app next opens, and the widget, Siri search and Spotlight run off a cached index of titles. But opening or editing a document itself needs a connection — there is no offline reading or editing.
Can I encrypt notes on my phone?
Yes, and they are the same encrypted notes as on the web. The app uses the identical mdflow-enc:v1 format (PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations, then AES-256-GCM), so a document encrypted in the browser opens on the phone with the same password. After the first unlock the derived key is kept in the device Keychain behind Face ID or Touch ID.
Is there an Android or macOS app?
No. The native app covers iPhone and iPad only. On macOS and Android, MDflow runs in the browser — the workspace layout is responsive, so it is usable on a phone browser too, just without the share sheet, Siri and widget integrations.
What can't it do compared to the web?
It cannot upload images, and sharing, collections, comments and version history are not part of it. Workspaces can be switched between but not created, renamed or deleted from the phone. Task owners written in the markdown are preserved on save but cannot yet be set or filtered on. It requires iOS 26.5.
$mdflow ios
Capture on the phone. Write on the laptop.
The app is free, signs in to the account you already have, and puts your markdown in the share sheet, on the Action Button, in Siri and in Spotlight.
Free, nothing Pro-gated, no tracking and no collected data. Requires iOS 26.5.