passthejoe by Steven Rosenberg - Folio

Why is it so hard (or impossible) to get a clean Markdown export out of Obsidian and Standard Notes?

2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

What's the deal with exporting Markdown files out of two of the most popular notetaking apps, Obsidian and Standard Notes?

Obsidian</a> can't (or more accurately won't) export an .md</code> file from the base system, and none of the plugins I've tried can do it right, which for me means without added escapes preceding the brackets that's are in my blog posts' TOML front matter.

Standard Notes</a> doesn't even allow an export with the free plan.

Meanwhile Nextcloud</a> offers file exports (in the form of downloads via the Files app) just like the Linux desktop apps I've been using: Iotas</a>, QOwnNotes</a> and Folio</a>. And the files are ready to go into a static site generator, which in my case is Zola</a>.



Folio is a pretty basic notetaking app
2026-04-08T00:00:00+00:00
A lot of notetaking apps are pretty basic. They don't have extensive menus, and a lot of formatting options are in the toolbar.</p>
Folio</a> is</em> kind of basic, but it does two things that other basic notetaking apps don't do: Notes can have custom names and can be exported as Markdown files.</p>
The custom names are nice. But in Folio they aren't critical because you still have to type in a file name when exporting your .md</code> file. And if you do change a note name, there is a short yet annoying lag between the change and it appearing in the list of notes to the left.</p>
The ability to export a file is critical for my main use case, which is writing Markdown posts with TOML front matter for static site generators such as Zola and Hugo.</p>
Two of the things that pretty much all notetaking apps have in common are:</p>

The ability to work on multiple notes at the same time and easily switch between them</li>
Auto saving of notes</li>
</ul>
These two features are why I'm looking at notetaking apps as possible replacements for traditional text editors for the writing of blog posts. I want to streamline the writing process in terms of the computing mechanics</em>. Are notetaking apps actually helpful</em> in this task? I'm not sure yet.</p>
That slightly existential</em> question aside, Folio does these two core features as well as any app. But one thing Folio does better than most apps I've tried is the writing and display of Markdown. You could say that Folio is as much a Markdown editor as it is a notetaking app.</p>
Folio, which I installed as a Flatpak on my Bluefin Linux system, somehow became the system's default app for handling Markdown files. That's probably not an accident — or not much of one, anyway.</p>
Most of the basic Markdown formatting — headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, links and code blocks — can be accessed from the toolbar at the bottom of the app.</p>
For those who care about such things (including me), Folio is a native desktop app written in the Vala programming language</a>, which is a common (or at least encouraged) language that is object-oriented yet generages C code and uses the GObject type system. It is meant to be a close fit with the GNOME desktop environment.</p>
Recommended install methods for Folio are Flatpak</a>, Snap</a> and AppImage</a>. And it's a true open-source app under the GPL 3 license.</p>
One thing I like in a notetaking app, very much aside from how well it allows me to write blog posts, is the ability to add a checkbox function to to-do lists. This is my second requirement in a notes app, and I'm willing to use two apps, one for blogging and another for to-do lists.</p>
Folio doesn't do the checkboxes, even with the usual Markdown, which I believe is:</p>
- [ ]</code></p>
It renders Markdown so well that I'm surprised this isn't a feature. There's an issue for it in GitHub</a>, but it hasn't been added to the app.</p>
And one bug keeps coming up. When switching between notes, often one will display with only one line in it, even though it's longer. Continuing to toggle between the notes resolves the issue. It's a bit unsettling. I don't want to lose any work, though it hasn't come to that yet. I haven't quite figured out the pattern, which would help me avoid it.</p>
I'll have to check out the GitHub issues to see if anybody else has noticed.</p>
It could be https://github.com/toolstack/Folio/issues/300</a>, but it's more likely https://github.com/toolstack/Folio/issues/293</a>, and the project hasn't cut a release since before it was fixed.</p>
Why hasn't there been a release in almost a year? I don't know.</p>
Another thing:</strong> One way Folio doesn't do as good of a job as QOwnNotes at exporting Markdown files for blogging in my situation is that while QOwnNotes uses the note's name as the exported file's name, Folio leaves the file name blank, and you have to fill it in. It's quite an extra step</em>.</p>


How good is the Folio notetaking app?
2026-04-07T00:00:00+00:00
Folio</a> is all about Markdown files, yet it's a pretty simple notetaking app.</p>
Will it work for writing Zola and Hugo blog posts?</p>
You can name a file anything you want, and you choose an additional filename upon export to .md. (Don't give it an .md suffix, or you'll get .md.md</code>). I prefer the notetaking app to automatically assume that I want the note's name as the exported file's name while also allowing me to change it, but at least Folio remembers the file name I have chosen if I export the file multiple times, which I do with almost every post I write to either extend it or (much more often) fix errors.</p>
The Markdown rendering is nice. Not all notetaking apps that support Markdown can render it in the app, and render it well. I like a toggle between raw text and rendered Markdown, but it's not a must</em>.</p>
A couple of weird things in Folio that are not deal-breakers are that I can set an internal or external link, but I can't seem to click that link and be taken to its source. It should be something like shift-click</code>, but I can't figure out what works. And if you have a Markdown-coded word at the end of a sentence followed by a period, it's hard to then position your cursor after that period to do an edit. You have to go to the next line and backspace to the real end of the sentence.</p>
Also, I did have an issue where one of my notes kept slightly disappearing. It could have had something to do with two notes beginning with similar names (2026-0403). I renamed one 2026-0402, but this is an issue that I'll need to watch out for and also try to replicate.</p>
And just now my front-matter note seemed to be empty after I copy-pasted its contents into this note. I went to my text file in the GNOME Text Editor and copy-pasted it back into the note. Can I rely on Folio not to eat my notes</em>? I'm not sure just yet.</p>
Folio is very comfortable as a Markdown editor. You don't have to switch modes between Markdown source and rendered Markdown. The markup always renders, and if you want to see the source of an element, clicking on it will show the unrendered markup.</p>
For the purposes of getting my Zola front matter into new blog posts, I have that code in Folio as its own note. I wish there was a way to save as</em> or paste it as a macro. Folio is simple and has neither of those features. So I'll have to open that note and copy/paste its contents into a new one.</p>


Another Zola post created with the Folio notetaking app
2026-04-03T00:00:00+00:00
While trying to export this post, I had a bit of an issue with the note, but restarting Folio</a> brought it back. Losing notes or edits is always worrying, and until I know how it happened, and it doesn't repeat, I'll be wary of Folio.</p>
There's still some kind of bug happening. Could it be because both notes have names in Folio that begin with 2026-0403</code>?</p>


A Zola post created in the Folio notetaking app
2026-04-02T00:00:00+00:00
Can the Folio notetaking app</a> help me create blog posts for Zola?</p>
So far the files look clean. They exist as Unix files, with the default location being ~.var/app/com.toolstack.Folio/data</code> for the Folio Flatpak. And the working directory can be moved out of the Flatpak area and into other parts of the home directory, which is good because I don't always back up the Flatpak data under .var</code>. So far, so good.</p>
You can set a name for a note in Folio and when exporting to the file system. When exporting to your blog's /content</code> directory, don't add the .md</code>, or you'll get .md.md</code> in the exported file's name.</p>
Even though files seem to save themselves, there is a config setting to automatically save files every 30 seconds. I set that. One thing I don't want to do is have to remember to save a file.</p>