Introducing Reflect Open, open-source markdown first Reflect
Reflect Open - a new chapter for Reflect<br>Reflect is now open-source, markdown first, and AI native.<br>🏗️ Product Updates<br>•Published on Jul 14, 2026
Alex MacCawFounder and CEO of Reflect
Table of Contents<br>Download Reflect Open<br>Why we rebuilt it<br>Your notes are the database<br>What’s in the Mac beta<br>The iPhone TestFlight<br>The existing Reflect app is staying<br>Moving your notes<br>Pricing<br>Try it and tell us what breaks<br>Frequently asked questions
Table of ContentsDownload Reflect Open<br>Why we rebuilt it<br>Your notes are the database<br>What’s in the Mac beta<br>The iPhone TestFlight<br>The existing Reflect app is staying<br>Moving your notes<br>Pricing<br>Try it and tell us what breaks<br>Frequently asked questions
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Today we’re making the biggest change to Reflect since we launched. We’ve rebuilt it from the ground up for the age of AI, while preserving the privacy and control that have always been central to Reflect. The result is Reflect Open : a local-first, open-source app built on plain Markdown files. The beta is available today.<br>The Mac app is available now. We’re also opening a limited TestFlight for iPhone.
Download Reflect Open<br>The Mac app is available in two versions. Stable is recommended for most people; Beta receives new features and fixes first.<br>Stable: Apple silicon (M-series) · Intel<br>Beta: Apple silicon (M-series) · Intel<br>iPhone and iPad: Join the TestFlight beta<br>Not sure which Mac you have? Open Apple menu → About This Mac . If it shows an M-series chip, choose Apple silicon. Both Mac versions update automatically.<br>Reflect Open is a new app, not an update to the existing one. It keeps the parts of Reflect we care about most: daily notes, backlinks, fast capture, keyboard-first writing, and a minimalist interface. But the foundation is completely different, rebuilt for the age of AI.
Why we rebuilt it<br>When we built the original Reflect, we made two big technical bets: we built end-to-end encryption into the app, and created our own note format and sync engine. Both decisions served principles we still believe in—privacy and seamless sync—and both made sense at the time. But they also created a great deal of complexity and made Reflect increasingly difficult to evolve, particularly as Markdown became the common language for both people and AI.<br>We had wanted to revisit those foundations for some time. When Fable came out, we put it to the test: could we rebuild Reflect around a much simpler model? Two weeks later, we had our answer. The new Reflect stores your notes as ordinary Markdown files on your computer, uses iCloud for sync and encryption, and lets you mark specific notes as private so they are never shared with AI.<br>Once your notes were local Markdown files, open source felt like the natural conclusion. It means your notes never depend on a proprietary system, the app can outlive any one company, and anyone can inspect, modify or contribute to it.
Your notes are the database<br>In Reflect Open, your graph is simply a folder of markdown files:<br>Daily notes are Markdown files under daily/<br>Other notes are Markdown files under notes/<br>Images and attachments are ordinary files under assets/<br>You can open that folder in Finder, edit it with another Markdown app, put it in Git, or write scripts against it. Reflect maintains a local search index, but that index can always be rebuilt from the files.<br>There is no Reflect account or Reflect-hosted notes database. We don’t run product analytics. Optional services are connected directly by you:<br>AI uses your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or OpenRouter key<br>Transcription uses your chosen provider<br>Sync uses iCloud Drive, GitHub, or another Git remote<br>Keys and credentials stay in the operating system’s keychain<br>Notes marked private are blocked from being sent to AI or other services that read note content.
What’s in the Mac beta<br>The Mac beta currently includes:<br>Daily notes and a live-preview Markdown editor. Write normally while keeping the underlying Markdown clean and portable. Add wiki links, backlinks, tags, templates, images, PDFs, and other attachments.<br>Local search. Search note titles, contents, tags, and backlinks. Optional semantic search runs on your Mac.<br>AI chat with citations. Ask questions across your notes and follow the answer back to its sources. You can also select text in the editor and rewrite, summarize, translate, or run a saved prompt.<br>Tasks. Markdown checkboxes are collected into a task view where they can be searched, scheduled, completed, and archived.<br>Audio memos. Record a thought and transcribe it into your daily note (via whichever AI provider you configured)<br>Browser capture. The Reflect Capture Chrome extension saves links, selected text, screenshots, and page text directly to your graph.<br>Calendar and contacts. Show Apple Calendar events beside your daily note, create meeting notes, and connect people notes with Apple Contacts.<br>iCloud and Git sync. Use iCloud for...