Mark It Down

Obsidian's Web Clipper saves pages to your vault — great if storing is the goal. Mark It Down is built around a different workflow: clip a page, the Side Panel opens instantly, and you start rewriting right there. Capture and edit happen in a single flow.

The clipper uses Readability to extract article content and converts it to clean Markdown with proper headings, links, and code blocks preserved.

If you just want to save a page as-is, a generic clipper works fine. Mark It Down is for when you want to process what you've read — rewrite, restructure, then export to Markdown, PDF, HTML, or DOCX.

Heynote is an excellent developer scratchpad — and a direct inspiration for Mark It Down's "temporary workspace" philosophy.

The key differences: Heynote is a desktop app you launch separately. Mark It Down lives in Chrome itself, so there's no URL to type, no app to open. Press the extension button (or a keyboard shortcut via chrome://extensions/shortcuts) and the Side Panel appears beside whatever you're reading. Or open a New Tab for full-screen distraction-free writing.

It also works fully offline — everything runs locally in the browser, no server involved. Different habitat, overlapping spirit.

Mark It Down is meant to come before Notion or Obsidian in your workflow — not replace them. It's where you process raw material: rewrite an AI answer, restructure a clipped article, draft a note.

Once it's clean, export it (Markdown, PDF, HTML, DOCX, or ZIP for batch export) and move it to wherever you store things long-term.

Tool-specific syntax (Dataview queries, Notion databases, etc.) won't render here — but standard Markdown, LaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, and GFM tables all work perfectly.

No. Notes are stored in a dedicated extension storage area, separate from browser cache.

• Browser cache cleared → Data is preserved ✓
• Extension uninstalled → Data is deleted ⚠️

Tip: Use Git sync for external backup before uninstalling.

Yes — everyday writing is fully offline.

Works offline:

• Editing, saving, and note management (chrome.storage.local)
• Mermaid diagrams, KaTeX math, and syntax highlighting (all bundled)
• Export: PDF, PNG, DOCX, .md, EPUB, LaTeX — all processed locally
• Themes, Find & Replace, TOC, Command Palette
• Cross-Instance Compare & Edit

Requires internet:

• Web Clipper (needs a live page to clip)
• AI Chat Extraction (Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini)
• Git sync (Push, Pull, Fetch)
• HTML export (non-self-contained) and math zoom — CDN for KaTeX CSS

Deletion is a 2-step process for safety.

1. Step 1: Move to Trash — Delete button moves notes to Trash (can be restored)
2. Step 2: Permanent delete — Delete from Trash to remove permanently

With Git sync: Synced notes require a Sync after moving to Trash to delete from remote. The Trash badge (Synced/Pending/Local) shows the sync status.

Note: System notes (guides in the System folder) are protected and cannot be deleted or edited.

The title is automatically extracted from your note content.

• First # Heading or ## Heading becomes the title
• If no heading, the first line is used (max 50 characters)

With Git sync: Filenames on remote may differ from titles. Special characters like : or / are converted to _ for safe file paths.

Simply edit the first heading to rename your note.

Hover over the Template folder header to reveal a gallery link icon.

• Opens the Template Gallery page with 20+ templates in 5 categories
• You can also visit the gallery page directly from the website
• Templates are ready-to-use Markdown files for notes, meetings, dev docs, and more

Frontmatter is YAML metadata placed at the top of a file (between --- delimiters) that platforms like Hugo, Jekyll, and Docusaurus use to read a note's title, tags, date, and other properties.

Since v2.1.5, Frontmatter is managed separately from the note body — the editor stays clean, and Frontmatter is automatically merged on export. Edit it in the sidebar Detail Panel under the Frontmatter tab; array values like tags use a chip UI.

Supported export formats: Markdown, HTML, EPUB, LaTeX, DOCX.

Image files cannot be saved as attachments. Mark It Down is a text-based Markdown editor.

• Image URLs: You can include image links like ![](https://...)
• Pasting from web: May insert the image URL as a Markdown link
• Screenshot paste: Some apps include image data as data:image/... which appears in your note as text

If an image "worked": Check your note source — it's either an external URL or a base64 data URL embedded as text. Data URLs work offline but make notes very large.

For images, use external hosting and link to them in your notes.

Archive is a read-only folder for completed or reference notes.

• Notes in Archive open in a lightweight viewer (faster loading)
• To edit an archived note, click Unlock to move it back to Inbox
• Great for storing completed notes you want to reference but not accidentally edit
• Bulk export: Pin (★) notes in Archive, then use Export → "Pinned as ZIP" to download them together

Large files are handled with optimized settings.

• 50KB+: Code editor and LaTeX equation editor are disabled for performance
• 100KB+: Slash menu and drag handle are disabled
• 300KB+: A dialog appears with options to open as read-only in Archive

Mark It Down is designed for editing, not storing large raw files. Consider exporting very large files.

Mark It Down uses chrome.storage.local with the unlimitedStorage permission — there's no hard cap from Chrome.

The sidebar shows a stacked bar with your note counts by folder (Inbox, Template, Archive, Trash) along with total notes and size, so you can see at a glance where things are accumulating.

Performance tiers by document size:

• 50KB+: Some cosmetic decorations are simplified
• 100KB+: Heavier optimizations (longer debounce, deferred code block processing)
• 300KB+: Maximum optimization mode

Archived notes use a lightweight read-only renderer. Mark It Down is designed as a workspace, not a storage system — for long-term archiving, use Git sync or Export.

Electron apps are heavy. More importantly, the work happens in the browser — AI chats, research, reading.

A Side Panel that stays open beside whatever tab you're on is architecturally the right fit. No context switch, no separate window to manage. The entire app is built on Preact (3KB), so it loads instantly.

Single note: Markdown (.md), PDF, HTML, DOCX (Word), PNG, EPUB (ebook), LaTeX (.tex).

You can also copy as rich text (Ctrl+Shift+C) and paste into Word, Notion, or Google Docs with formatting preserved.

Batch export: Select multiple notes and export as a ZIP archive (Markdown/HTML/DOCX). If non-standard syntax is found, a dialog lets you choose: output as-is / normalize all / confirm one-by-one.

PDF export supports table of contents, page numbers, and proper pagination via Paged.js.

Yes. Use the Portability Hub to select a target platform — it detects problematic syntax and lets you convert it before exporting.

Supported targets: CommonMark, Obsidian, Hugo/Jekyll, Docusaurus, MkDocs, GFM, Zenn, Qiita (8 total).

On batch export, if non-standard syntax is detected you get a 3-choice dialog: output as-is / normalize all / confirm one-by-one.

Connect to GitHub or GitLab in a few steps.

1. Open Git Settings (Command Palette → "Git Settings")
2. Select provider (GitHub or GitLab)
3. Enter your token, repository URL, and branch
4. Click Test Connection, then Save

Your token is encrypted and stored securely.

Quick access to most features via Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P.

• Notes: New note, search, import
• Edit: Undo/Redo, Find & Replace, format tables
• Move: Pin, move to Archive/Template/Trash
• Git: Sync, Pull, Push, settings
• View: Toggle sidebar, TOC, focus mode, themes
• Insert: Mermaid diagrams, code blocks, math equations, TOC (/toc), timestamps (/now, Ctrl+Alt+;)

Ctrl+Shift+V activates Smart Paste.

• Markdown mode: Converts HTML and JSON to clean Markdown (default)
• Plain text mode: Strips all formatting
• Default mode: Standard browser paste behavior

JSON arrays auto-convert to tables, objects to lists, and nested structures to bullet hierarchies. Change the default in Settings.

Auto-conversion from Slack / Discord / WhatsApp:

Pasting from these apps automatically converts app-specific syntax to standard Markdown — no Ctrl+Shift+V needed. Covered: <url|text> links, ||spoiler||, and >>> quote blocks.

Yes — the Source Control sidebar tab was removed in v2.1.5. All Git operations (Push, Pull, Fetch, Settings, History) are still available from the Git menu at the top of the screen. Nothing was removed functionally.

The fixed structure (Inbox / Template / Archive / Trash) comes from a manufacturing principle called fixed-position management (定位置管理): everything has a designated place, and you always know where to look.

When you can create unlimited folders, things accumulate without intention. You end up with an organizational system you have to maintain rather than a tool you use. The constraint is the feature.

There's also a hidden System folder for built-in reference notes (Getting Started, Markdown Reference, etc.) — you don't manage it; it's just there when you need it.

Auto-sync tools (like Google Drive or iCloud) sync every change automatically. Mark It Down auto-saves locally every second — but pushing to Git is a deliberate action.

You can even select specific notes to push, rather than pushing everything at once. The idea is that you tidy up first, then commit. Your remote history stays readable and meaningful, not a log of every keystroke.

Pull is also manual, with conflict resolution built in (including a Compare & Edit mode for manual merging).

By design. Mark It Down is a writing tool, not a generating tool. The philosophy is "digestion" (咀嚼) — you take AI-generated output from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or wherever, paste it in, and rewrite it in your own words.

The editor renders AI output perfectly (LaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, code blocks with syntax highlighting, GFM tables), but it never generates content for you. The thinking happens in your head, not in the tool.