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On your Mac, in Varlig’s own container: ~/Library/Containers/app.varlig.notes.mobile/Data/Library/Application Support/Varlig/. Your notes are in library.sqlite, and pictures and files you’ve added are in the assets folder next to it. There’s no Varlig account and no copy on a server of ours. On iPhone and iPad, they’re stored inside the app on the device, and included in the device’s own backups. If you turn on iCloud sync, your library is also kept in your own iCloud storage and on your other devices.

To keep a copy somewhere else, make a backup with File › Back Up Library….

Choose File › Back Up Library… and pick a place to save, such as an external drive. Varlig saves a folder named like Varlig-2026-09-16.varligbackup with every note, including Trash and Archive, and a copy of every attachment.

A few things to know:

• Password-protected notes stay encrypted inside the backup. Other notes are stored as readable text, so keep backups somewhere private.
• A backup holds your notes and their settings, attachments, tag icons and pins, and reminders. App preferences such as your theme, and your saved searches, reading lists and review state, aren’t included.
• Varlig also backs up on its own, daily, keeping the last seven copies beside your library. Settings › Sync & Backup › Automatic backups changes how often, how many and where.

Choose File › Restore Backup… and select the .varligbackup folder. Restoring adds to your library rather than replacing it:

• Notes you already have are left as they are.
• If a note changed in both places, the backup’s version comes back as a separate copy, so nothing is overwritten.

When it’s done, Varlig tells you how many notes it restored.

With iCloud sync, sign in to the new Mac with the same Apple Account, open Varlig and turn on Sync notes with iCloud in Settings › Sync & Backup. Your notes arrive by themselves.

Without sync, choose File › Back Up Library… on your old Mac. Copy the .varligbackup folder to the new Mac, open Varlig there and choose File › Restore Backup….

Your notes, tags and attachments come across. Settings don’t, so choose your theme, fonts and calculation settings again on the new Mac.

Yes, if it’s still in the Trash. Open Trash in the sidebar, select the note and choose Note › Restore Note (⇧⌘R).

File › Empty Trash… deletes notes for good and can’t be undone. A note you backed up before emptying the Trash is still in that backup.

Yes. Choose Note › Version History… to browse up to 30 earlier versions of the note, read any of them, and click Restore This Version. Your current text is saved as a version first, so a restore can itself be undone.

Varlig saves a version at most once a minute while you edit. Password-protected notes have no browsable history, and protecting a note removes the history it had. See Version history and automatic backups.

Yes. Choose Add Reminder… from a note’s … menu, or right-click a task or some selected text and choose Add Reminder for Task… or Add Reminder for Selection…. Everything you’ve set is listed under Reminders in the sidebar, and ticking a reminded task completes its reminder.

Reminders are stored in your library and included in backups. They aren’t synced: each Mac, iPhone and iPad keeps its own, and Also add to Apple Reminders puts a copy in the Reminders app. See Reminders.

Yes. File › Open Markdown File… (⌥⌘O) opens a .md or .txt file and edits it where it is, saving back to the same file with its own line endings. Nothing is added to your library. See Editing Markdown files in place.

Yes. Varlig syncs your library through your own iCloud account between your Mac, iPhone and iPad, and your other Macs. On the Mac, turn on Sync notes with iCloud in Settings › Sync & Backup; on iPhone and iPad, sync is always on. Sign in to iCloud with the same Apple Account on every device.

Notes, attachments, pins, Archive and Trash sync, and password-protected notes stay encrypted. Settings, reminders and the scratchpad stay on each device. See iCloud sync and shared notes, and Getting started on iPhone and iPad for the iPhone and iPad app.

There’s no reset button, so it’s done in Finder:

1. Quit Varlig.
2. Move the folder ~/Library/Containers/app.varlig.notes.mobile to the Trash. This removes every note and attachment on this Mac, its automatic backups and its settings. Notes in iCloud stay there.

On iPhone and iPad, deleting the app removes its data from the device.

Make a backup first if there’s anything you might want later.

Open the note and choose Note › Note Password…. Enter a password of at least 8 characters, confirm it, and choose Encrypt. Varlig encrypts the note’s text and attachments with AES, and lists it under Locked in the sidebar.

You can also turn on Allow Touch ID or Mac password on this Mac, so you don’t have to type the password each time. Privacy, locking and backups has the details.

No. The password never leaves your Mac, and nobody, including us, can unlock the note without it. That’s what keeps it private.

If you turned on Allow Touch ID or Mac password on this Mac for that note, select it and choose Unlock with Touch ID or Mac Password. Otherwise, a copy you exported or backed up before adding the password is still readable.

Choose Note › Lock Varlig. Your library is hidden behind a lock screen until you choose Unlock with Mac Authentication and use Touch ID or your Mac password.

To ask for this every time Varlig opens, turn on Require Mac authentication at launch in Settings › Privacy. Locking the app hides your notes but doesn’t encrypt them, so give sensitive notes a password too.

To keep them private when you step away. Unlocked notes lock again when you switch to another app, and after your Mac has been idle for 5 minutes. Change both in Settings › Privacy, under Lock protected notes when Varlig is inactive and Lock after Mac is idle.

No account, no sign-up and no analytics in the apps. The website counts visits without cookies, as the privacy policy explains. Your notes stay on your devices, and in your own iCloud if you turn on sync. Nothing you write goes to a server of ours unless you turn on faster live editing, and then only end-to-end encrypted.

Only for things that need the internet. Lookups never include your notes:

• Exchange rates and inflation data, from the European Central Bank, Coinbase, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eurostat and the World Bank, so currency and inflation calculations work. Turn this off in Settings › Calculations.
• Places and weather that a calculation names (both on to begin with). Only the place the line names is sent, to Apple (and, for weather, its coordinates to Apple WeatherKit). Turn each off in Settings › Calculations › Live data.
• Titles of web links you paste. Turn this off in Settings › General.
• Link previews and web clipping, only when you ask for them.
• iCloud sync, once you turn it on, to your own iCloud storage and your other devices.
• Live editing, a preview you turn on, through iCloud, and faster live editing, if you turn that on too, through Varlig’s relay, end-to-end encrypted so it can’t read what you type.

Everything else, including writing, search and calculations that don’t look anything up, works offline.

No. Type as you would anywhere, and use the Format menu or a shortcut when you want structure, like ⌘B for bold or ⌘T for a checklist. Varlig hides the symbols as you write. Your first note shows the basics in a few minutes.

Choose Format › Calculation Block or press ⌘Y, then type one calculation per line. Each answer appears on the right as you type. You can also type the block yourself: three backticks and the word calc on one line, your calculations, then three backticks to close it.

Check these first:

• Is it inside a calc block? Calculations only work between ```calc and ```. Other code blocks stay as plain text.
• Is it a comment? A # followed by a space, and anything after //, is a comment. A tag joined straight to the hash, such as #food, still shows its answer and adds the line to total of #food.
• Is it unfinished? A line like total = or a name you haven’t defined yet shows no answer until it’s complete.

If the line shows a message instead, such as Error: incompatible units, look it up in Errors, diagnostics and limits.

Varlig doesn’t have exchange rates for that currency yet. It needs an internet connection once to download them. Open Settings › Calculations and click Refresh Now, or make sure Refresh currency and crypto rates hourly is on. Any problem downloading rates is shown there in red.

Once rates are downloaded, Varlig keeps the last ones it saved, so conversions keep working offline.

Calculation settings take effect when you click Apply at the bottom of Settings › Calculations. The exchange-rate switch is the exception: it applies straight away.

Yes, within the same note: a name you define in one block works in the blocks below it. A line of three or more hyphens (---) inside a block starts fresh. To use a value in every note, add it to Shared definitions in Settings › Calculations.

Open Settings › Import & Export and choose Import from Bear… or Import from Soulver…. Varlig asks you to choose Bear’s library, the folder Application Data, or your Soulver sheetbook or sheets, then copies them in; the original is never changed. Each Soulver sheet becomes a calculation note with the original file attached.

Bear notes you’ve encrypted in Bear need to be exported unlocked from Bear first, and attachments must be downloaded in Bear before you import.

Choose File › Import Notes… (⇧⌘O) to bring in Markdown and plain text, TextBundle and TextPack, HTML, RTF, Word documents, Evernote exports (ENEX), Drafts and Day One exports, and Soulver files. You can import a whole folder at once.

Moving from another app? Switch to Varlig has the steps for Bear, Obsidian, Apple Notes, Evernote and Soulver.

Select one or more notes and choose File › Export Notes… (⇧⌘S). Markdown, plain text, TextBundle, rich text and PDF are free; HTML, Word, JPEG and EPUB need Varlig Pro. Formatted exports, such as PDF, include your calculation answers; Markdown keeps the calculations themselves.

Exported copies aren’t encrypted, even for password-protected notes.

It’s the title of Varlig’s alert when something went wrong, such as a note that couldn’t be saved or a backup that couldn’t be restored. The message underneath explains what happened, and usually what to do.

If it says Varlig couldn’t open your library, your original notes haven’t been changed. When the message mentions an unsupported format, the library was probably last used by a newer version of Varlig, so install the latest version.

Varlig never creates a new library in place of one it couldn’t open, so your notes are still where they were. The window says what went wrong, and offers:

• Try Again, once you’ve fixed the cause — a disconnected disk, for example.
• Open a Backup…, which picks a backup and opens that instead. Varlig tells you how many notes and attachments it holds before anything is written, and the library that wouldn’t open is kept beside it under a name ending in Unreadable, exactly as it was.
• Show Backups and Show in Finder, which open those folders so you can look at them yourself or copy them somewhere safe.

Your edit is still in memory, and Varlig won’t quit while it can’t save, so nothing is lost yet. Check that your Mac has free disk space, then keep the note open and try again. If it keeps happening, copy the note’s text somewhere safe and contact us.

That’s expected: an app from the App Store can’t change its own icon in Finder, so the icon you choose in Settings › App Icon shows in the Dock while Varlig is open, and Finder keeps the Classic icon.

Choose Help › Add Demo Notes on the Mac, or Settings › About Varlig › Add Demo Notes on iPhone and iPad. Demo notes in the Trash come back, and any you’ve deleted are made again. Your own notes aren’t touched.

On the Mac, choose Varlig › About Varlig. On iPhone and iPad, open Settings › About Varlig. Please include the version number when you contact us.

Use the button at the top of any page on this site: it shows how to get Varlig on your devices. Varlig runs on Macs with Apple silicon on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, and on iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 or later.

Varlig is free, with unlimited notes, iCloud sync, shared notes and every calculation. The Pricing page shows what Varlig Pro adds and what it costs, and answers questions about paying, the free trial, Family Sharing, switching and canceling.