Effery vs Folio, a minimal notebook

Some things aren't meant to last. A grocery list. A Wi-Fi password. A recipe you'll try once. A thought that only matters today. Effery is a note-taking app where every note has a countdown. Set a timer — one hour, three days, a month — and when it's up, the note disappears. No clutter. No archive guilt. Just the notes that still matter. DESIGNED TO VANISH Every note gets a time-to-live. Pick from 1 hour to 1 month. When the timer runs out, a 24-hour grace period kicks in. After that — gone. BEAUTIFUL BY DEFAULT Notes appear as book spines with hand-crafted patterns. 24 colors across 8 families. 12 base patterns. 6 hidden patterns to discover through gestures, timing, and exploration. 18 PATTERNS. 6 ARE HIDDEN. Shake your phone. Open the app at dinner time. Use a specific color. Place your phone face-down. Each secret pattern unlocks through a different interaction — no instructions, just play. 14 THEMES From warm Sepia and Paper to AMOLED black and Nord blue. A Japan theme inspired by traditional off-white. Find the one that feels like yours. PRIVATE & ENCRYPTED AES-256 encryption. Face ID or password lock. No accounts. No servers collecting your data. Your notes exist on your device and your iCloud — nowhere else. iCLOUD SYNC Seamless sync across your Apple devices. Encrypted end-to-end. Your notes follow you. SMART NOTIFICATIONS Get reminded before a note expires. Alerts from 1 to 24 hours ahead so nothing important vanishes before you're ready. 5 LANGUAGES English, Italian, German, Spanish, French. ORIGIN I wanted to bake pangoccioli — Italian chocolate chip buns — for someone I love. I needed somewhere to save the recipe. Just for that night. I built this app for that one recipe. Then I kept building. Completely free. No ads. No in-app purchases. No tracking. Just a small app made with care.

Folio is a notes app that refuses to choose between beautiful and capable. On the surface it's a calm, paper-inspired place to write. Underneath is a serious tool: backlinks, smart folders, version history, and biometric locking — the kind of power usually reserved for heavier apps. A LOVELY PLACE TO WRITE • Rich text: headings, lists, checklists, highlights, quotes, and code • Inline images and re-editable Apple Pencil sketches • A "/" command menu and Markdown shortcuts ORGANIZED YOUR WAY • Nestable folders and cross-cutting tags • Wiki-style [[links]] with automatic backlinks • Smart folders that save any search as a live view • Ranked search that finds what you mean NEVER LOSE A WORD • Automatic version history with one-tap restore • Pin, archive, and a 30-day recoverable trash • "On This Day" resurfaces past notes MADE YOURS • 9 fully-designed themes — Paper, Leather, Blueprint, Terminal, Bauhaus, and more • Adjustable fonts, text size, and light/dark EVERYWHERE • iPhone, iPad, native Mac (with a menu-bar capture popover), and Apple Watch • A Recent Notes widget and Siri Shortcuts • Face ID locking for private notes PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your notes sync through your own iCloud and stay on your devices. No accounts, no ads, no trackers — free.