Comparison

Menu Bar Notes vs md.too

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Menu Bar Notes

Quickly capture thoughts, edit them across devices, and organize with markdown blocks and tabs. Notes sync privately via iCloud, with a 30-day trash recovery option. No accounts or data collection required.

Highlights
  • Block editor with markdown shortcuts
  • Collapsible toggle blocks
  • Tabbed notes with keyboard navigation
  • iCloud sync across devices
  • Menu bar quick capture on Mac
  • 30-day trash recovery
Read full description

Easily reach into your menubar to quickly jot down a thought or reference, edit it on your synced iPhone and iPad app with your private iCloud keeping every device in step. No accounts or signups are needed and no data is collected. I always wanted a simple tool like this and I hope someone else finds it useful. On Mac, it sits in your menu bar. Click the icon or press ⌥⌘N from any app to open your notes, and click the icon again or press Esc to put them away. On iPhone and iPad, it's a clean, touch-first editor that stays out of your way. Markdown Style Blocks Every note is built from blocks: text, headings, collapsible toggles, to-dos with checkboxes, and code. Type shortcuts like "# ", "> ", or "[] " at the start of a line and the block transforms as you write. Toggles nest without limit, so a quick list can grow into a real outline. Browser Style Tabs Notes are tabs. Switch with ⌘1–⌘9, open a new note with ⌘T, close one with ⌘W. Privately Sync over iCloud- No Account Needed iCloud sync keeps iPhone, iPad, and Mac in step automatically. No account to create, no subscription — your notes live in your personal, private iCloud. Forgiving By Design Deleted notes and blocks go to the Trash, where they can be restored for 30 days. FEATURES • Block editor: text, Heading 1 and 2, toggles, to-dos, and code • Markdown-style shortcuts for instant block transforms • Collapsible toggle blocks with unlimited nesting • Duplicate any block along with its children • Menu bar quick capture on Mac, with a global ⌥⌘N (Option-Command-N) hotkey • Tabbed notes with full keyboard navigation on Mac • iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac • 30-day Trash with restore • No accounts, no tracking, no data collection Menu Notes stores your notes on your device and syncs them through your own private iCloud database. We can't read them, and we wouldn't want to.

About

md.too

Features
Read full description

Application md.too is a minimalist markdown viewer for iPhone and iPad. It opens .md files, renders them, and lets you read and copy. That is the whole product. What it renders: • Headings, lists (including GitHub-style task lists with [ ] / [x]), block quotes, thematic breaks, and inline emphasis (bold, italic, strikethrough, underline). • Code blocks with syntax highlighting for about 40 languages: Swift, C/C++/C#/Objective-C, Java, Kotlin, Scala, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, PHP, Dart, Lua, Perl, R, Julia, Haskell, OCaml, F#, Elixir, Clojure, Groovy, SQL, GraphQL, Dockerfile, Makefile, TOML, INI, YAML, JSON, XML, HTML, CSS, Bash, PowerShell, Markdown. • Tables, including inline images inside table cells. • Inline images loaded from any HTTPS URL, with explicit width/height attributes (GitLab-style {width=N height=N}). • A small but useful LaTeX subset in $…$ and $$…$$: Greek letters, super- and sub-scripts, common operators, simple fractions, and basic display math. • Selectable, copyable text. Code blocks and tables get a one-click copy button. • Light and dark theme — follows the system, or pick one explicitly. • Export the rendered document to a paginated PDF, with images embedded. What it deliberately does not do: • No editor, no live preview/edit split, no autosave. Read-only by design. • No HTML rendering or WKWebView. Pure native UIKit/SwiftUI. • No file tree, no tabs, no command palette. • No third-party packages. The most popular JavaScript Markdown library, marked, lists about 636 transitive dependencies and roughly 38,980 lines of code on its public dependency graph. md.too ships zero dependencies. Every package you do not pull in is a supply-chain risk you do not inherit. Privacy: The application does not collect or transmit any personal data. The only network traffic is fetching inline images you reference by URL. Source code: The project is open-source under the MIT license. See the support URL.

Screenshots

Menu Bar Notes4 screens
md.too4 screens

Verdict

The call

Menu Bar Notes and md.too are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Menu Bar Notes ships an update every 2 weeks, md.too fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Menu Bar Notes versus md.too: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMenu Bar Notesmd.too
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size1 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperOlamide OjumuDmitry Kuznetsov

In-app purchases

None

Menu Bar Notes

No in-app purchases

None

md.too

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Menu Bar Notes free?
Menu Bar Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is md.too free?
md.too is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Menu Bar Notes or md.too have ads?
Neither Menu Bar Notes nor md.too shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Menu Bar Notes or md.too?
Menu Bar Notes ships an update every 2 weeks, and md.too fortnightly. Most recently, Menu Bar Notes was updated on October 3, 2026 and md.too on October 4, 2026.

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