Private notes and boards, encrypted on your device.
A free notes app and task board, end-to-end encrypted. Your notes, to-dos, comments, boards and files are sealed in your browser with a key only you hold, and backed up automatically in encrypted copies you can restore — even if our server goes down. Works in any browser, on a phone or a desk.
Outline.co is a free, end-to-end encrypted notes app and task board in one place. Notes are where a thought lands first — a line, a #label, a to-do list, a reminder. Boards are where work moves: a column for each stage, a card for each job, with a timeline drawn from the dates. Both are sealed on your device before they reach our server.
Yes. A note’s title, words, steps, labels, status and priority, its comments, private boards and their cards, and the files you attach are sealed in your browser with AES-256-GCM before they are sent; the server only ever stores ciphertext. What stays readable is what the service needs to work — dates, reminder times, colors and who something is shared with — and public notes, which you choose to make readable.
Only you, and the people you share them with. Your key is made from your 12 recovery words and never leaves your devices in a form anyone else can open — not our server, not an email. When you share, the key is sealed to the other person’s own key in your browser. Reminder emails say “A note” rather than its words.
Automatically, and encrypted. A few minutes after you change something, your account copy is saved, sealed with your 12 words, and kept for 30 days in two separate storage places — you can also download it and restore from that file. On a computer (Chrome or Edge), Outline.co also keeps an encrypted copy in a folder you choose, every 15 minutes.
Your work is not only on our server. The copy in your own folder opens with your 12 words, even offline, and a downloaded account copy restores from the file. The service’s database is backed up every night, sealed, to two separate storage places, so it can be restored if it is erased or damaged — and because your notes are encrypted, a stolen copy is unreadable without your words.
Sign in on another device and open your words there — with the 12 words, a passkey, or your password. Everything comes back, still encrypted. Keep your 12 words somewhere safe: they are the one thing that opens your notes.
Yes. There is no paid tier, no seat count, no trial and no advertising — everything is in the free version.
A note has a title and a body, with lists and to-dos you tick in place. Labels sit under it as #tags; status, priority, steps, hidden fields and a reminder can be set on it, and the reminder emails you at the minute you chose — once, or every day, week or month. The month view shows which days you wrote on.
Yes. Every board is also a timeline, drawn from the dates already on its cards. Give a card two dates and it becomes a bar; drag it to move the work.
No. You type your email, we send you a link, and you are in. A password is optional — and, with your email link, it is one of the ways to open your encryption key on a new device.
Yes. Share a board or a note by email address — as an editor or a reviewer. The key is sealed to each person in your browser; it is never sent by email. A note stays private unless you choose to show it to everyone signed in, or to anyone with the link.
No. The optional assistant runs on open-weights models through Cloudflare, only when you ask, and it cannot read encrypted notes or boards. Nothing goes to a model vendor and nothing is used as training data.
Yes, for what is not sealed. Outline.co speaks the Model Context Protocol at https://api.outline.co/api/mcp, over Streamable HTTP, authenticated as you. Your encrypted notes and boards stay sealed to it — an assistant there sees them only as “Sealed”, and cannot change them.
It is smaller, it is free, and it is end-to-end encrypted. Notes and boards, a timeline from the dates, sharing by email and automatic encrypted backups — and that is the lot. There is no plan to upgrade to and no workspace to set up first. If you need portfolios, forms or automations, one of those is the better answer.
No. Outline.co is a web app: open outline.co in the browser on your phone, tablet or computer and sign in. The same account, the same encrypted notes and boards, on every device.
Yes, properly. It is designed at phone size first: notes, boards and the timeline were built for a narrow screen, and cards drag with your thumb.
Outline.co for language models (llms.txt)