Joplin is a free and open-source note taking application that works on every platform. Joplin’s user interface isn’t as polished as some of its competitors — it feels more geeky, if that makes any sense — but the application is a favorite among privacy advocates and is recommended by Privacy Guides. Joplin stores notes on your local file system, provides end-to-end encryption, and allows you to synchronize files across devices by storing them on a service like Dropbox or Nextcloud. Or, you can subscribe to Joplin Cloud for syncing.

Joplin Markdown application

Joplin Markdown Support

Joplin provides support for the following Markdown elements.

Element Support Notes
Headings Yes
Paragraphs Yes
Line Breaks Yes In addition to trailing whitespace, you can also use a trailing backslash or press the Return key once to achieve the same result.
Bold Yes
Italic Yes
Blockquotes Yes
Ordered Lists Yes
Unordered Lists Yes
Code Yes
Horizontal Rules Yes
Links Yes
Images Yes
Tables Yes
Fenced Code Blocks Yes
Syntax Highlighting Yes
Footnotes Yes
Heading IDs Partial Automatically generated. There’s no way to set custom heading IDs.
Definition Lists Yes Not enabled by default, but can be enabled in Preferences > Plugins.
Strikethrough Yes
Task Lists Yes
Emoji (copy and paste) Yes
Emoji (shortcodes) Yes Not enabled by default, but can be enabled in Preferences > Plugins.
Highlight Yes
Subscript Yes
Superscript Yes
Automatic URL Linking Yes
Disabling Automatic URL Linking Yes
HTML Yes

Support for Additional Syntax Elements

As an added bonus, Joplin provides support for several obscure elements.

Tip: Most of these elements are disabled by default. You can enable them in Preferences > Plugins.
Element Markdown Rendered Output
Abbreviation *[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language
The HTML specification is maintained by the W3C.
The HTML specification is maintained by the W3C.
Insert ++This text has been inserted++ This text has been inserted

See Also