OpenStickies 4.0.0

OpenStickies now runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and notes gained tabs, code blocks, file shortcuts, custom backgrounds, a reminder strip and a UI in 12 languages.

Added

• macOS and Linux builds. DMG and ZIP for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, AppImage and .deb for Linux, built by the release workflow next to the Windows installer. macOS gets a native application menu, Launch at login, text recognition for snips through the Vision framework, and Touch ID to unlock private notes. Shortcuts use ⌘ on a Mac.
• Tabs. A note window holds up to three tabs, each with its own content. Tabs name themselves from their first line, rename on double-click, reorder by drag, and the tab row stays hidden while there is only one tab. Closed tabs go to Trash and can be restored one at a time.
• Window controls. Collapse a note to its title bar, keep it always on top, snap it to a grid while moving (Settings → Behavior), or lock it so it can neither be edited nor moved.
• Code blocks with syntax colors, automatic language detection and a language submenu in the context menu. URLs turn into links as you type.
• Nested checklists indent and outdent with Tab and Shift+Tab, and markdown shortcuts cover headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, highlights and lists.
• Files in notes. Drop files or folders onto a note to get a shortcut chip with a type icon; open it, show it in the file manager, or drag it back out into another app. Hover a chip for a preview of files, images and PDFs; double-click a picture for a lightbox; drag the corner of an inline image to resize it.
• Search across tabs. The notes list searches every tab, and opening a note from a search result scrolls to and highlights the matches.
• Reminder strip. A note with a reminder shows it in its own strip, and the note border shifts from green to orange to red as the deadline nears. Reminders fire a native notification with a sound (choice in Settings → Reminders).
• Custom backgrounds. Pick any color with a color wheel, a gradient, or an image or animated GIF as a note background, and set the note's opacity.
• Data folder of your choice. Settings → Your notes can move the data folder, for example into a synced folder. Notes export as TXT or Markdown, and everything exports at once as JSON.
• 12 languages. English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Arabic (right-to-left). Settings → Appearance → Language; the default follows the system language. The welcome note and templates stay in English.

Changed

• Trash keeps up to 300 notes and 300 closed tabs and never deletes anything on a timer; the oldest entries go when the limit is reached.
• Locked notes can no longer be moved, including notes that OpenCode agents place.
• Line endings in the repository are normalized to LF.

Fixed

• Reminder notifications no longer play the system sound: Reminder sound set to None is now really silent, and Chime or Soft no longer overlaps the system sound.
• When the custom notes folder can't be found at startup, a new "Always use the default folder" button switches back to the default folder for good, so the warning no longer returns on every start for a folder that is gone.
• A reminder with an unsupported repeat value (from a hand-edited notes.json, a restored backup or another version) no longer fires its notification again every 10 seconds; the repeat is reset to none when notes are loaded or restored.
• On Linux (X11), snapping to screen edges, other notes and the grid now also applies when a note is moved, not only when it is resized.
• Opening a search result whose match is in another tab of the note now switches to that tab and highlights the match, and the scroll to the match is no longer undone by the saved scroll position.
• A note no longer freezes for seconds after each edit when a YAML, Markdown or SQL code block holds one very long line; code blocks with a line over 10,000 characters are left uncolored, and unchanged blocks are not re-colored on every edit.
• Pressing Enter on an empty last line of a code block now leaves the block, including blocks made with ``` or the code block button, and no longer joins the block's lines together; Ctrl+Z restores the removed line.
• Copy as Markdown and Markdown export keep the line breaks of code blocks made from existing lines (with the code block button, ``` or a multi-line inline-code selection), instead of joining the code into one line.
• The image lightbox now closes when the note that opened it is closed, trashed or deleted, and when private notes lock, so a private image no longer stays on screen after the vault locks.
• Notes removed at startup (closed blank notes and trash beyond 300 notes) now also lose their version history and the images only that history used, and importing a backup no longer lets the Trash grow past 300 notes.
• Changing the data location no longer leaves the last edits behind: note windows stop taking input and the local API pauses while the folder is copied, pending moves and resizes are saved first, and notes and settings saved after the copy are carried over before the restart.
• Exporting a note with tabs, on its own or with Export all (Markdown, text, JSON, HTML, PDF and print), now includes every tab under its title instead of only the open one. JSON exports also list the tabs separately in a tabs field.
• On an AI agent note with tabs, agent updates, appends and checklist ticks now go to the agent's first tab instead of overwriting whichever tab is open, so tabs the user added keep their own text.
• Code block colors now follow how dark the note itself is, not the app theme, so code stays readable on Charcoal notes and dark custom backgrounds in the light theme, and on light custom backgrounds in the dark theme.
• If copying notes to a new data location fails partway (for example, the disk is full), choosing the same folder again now works instead of being refused because the folder "already has OpenStickies notes".
• Backups now include closed tabs from the Trash, and restoring a backup puts them back in the Trash, where they can still be reopened in their own note.
• Restoring a version from Version history on a note with tabs now puts it back into the tab it came from and switches to that tab, instead of replacing whichever tab was open. The history list shows which tab each version belongs to, and each tab now gets its own snapshot when you start editing it.
• On Linux desktops without a system tray (such as stock GNOME without the AppIndicator extension), starting at login now opens the notes list instead of running with no window and no tray icon. OpenStickies now asks the session bus for a tray host instead of relying on the tray failing to load.
• Dragging a selected passage that contains a file chip from one note into another now keeps the chip and its file, as copy and paste does, instead of turning it into plain text.
• Pressing Tab inside a code block that sits in a bulleted or numbered list item now inserts a tab in the code instead of indenting the list item, and Shift+Tab no longer outdents the item.

Known limitations

• The macOS builds are ad-hoc signed and not notarized: on first launch, right-click the app and choose Open, or run xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/OpenStickies.app.
• On Linux the tray icon needs an AppIndicator extension on GNOME; without one, starting at login opens the notes list instead. Hover previews of PDFs and other documents are not available on Linux.
• Background images on private notes are stored unencrypted.
• Exported HTML and PDF keep code blocks but not their syntax colors.
• Private notes cannot have tabs.

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Download

Platform	File	What it is
Windows 10 and 11	OpenStickies-Setup-4.0.0.exe	Installer. Adds Start menu and desktop shortcuts.
Windows 10 and 11	OpenStickies-Portable-4.0.0.exe	Portable. A single file that runs without installing anything.
macOS, Apple silicon	OpenStickies-4.0.0-mac-arm64.dmg	Disk image for M1 and later Macs. Drag OpenStickies to Applications.
macOS, Intel	OpenStickies-4.0.0-mac-x64.dmg	Disk image for Intel Macs.
Linux (x64)	OpenStickies-4.0.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage	AppImage. Runs on most distributions without installing.
Debian, Ubuntu (x64)	openstickies_4.0.0_amd64.deb	Package for apt.

The macOS apps are also attached as .zip files.

Windows protected your PC? The Windows builds aren't code-signed, so SmartScreen may warn you the first time. Click More info → Run anyway.

macOS says OpenStickies can't be opened? The Mac builds aren't notarized by Apple. Control-click (or right-click) OpenStickies in Applications and choose Open, then Open again. On macOS 15 and later, try to open it once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. You only need to do this the first time.

Running the AppImage: make it executable first, then start it: chmod +x OpenStickies-4.0.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage && ./OpenStickies-4.0.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage. Some distributions need libfuse2 installed to run AppImages. On GNOME, the tray icon needs the AppIndicator extension; without it, OpenStickies opens its notes list instead.

To check a download, compare its SHA-256 hash with SHA256SUMS.txt. On macOS and Linux: shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing. In PowerShell: Get-FileHash .\OpenStickies-Setup-4.0.0.exe