notes-export git:20261005.8497e82A

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/d2537e81f467a360.

---
name: notes-export
description: Export/back up EVERY macOS Notes note (all accounts, all folders) to local storage as markdown files plus a JSON manifest — the safety net to run BEFORE any reorganization, and the corpus the notes-audit skill analyzes. Read-only against Notes; writes only to ~/.local/share/notes-commander/export/. TRIGGERS - export my notes, back up notes, notes snapshot, dump notes to disk, notes backup before reorganizing.
allowed-tools: Bash, Read
---

# notes-export — full local snapshot of Apple Notes

> **Self-Evolving skill** — if export behavior drifts (AE size caps, chunk failures, encoding), fix this SKILL.md and `scripts/notes.ts` `OSA_EXPORT` (+ a test in `notes-core.test.ts` for any pure helper change); see the Post-Execution Reflection at the bottom.

One command captures everything Notes holds into a timestamped local snapshot:

```bash
NC="$HOME/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/cc-skills/plugins/notes-commander/scripts/notes.ts"
bun "$NC" export                     # → ~/.local/share/notes-commander/export/<stamp>/
bun "$NC" export --out /path/to/dir  # explicit destination
```

What a snapshot contains:

- **One markdown file per note**, under `<account>/<folder>/…` mirroring the Notes hierarchy. Each file has YAML frontmatter (`account`, `folder`, `id`, `modified`) and the note body as plain text (decoded via `textutil`, UTF-8-safe, CJK-safe).
- **`manifest.json`** — every folder (with counts) and every note (id, name, modified, relative file path, char count). This is the machine-readable index for audits and diffs. It also carries `complete` (false when anything was skipped) and `skipped.folders` / `skipped.notes` with the reason for each, so the manifest alone tells a full backup from a partial one — check `complete` before trusting a snapshot, not just that `manifest.json` exists.
- Filenames are sanitized (`safeFilename`) and suffixed with the note's core-data id (`.p1234.md`), so same-titled notes never collide.

## Rules

- **Run this before any `notes-organize` operation** — it is the undo story. Notes has no API-level undo; a snapshot does.
- The default root (`~/.local/share/notes-commander/export/`) is deliberately OUTSIDE any git repo so note content can never be accidentally committed. Don't redirect `--out` into a repo.
- Snapshots are full (not incremental); each run creates a new timestamped dir. Old snapshots are plain dirs — delete them manually when no longer wanted.
- `Recently Deleted` is deliberately skipped (restore a note in the Notes UI first if you want it captured).
- A large library takes a few minutes (verified live: 400 notes ≈ 2.5 min) — bodies are fetched in chunks of 20 because one giant Apple Event reply blows the AE size cap (`-1741`). A failed chunk degrades to per-note fetches; a still-failing note becomes a warning + exit code 3 (partial export is LOUD, never silent). The same holds for a note whose text conversion fails (`⚠ note skipped (text conversion failed)`): it is skipped, the rest of the snapshot and `manifest.json` are still written. Transient `-600`/`-1712` launch races retry automatically.

## Post-Execution Reflection

After an export, check: (1) exit code 0, `manifest.json` `complete: true`, and note count ≈ live inventory total? Exit 3 / `complete: false` means some notes were skipped — read `skipped` (or the `⚠` lines) and investigate before trusting the snapshot as a backup. (2) Spot-check one CJK/emoji-titled file — mojibake means the `<meta charset="utf-8">` textutil prefix or `safeFilename` drifted. (3) New `-1741`s despite chunking → shrink the chunk size in `OSA_EXPORT`. Update this SKILL.md only for real, reproducible drift.

## Evolution log

- **2026-09-27 — a note was silently exported empty, and the manifest could not say so.** _Trigger_: a live export of 637 notes after v32.3.1 exited 3 with one `⚠ note skipped (text conversion failed) … exit null`. _Measured_: that note is 1.7 KB of plain HTML and converted 80 of 80 times in isolation, so `textutil` had been killed by a signal once in over 600 conversions. Before v32.3.1 the same death returned `""`, and the note went into the backup as an empty file with no warning. v32.3.1 made that loud, but the manifest still named only the notes it wrote, so a caller trusting `manifest.json` could not see the gap. _Fix_: `htmlToText()` makes two attempts (not for `ENOBUFS`, which is deterministic) and names the signal when a run is killed. `manifest.json` gains `complete` and `skipped.folders` / `skipped.notes`, each with a reason. _Evidence_: a second full export returned 638 notes, `complete: true`, exit 0, with the previously skipped note exported with its text.