Notes Automation Workflows

Use this skill for scripted, repeatable Apple Notes operations that go beyond single-note edits.

When to use

• "Review my notes from last N days" or periodic cleanup/triage tasks.
• Adding structured summaries to notes that contain links.
• Adding summaries for image/photo notes.
• Updating notes programmatically without manual, one-by-one edits.
• Creating a translated or otherwise transformed copy of a rich-text note while preserving its structure.

When not to use

• Single small edits: use the memo/Notes interactive flow directly.
• Sensitive credential text cleanup: use explicit user confirmation before summarizing.
• Non-Apple notes sources (Obsidian, Notion, etc.)

Prerequisites

• macOS Notes.app
• osascript available
• User has granted Automation access to Notes.app in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation
• Apple Notes has the target notes in a reachable account (usually iCloud)

memo CLI reliability

The memo CLI tool frequently breaks after Homebrew/Python updates due to a stale interpreter path. Diagnose with /opt/homebrew/bin/memo 2>&1 — typical error: bad interpreter: No such file or directory. Fix via brew uninstall memo && brew install antoniorodr/memo/memo. When broken, fall through entirely to AppleScript (see search section below).

Searching notes reliably

Title-only AppleScript query is the fastest, most reliable search method. Use before any other approach:

# Search by title only — instant even with thousands of notes
osascript -e 'tell application "Notes" to get name of every note whose name contains "keyword"'

# Retrieve title + body of a single matched note (use sparingly)
osascript -e 'tell application "Notes" to set target to first note whose name contains "keyword"' \
 -e '{name:name of target, body:(body of target)}'

Critical timing constraint: Body access (body of n) iterated across every note in a large account times out at 30s. Title-only search has no this problem. Restrict full-body iteration to single-note retrieval or folder-scoped queries.

Core strategy

For anything beyond one note, use AppleScript first-pass enumeration + AppleScript updates. Avoid relying on memo index-based addressing for scripts.

For a single note that must be created and shown on screen, follow the quick-create procedure. It covers the memo bad-interpreter fallback, account/folder discovery, HTML-body creation, show/activate, and folder-scoped read-back verification.

Reliable read/write path

Use AppleScript with body (not plain text) and id:

tell application "Notes"
 set target to first note whose id is "<note-id>"
 set noteBody to (body of target) as string
 set noteAttachments to count of attachments of target
end tell

Prefer updating by id for correctness and stability.

14-day sweep pattern

When a user asks for the last X days, start with a filtered enumeration in AppleScript so every candidate is in-bounds before heavy processing.

tell application "Notes"
 set cutoff to (current date) - (14 * days)
 set out to ""
 repeat with a in accounts
 set nset to (notes of a whose (modification date >= cutoff))
 repeat with n in nset
 set out to out & (id of n as string) & "\u001f" & (name of n as string) & "\u001f" & (count of attachments of n as string) & "\u001f" & ((body of n) as string) & "\n"
 end repeat
 end repeat
 return out
end tell

This keeps pagination/sort order issues out of the script and gives a stable candidate list.

Classification rules used in enrichment workflows

After loading candidates, classify each note before writing:

1. Link note

• URL regex appears in title or body (http:// or https://).

2. Photo/attachment note

• attachments > 0
• stripped text body is minimal/noisy (len(text) <= ~40) or only boilerplate.

3. Regular text note

• No actionable link
• Non-empty readable text and no dedicated attachment-only signals

For link notes, summarize source content and prepend the note body with a single summary block. For photo-only notes, prepend a concise photo summary block (or a clear placeholder if the image is inaccessible).

Idempotent updates

Never duplicate summary blocks. Before writing, check if body already contains your summary marker, e.g.:

if (body of target) does not contain "<b>Summary:</b>" then
 set body of target to ("<div><b>Summary:</b> ...</div><div><br></div>") & (body of target)
end if

Content formatting requirements

• Keep all appended summaries as HTML and prepend via body.
• Wrap each inserted piece in <div> and separate entries with <div><br></div>.
• Keep summaries short and task-scoped (2–5 sentences max).

Link-source handling

web_extract coverage varies by site. If a source is unsupported:

• record that as a blocker in the summary
• summarize from cached context only when allowed
• keep a clear label so the next pass can retry when source access improves

Validation checklist

After writes, verify:

• expected notes in scope were touched
• link notes now include one summary block each
• photo/attachment-only notes are marked in a consistent format
• non-link/non-photo notes were not unexpectedly rewritten