My favorite Mac note-taking app just got a major AI upgrade

I love a good note-taking app. They help keep me organized and ensure I don’t have to keep every thought that spills out of my head within the sulci and gyri of my brain. At their core, note-taking apps make my daily life a bit easier with:

• Bulleted lists of tasks.
• Notes for books I’m writing or planning to write.
• Shopping lists.
• Daily thoughts.
• And so much more.

So, yeah, I use note-taking apps all the time.

Usually, I try to make use of note-taking apps that are cross-platform so I can access my notes from anywhere. However, when I’m on MacOS, I might start using an app I only recently discovered.

That app is called Craft.

What can Craft do?

Craft offers all the standard features, such as a block-based note-taking system, nested pages and folders, spaces to separate content by purpose, support for text, images, sketches, code blocks, PDF files, and rich link previews, the ability to add any kind of media directly into notes, real-time collaborative document editing, options to share notes as formatted emails, PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, or Markdown files, private link sharing for feedback and comments, automatic syncing across devices, a built-in calendar, templates, drag-and-drop functionality, integration with other apps like Ulysses, Day One, DevonThink, and Things, and export to various formats, including Textbundle for migration to other note-taking apps.

Also: How I feed my files to a local AI for better, more relevant responses

There’s one other feature that was added to the latest release. I’m sure you can guess what that feature is.

Why would you need AI for a note-taking app?

If you guessed AI, then you are correct. 

I kicked the tires of Craft and found the AI to actually be quite helpful.

For instance, I wanted to create a general housekeeping chore task list, so I opened the Craft AI assistant and typed, “Write a general list of housekeeping chores.” To my surprise, the list presented was really handy — so much so, that I decided to keep it.

Also: My 5 favorite note-taking apps for staying organized on a desktop

I then gave it another test by typing, “Write me an encouraging statement,” and the results were equally impressive. The final test was to use the assistant to check the grammar and spelling of my notes.

Let me show you how it works.

How to use Craft’s AI Assistant

What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need for this is the Craft app installed on a MacOS, iOS, or iPadOS device.

Once the Craft Assistant has generated its answer, you can either copy the results or click Insert to add the results to the note.

I was quite surprised at how useful I found the Craft AI assistant (so much so that it’s become my default note-taking app for MacOS), and I believe just about anyone will find this app to be an outstanding addition to their daily routine.

Also: I tried Sanctum’s local AI app, and it’s exactly what I needed to keep my data private

One final thought. By default, Craft uses the llama 3.2 3B LLM, but you can select from GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini, llama 3.2 1B, DeepSeek R1 7B, or DeepSeek R1 1.5B models. This is done in Craft > Settings > Assistant.

You can install Craft from the various Apple app stores (MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS) and use it for free.