Curio and Devonthink

Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 14, 2022 at 11:26 AM

While I’m thinking about it, I’d just remind Mac users reluctant to pay Curio’s rather robust subscription charges that there is a very capable free alternative in the form of GrowlyNotes (from growlybird.com). The software itself is similar to OneNote, but has impressively broad import options, including a Curio-a-like range of PDF import possibilities, and integrates nicely into macOS Services.

It’s under ongoing development, and the latest version 4.2.7 dates from February 2022. I’ve had very occasional instability issues on Monterey, but I’ve never lost any data. Personally, I use it for multiple document drafting (like OneNote, each “page” is a more or less unlimited whiteboard – oh, and it supports collaboration, too), but also for storing notes on specific projects etc. (rather usefully, you can embed multiple documents and PDFs in a single page – you can use a page as a storage area for “embedded” files, even if GrowlyNotes doesn’t support them itself).

It doesn’t have an iOS version, unfortunately (there was one, but it never really took off, so the developer sensibly stopped working on it). You can, however, link to files so that they are regularly updated within GrowlyNotes, so you can set up links with specific files or folders in e.g. iCloud. GrowlyNotes is, in many respects, much more powerful than OneNote itself (the developer is ex-Microsoft).

Finally, the search function is seriously efficient and very fast.

Just a reminder!
Cheers,
Bill