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About the survival of our Data ( when Apps die )
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Posted by satis
Jun 21, 2025 at 02:44 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>when I wanted to export the data and import it in a usable way
>into Excel, I just couldn’t. I dropped the list into Dynalist, and had
>the same problem. I dropped it into OmniOutliner. No help.
Surprised. Workflowy’s OPML should have let OO export to .csv or .xlsx, giving you a nice nested spreadsheet in Excel.
>which app do you trust the most with keeping your
>information and gives you confidence you can get
>it out and into other apps?
“Information” casts a wide net, so I’ll restrict my answer to documents. I want apps I can trust for portability, security and no lock-in. So, any textfile-based app would fit, of course, especially one whose files are distinct and either exist as textfiles outside a database or can be easily found within an app’s database. For the most privacy and file transparency I suppose the more hardcore options would feature open source apps like Obsidian, Logseq and Joplin.
But text files can too disadvantageous for much use, for many reasons due to its lack of rich features and manual overhead in managing files.
I’ve never had a problem with a commercial app with mode full-featured file formats as long as they have had good export to open formats like Markdown, JSON, csv, pdf, plaintext - and that includes Microsoft’s and Apple’s apps. That would also include apps like Notion, Zettlr, Bear and Standard Notes.
Bonus points for apps which support APIs or integrations like Zapier, or services which let you easily download your entire archive.
As far as OPML goes OmniOutliner has proven itself over decades even if the app has been marginally supported in recent years and is in maintenance mode. It’s powerful and bommbproof and I have tens of thousands of words in it even though I’ve increasingly found it clunky to use and I came to dislike writing in it in recent years. I have even more issues with other outliner apps, though. (I like Dynalist but not its pricing, and anyway it too is in maintence mode.)
Despite those preferences about apps I most trust my main writing app Ulysses, with *hundreds* of thousands of words in it, uses a proprietary database, and although one can use it with external files that are local or cloud-based, I don’t, instead relying on the app’s internal, cloud-synced database (which would be a bear to retrieve files from) to make greatest use of rich formatting and metadata capabilities from it custom Markdown flavor. But it’s never been a problem. It is very robust, and I have other priorities like requiring iOS/macOS cross platform sync.
So I don’t act on this particular concern. Most people don’t, and most don’t have to.
Posted by Amontillado
Jun 21, 2025 at 05:39 PM
Future proofing is something I thought a lot about yesterday. I discovered a couple of new-to-me functions in vim. I stared into the rabbit hole and the rabbit hole stared back. I spent all evening exploring things stuff I’d never seen in vim before.
Vim is ugly. The different modes, Visual (block), Visual (stream), Insert, Replace, Command, Binary, and Normal, might as well be designed to confound the unwary.
At the same time, it’s awesome. I may even grow a neck beard, it’s that great.
Anyway, plain text is about as stable as cuneiform. A reasonable second choice is ability to export to accepted and open file formats. As long as an app will do either of those, I’m happy.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 3, 2025 at 08:20 AM
Yep, agreed – and that’s why I now use Obsidian exclusively for all my PKM needs. Everything saved out in text (markdown), excellent tools for web clipping (Obsidian’s own, plus plugins like e.g. Slurp – and others), totally cross-platform (works very well on mobile), and thanks to constellation of plugins, hugely flexible.
And it looks nice (unlike VIM)!!!
Coupled with the outstanding plugin “Various Complements” (a ridiculous name for something so powerful), which (a) suggests words as you’re typing but far more importantly, (b) suggests links to notes in your Vault as you’re typing – in a pleasant, unobtrusive way – Obsidian is also the perfect Zettelkasten solution. Again, there are other plugins which offer “classical” Zettelkasten functionality (numbered/dated/timed notes, etc.), but I prefer the enormous flexibility provided by Various Complements.
There is even a growing number of non-Obsidian-proprietary syncing solutions.
And if Obsidian eventually dies, well, that’d be tragic, but all my data would still be accessible. Giving me a good excuse to turn to another favourite app (desktop only, alas): Octarine, which I use to edit my personal notes on our Nextcloud system.
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by Amontillado
Jul 3, 2025 at 01:46 PM
Pretty much completely agree about Obsidian. One thing I wish for in Obsidian is global community plugins. It would be nice not to have duplicate copies of plugins in each vault.
I have projects that are sufficiently siloed that one vault wouldn’t make sense. Currently, Devonthink is my go-to. I understand as soon as I can update my ancient Macs the new Devonthink has some nice features, such as node maps.
Part of my enthusiasm for vimwiki comes from being able to use it in spite of overly jack-booted policies at work.
It’s not that I disagree with jackboots in cyber security, but being told I couldn’t have vim on my workstation was a disappointment. So, I run vimwiki on a department Linux system, completely legit in our policies.
But on a workstation? Oh, horrors, no vim! Use Notepad++, I was told.
Then this morning I see my workstation was flagged for a Notepad++ privilege escalation vulnerability.
Some days…