Note-taking apps that lock your notes into a proprietary format or a cloud service create a real problem down the line: what happens when that service shuts down, changes its pricing, or gets acquired? Evernote Premium has run into exactly that kind of trust erosion over the years with pricing and feature changes, and Obsidian’s entire design philosophy is a direct response to that risk.
Obsidian 1.13.6 is developed by the team behind Dynalist, and it’s a personal knowledge base and note-taking app that stores everything as plain Markdown files in a local folder on your machine, not in a proprietary database or a cloud silo you don’t control. Your notes stay yours even if Obsidian itself disappeared tomorrow, since they’re just readable text files sitting on your disk.
This 1.13.6 update is a relatively minor point release focused on polish: swipe-to-close for tabs in the tab switcher, smoother tab reposition animations, checkboxes that now scale proportionally with font size, and a fixed memory leak that occurred when reordering rows or columns in a Markdown table during Live Preview editing. It also removed a confusing dialog that used to ask users to approve URI actions, a change made specifically because it was creating more confusion for non-technical users than security benefit.
The core feature set that’s made Obsidian a favorite for building a “second brain” remains: internal links between notes using double-bracket syntax, a visual graph view showing how your notes connect to each other, infinitely splittable and resizable panes for cross-referencing multiple notes side by side, and a plugin system that lets the app grow well beyond its base feature set through community-built extensions.
Key Features
- Local-first storage: notes saved as plain Markdown files, no cloud lock-in
- Internal linking between notes with backlink tracking
- Visual graph view showing connections across your entire note collection
- Infinitely splittable, resizable panes for multi-note workspaces
- Extensive community plugin ecosystem for customization
- Support for LaTeX math, footnotes, and Mermaid diagrams
- Live Preview editing mode with real-time Markdown rendering
- Optional paid Sync and Publish services for cross-device sync and web publishing
ScreenShots
System Requirements
- macOS 10.15 or later
- Apple Silicon or Intel Mac
- 4 GB RAM minimum
- 150 MB free disk space for installation, plus space for your notes
- No internet connection required for core note-taking functionality
Why I Recommend
The local-first, plain-text approach is the single biggest reason to pick this over a cloud-native note app. Your entire vault works with any text editor, any sync tool, any encryption method you want to layer on top, since it’s just a folder of Markdown files. That’s real data portability, not a marketing claim.
Where it’s a genuinely worse fit is for anyone who wants a polished, zero-setup experience out of the box. Obsidian’s power comes largely through plugins and configuration, and the base app without any customization is noticeably plainer than something like Notion or Evernote. If you want a note app that works well immediately with no tinkering, the learning curve here might be more than you’re looking for.
For anyone building a personal productivity setup, our Mac Software section has more tools worth pairing with a local-first note-taking app like Obsidian.
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Technical Details
- Developer: Dynalist Inc.
- Version: 1.13.6
- Platforms: macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
- License: Full Version
- Initial release: March 30, 2020
Download Information
Download | Size: 217.37 MB | Pass: Mazterize.in
