The Plain-Files Revival: Why People Are Walking Back to a Folder of Markdown They Can Read Without the App

People are quietly walking back to a folder of plain Markdown files they can read without any app. The pull is not a better feature. It is the opposite — fewer plugins, no sync to depend on, no company to outlive, a format you can open with anything. They are fleeing dependence, and the file is the exit.

The clearest recent signal landed in May 2026, when a minimalist Markdown app called Files.md reached the front page of Hacker News under the title "Show HN: Files.md – Open-source alternative to Obsidian," collecting 730 points and 356 comments.¹ It was not the first. The same instinct has been surfacing for years.

What most people think the revival is about

Most readers assume people leave a note app because a rival app is better — slicker, faster, smarter. So the internet answers with a listicle: the ten best alternatives, ranked. That framing treats the move as shopping, and it misreads what is happening. The people walking back are not upgrading. They are subtracting.

It is a cousin of the backlash where people are deleting their second brains — but this move is about the container, not the contents.

The Files.md author makes the subtraction explicit. The whole project is small on purpose: "Extremely simple code. One person or an LLM can fit the whole project in head."² It ships without the usual machinery — "Portable, no build systems, no Electron, just open web/index.html" — and it stays on your machine: "Local-first, files don't leave your device."³ None of that is a new feature. It is the deliberate absence of one.

The pattern is also not a single week's noise. Two earlier Hacker News threads carried the same instinct in 2025: "Ditching Obsidian and building my own" drew 471 points and 559 comments,⁴ and "Obsidian is now free for work" drew 282.⁵ One fresh signal plus a year-running undertow is a slow tide, not a spike.

The thing people are actually fleeing

People are not fleeing features. They are fleeing dependence — on a plugin that breaks, a sync service that lapses, a company that pivots, and most of all a format they cannot read without the one app that wrote it. The note feels owned until the app is gone. Then it is just a file you cannot open.

Martin Kleppmann and his co-authors named this tension in 2019, in a paper whose title is the whole argument: "Local-First Software: You Own Your Data, in spite of the Cloud."⁶ Their thesis is a trade most note-takers have made without noticing: "the cloud gives us collaboration, but old-fashioned apps give us ownership. Can't we have the best of both worlds?"⁷

The revival is people refusing to keep paying ownership for convenience — the format-level edge of the broader move where software is quietly moving back to your device.

Dependence compounds quietly. Every plugin is a small bet that someone keeps maintaining it. Every proprietary store is a small bet that the company stays solvent and benign.

The Files.md author frames the exit as two separate ownerships you have to hold at once: "Own your data as plain local files."⁸ And then: "Own the software that opens those files."⁹ Most apps give you the first and quietly keep the second. This is the format-level companion to the deeper case for why your notes should outlive your app.

Why the win is the format, not the app

The durable win is the format, not the app. A plain Markdown file is legible to almost any program ever written, and to almost any program yet to be written. That is what people are walking back toward: a note that survives the tool that made it, because it never needed the tool to be read.

The argument's clearest spokesperson is Steph Ango, the CEO of Obsidian, quoted here as an ally rather than a target. He calls it a principle: "File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read."¹⁰

Then the line the whole revival rests on: "In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools you use to create them."¹¹

This is why Obsidian belongs in the story as a fair reference, not a villain. Its own blog states the same ownership facts the revival prizes: "Your data remains fully in your control, stored locally in plain text Markdown files,"¹² with "No account required, no ads, no tracking, no strings attached."¹³ The incumbent and the minimalist clone agree on the one thing that matters. The disagreement is only about how much app you want wrapped around the file.

Durability is the real test, and it runs in both directions. Ango puts the bet in plain numbers: "If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it's important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s."¹⁴ Plain text passes that test. A proprietary database does not.

What to actually do with this

Choose for the format first, the app second. Pick the plainest setup you can live with: notes as .md files in a folder on your own device, openable by any editor, greppable from a terminal, syncable however you like. Then audit what would survive if the app vanished tomorrow.

Three concrete moves:

• Store notes as plain .md files on disk, not inside a proprietary store you can only read through one program.
• Treat every plugin and sync service as a dependency — something that can break, lapse, or be discontinued. Keep the count low and the core readable without any of them.
• Run the vanish test: if the app disappeared, could you still open and read everything with a text editor? If not, the notes are not yet yours.

Migration is the quiet proof. When the source is already plain Markdown on disk, moving between Files.md, Obsidian, or anything else is mostly pointing a new app at the same folder. There is nothing to export, because there was never anything locked in. The same plainness pays off elsewhere too: a folder of .md files is also already AI-ready, with no conversion step.

Frequently asked questions

Why are people switching from Obsidian or heavy PKM apps to plain Markdown files?

They are not switching for features — they are subtracting dependence. The recurring complaint across Hacker News migration threads is plugins, sync services, and formats that only one app can read. The fix is a folder of plain .md files: readable, greppable, and portable without the app that made them.

Is Obsidian really local-first, with my notes stored as plain files?

Yes. Obsidian's own blog states your data "remains fully in your control, stored locally in plain text Markdown files,"¹² with "No account required, no ads, no tracking, no strings attached."¹³ That is precisely why Obsidian is a fair reference in this story rather than a target: it rests on the same plain files the revival prizes.

Will I still be able to read my notes in 50 years?

Plain text is the durability bet. Steph Ango frames it across centuries: writing meant to be "readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s" must "be read on a computer from the 1960s."¹⁴ A .md file is legible to almost any program ever written. A proprietary store is legible only while its app survives.

What is the simplest note app that just uses .md files?

The Files.md project is the in-the-wild minimalist instance — a local-first Markdown app with no build system and "no Electron, just open web/index.html."³ But the point is not which app. The point is the format underneath: any editor that opens plain text can read your notes, which is the whole reason to keep them plain.

If I started over today, what would the most portable setup look like?

The plainest one. Notes as individual .md files in a folder on your own device, openable by any text editor, with the fewest plugins and sync dependencies you can tolerate. Portability is not a feature you add later — it is the default you inherit when the format stays plain and the data stays local.

Does owning plain files mean giving up a good editor?

No. The Files.md author splits ownership into two: "Own your data as plain local files,"⁸ and separately, "Own the software that opens those files."⁹ You can have a comfortable editor and plain files at once. The mistake is letting the editor become the only thing that can read them.

People keep rediscovering the same small truth: a note is only truly yours if it stays readable without the app that made it. The app is borrowed. The file is the part you keep — which is exactly what a folder of plain Markdown on your own device already is.

If that idea resonates, mnmnote.com keeps your notes on your own device as open Markdown — readable, greppable, and portable without it.