Legal
Privacy
Last updated 30 July 2026
The short version
Margin reads your Apple Notes on your Mac and writes them into the Notion workspace you authorised. Your note content is never sent to us and never stored on our servers. No part of the app is capable of it.
What is stored is a mapping of note identifiers to Notion page identifiers, so that reinstalling Margin re-links your existing pages instead of duplicating your library. Every field of it is listed below, along with every server the app can contact.
The permission Margin asks for
One that matters: Automation for Notes. This is the permission that matters, and the only one Margin needs in order to sync. It is macOS's way of asking whether one app may talk to another. Margin uses it to ask the Notes app to hand over your notes, the same route the Notes app's own export uses. It never reads the contents of Apple's notes database.
Margin does not request Full Disk Access, contacts, calendars, reminders, camera, microphone, screen recording, location, or accessibility control. You can withdraw the Automation permission at any time in System Settings, under Privacy & Security, then Automation.
What stays on your Mac
Note content, note titles, and every attachment. Margin keeps a local SQLite database and a working folder inside ~/Library/Application Support/Margin/ to track what has already been synced, and stores your Notion access token in the macOS Keychain rather than in any file. All of it is on your machine, and removing the app removes it.
What goes to Notion
The notes in the folders you selected, sent from your Mac straight to Notion's API using the access you granted during setup. We do not proxy that connection and cannot see what travels over it.
Notion's authorisation screen asks which pages Margin may touch. Margin needs exactly one and creates everything underneath it, so the rest of your workspace stays invisible to it. You can revoke the connection from your Notion settings at any time.
What our server stores
Your account email, your licence status, and the three mapping tables below. Row-level security means the server will only ever return rows stamped with your own account id.
Stays on your Mac
- The text of every note
- Every image and attachment
- Your Notion token, in the macOS Keychain
- The sync database and working folder
Goes to your Notion
- The notes you chose to sync
- Their folder structure
- Their attachments
- Nothing else, and nowhere else
Goes to Margin's server
- A list of id to id pairs
- Your folder paths
- Your email, for your account
- No note content, ever
Here is everything on the server. All of it.
Not a summary. The actual three tables, column for column. They exist for one reason: so that reinstalling Margin re-links your notes to the Notion pages they already have, instead of duplicating your whole library. Row-level security means the server will only ever return rows stamped with your own account id.
Note on folder names: apple_folder_path is the key each folder mapping is stored under, so folder names do reach the server. Note titles and note content never do.
Never stored, in any table
Every server the app can contact
- api.notion.com Your own workspace. This is where your notes are going. It is the entire point of the app. (note content)
- oauth.namelesstools.com Holds the Notion app secret so it isn't baked into a binary on your Mac. It hands the connection back to the app and steps out of the way. (no note data)
- supabase.co Your account, your licence, and the id-to-id mapping table above. Also error reports, but only if you switch them on. (no note data)
- github.com Checks whether a newer signed release exists. (no note data)
That is the complete list. There is no third-party analytics service and no advertising network in Margin, because no such library is included in the build.
This website is a separate thing from the app, and it does count page views, through Vercel Web Analytics. It sets no cookies, does not follow you to other sites, and builds no profile of you. It is how we learn that a page was read, not who read it. The app itself remains untouched by any of it.
Error reports (off by default)
Margin can report failures so they can be fixed without you having to describe them by hand. It is off until you switch it on in Permissions, and switching it back off takes effect immediately.
When it is on, a failed sync sends the type of error, how long the run took, how many notes were involved, the app and macOS versions, and a random install identifier. That identifier is not your account: it exists so one person failing forty times can be told apart from forty people failing once.
It cannot send your note content, titles or folder names. That is a property of the design rather than a promise to be careful: the app accepts only a fixed list of error codes and bounded numbers, so there is no free-text field for your words to travel in, and the server re-checks every field and discards anything it doesn't recognise. There is no screen tracking, no click tracking and no session recording of any kind.
Which way the sync flows
Margin is a one-way mirror: Apple Notes is always the source of truth, and the connection to Notes is read-only. Here is exactly how that plays out, including the one case where a Notion-side edit is replaced.
Margin never writes to Apple Notes
Not a character. The connection to Notes is read-only, so no bug in a sync can touch your originals.
Apple Notes is the source of truth
Margin decides what to sync by comparing the Apple note against the version it last saw, never by reading your Notion pages back. It does ask Notion whether a page still exists before writing to it, so an archived page is reported rather than silently recreated.
An unchanged note is never touched
If the Apple note hasn't changed, Margin does not rewrite its page, and anything you added on the Notion side stays exactly where it is. A periodic check does ask Notion whether the page is still there, so you get told if one was archived or deleted.
A changed note is rebuilt, not merged
When the Apple note does change, Margin replaces that page's body with the new version, so edits made on the Notion side of that one page are replaced. There is a switch to turn this off.
Deleting is off by default
Removing a note in Apple Notes does not remove it from Notion unless you turn that on. When you do, the page is moved to a Deleted folder rather than destroyed.
A run that looks wrong stops itself
Apple renumbers your notes when an account is re-added, or when you move to a new Mac, which can make a synced library look brand new. Rather than create it all a second time, Margin halts the run and tells you what it was about to do.
Editing on both sides, step by step.
The clearest way to show what one-way means in practice.
- Monday
You write a note in Apple Notes.
Margin creates the Notion page.
- Tuesday
You add a paragraph to that page in Notion.
Margin leaves it completely alone. The Apple note hasn't changed, so it isn't looked at.
- Wednesday
Nothing. And next week, still nothing.
Your Notion paragraph survives indefinitely.
- Thursday
You edit the original note in Apple Notes.
Now Margin rebuilds that page from the Apple version, and Tuesday's Notion paragraph is replaced.
If that trade isn't for you: turn off Sync updatesand Margin will create pages but never rewrite one. Your Notion copy becomes permanently yours to edit, and later changes in Apple Notes simply stay behind. The right answer depends on whether you treat Notion as a mirror or as a workspace, so it's a switch, not a decision made for you.
Payments
Payments are handled by Polar, acting as merchant of record. They process your payment details; we never see or store your card information. What reaches us is a confirmation that a purchase succeeded, tied to your account id.
Diagnostics
Margin writes logs locally on your Mac so a failed sync can be debugged. They are never uploaded automatically. If you send one in to report a problem, that is a deliberate choice, and worth a glance first, since a log can contain note titles.
Deleting your data
You can delete your account from inside the app, which removes your account record and every mapping row with it. That does not touch anything already synced into your Notion workspace, and it does not touch your Apple Notes. Both are yours and stay exactly where they are. Removing the app deletes the local database, the working folder and the Keychain entry.
What we don't do
We don't sell your data, share it with advertisers, or use your notes to train any model. If that ever changed it would require shipping a new version of the app, and it would be announced here first.
Contact
Questions about any of this: hello@marginsync.app. If something on this page turns out to be wrong or incomplete, tell us and we'll correct it.