New in 1.8.6 · Updated October 28, 2026

The notebook that studies with you.

Folio puts every subject on a shelf of beautiful notebooks, turns your notes and PDFs into flashcards that schedule themselves, and comes with Lio, a little star who quizzes you. Made for the Mac. €5, once.

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macOS 26 Tahoe

Notebooks

Every subject gets a cover of its own.

Cloth, leather, kraft or glossy. Patterns, ribbons, elastic bands, your own photo. Your notes live on a shelf you actually want to look at.

Open one up

Pages and subpages in a tidy outline, with PDFs, photos and voice notes right next to your notes. Try it.

Subpages, as deep as you like
Break a topic into chapters and sections, then fold them away.
Everything in one place
Drop a PDF, an image or a recording onto a page or straight onto the shelf.
Pick up where you left off
Recent pages wait for you, and loose pages live in their own tray.

Writing

A page that feels like paper.

Lined, grid, dots or plain

Text always sits on the rule, like a real notebook.

Marker underlines

Underline in highlighter colours, not boring blue lines.

Type / for anything

Headings, checklists, code, post-its, arrows: one slash away.

Photos as stickers

Drop an image, drag it anywhere, remove its background in one click.

Titles with style

Any font, colour, gradient or marker, at any size from 12 to 160 pt.

A Tasks tab

Plan reading and revision with due dates, link tasks to pages, and export any page as a PDF.

PDFs

PDFs are pages, too. Mark them up.

Drop in lecture slides or a textbook chapter. Highlight, underline, stick post-its, draw arrows and circles. Everything is written into the PDF itself, so it opens marked up anywhere.

Sharp at any zoom
Post-its with any text size
Turn highlights into flashcards

Study

Flashcards that write themselves.

Pick a PDF or a page. Folio reads it and writes the cards for you, on your Mac with Apple Intelligence, free and private. Then it schedules every card with FSRS, the same spaced-repetition science serious learners swear by.

Quizzes, saved and retakeable

Make one from a chapter in seconds, or instantly from cards you already have.

On-device AI

Apple Intelligence, no key, no cost

Bring your own

Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama or ChatGPT if you prefer

Reminders

Due pages and cards, the day they're due

Meet Lio. He's read all your notes.

Ask anything about a page or a whole notebook. Lio answers from what you wrote, cites the page, and keeps your streak alive. Select any passage and tap Ask Lio to have it explained, summarised or turned into a quiz. Free providers only: on-device by default, no API key needed.

Pick his personality

Buddy, Coach, Zen, Sensei or Spark. Or write your own.

Together

Study together, live.

Share a notebook or a single page with a friend by email. You both write on the same page at once, and everything stays on your Mac unless you share it. An account is only needed for sharing.

Shared notebooks

Share a whole notebook, with every page, subpage, PDF, image and voice note, or just one page. It shows up on your friend's shelf as a real notebook.

Live cursors

See where everyone is typing, with their name and colour. Edits merge without moving your cursor.

Comments and mentions

Select a passage, start a thread, @mention a classmate, reply and resolve.

A Social tab

Who's online, who's studying now, what changed in your shared notebooks and every invitation in one place.

Follow along

Follow a friend to the page they're on and stay in step until you scroll or type.

You stay in control

Choose online, away or invisible, hide your cursor, make people read-only, or end a share at any time.

Folio in 30 seconds.

Small things, done properly.

Light & darkFollows your Mac, or pick a side.
Your own colour pickerHex codes, hues and your saved colours.
Six languagesEnglish, Español, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Português.
Study streaks & heatmapSee every day you showed up.
Spaced remindersPages come back right before you forget.
Works offlineNo connection needed to write or study.
Automatic backupsSafety copies, kept for you.
Export to Markdown & JSONTake everything with you, any time.
Updates itselfA badge appears, nothing opens by itself.
Native & fastSwift, not a web wrapper.
A smart selection barStyles, marker colours, comments and Ask Lio on any selection.
Trash with 30-day undoDeleted something? Get it back.

Private by design.

On your Mac

Notes live in a folder on your Mac. Only what you share is uploaded.

Account optional

No sign-up to write or study. You only need one to share.

Yours to take

Export everything to Markdown or JSON whenever you like.

One price. Everything in it.

Pay once and Folio is yours.

€5, once.

No subscription. Ever.

Buy Folio for €5 Download free trial

Already bought? Download, open Folio and enter the key from your receipt email.

First launch. Folio is not notarized by Apple yet, so macOS asks once: drag Folio to Applications, right-click it and choose Open, then click Open again.

Secure checkout by Polar. VAT included where it applies.

Try it free

24 hours, every feature, no card.

Every feature

No tiers, no upsells, Lio included.

Free updates

Folio updates itself, and keeps getting better.

No account

Your key arrives by email. That's it.

Your notes stay yours

Plain files on your Mac, export anytime.

Real help

Reply to your receipt email and a human answers.

Questions, answered.

What do I need to run Folio?

A Mac running macOS 26 Tahoe or later.

Is there a subscription?

No. Folio costs €5, once, and it is yours for good. No account is needed unless you want to share notes. Folio starts with a free 24-hour trial, then asks for the key from your receipt email.

Can I share notes with friends?

Yes. Create a free account in Settings and share a notebook or a page by email. Friends see it on their shelf, edit it with you live, comment on passages and get notifications. Nothing is uploaded unless you share it.

Does the AI cost extra?

No. Flashcards, quizzes and Lio run on your Mac with Apple Intelligence for free. If you prefer, you can plug in your own Claude, OpenAI or Gemini key, or use Ollama or your ChatGPT plan.

Where are my notes stored?

On your Mac, in the Application Support folder. Nothing is sent anywhere. Folio keeps safety backups automatically and you can export everything to JSON or Markdown whenever you like.

Which languages does Folio speak?

English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese.

Is there an iPad or iPhone version?

No. Folio is Mac only.

How do updates work?

Once a day Folio reads a small file on this website. If a new version exists, a badge appears in the app and nothing opens by itself. The download is checked against its checksum before it is installed. The check is anonymous.

Why do I have to right-click and Open?

Folio is not notarized by Apple yet, so macOS stops the first launch. Right-click Folio in Applications, choose Open, then click Open again. You only do this once.

Refunds, key problems, a new Mac?

Reply to your receipt email and we will help with your key, your purchase or moving Folio to a new Mac.

Ready to close those 23 tabs?

Bind your first notebook in under a minute.