---
title: "Moving from Bear to plain Markdown files"
author: Pedro Thomaz
source: https://coffeetext.app/blog/bear-to-markdown
---

# Moving from Bear to plain Markdown files

> Checked November 2026 against Bear's FAQ on [exporting](https://bear.app/faq/export-your-notes/), [Markdown](https://bear.app/faq/how-to-use-markdown-in-bear/), [tags](https://bear.app/faq/how-to-use-tags-in-bear/) and [importing](https://bear.app/faq/import-your-notes/), and [Obsidian's help](https://obsidian.md/help/import/bear). Coffee isn't affiliated with Bear or Obsidian.

Bear can do this itself, in the free version. Select the notes you want, choose File > Export notes, and pick Markdown as the format. Before you do, turn on "Keep tags during export" in Bear's preferences. To export everything, click Notes in the sidebar and press ⌘A first.

Bear's notes are already written in Markdown, so most of your text comes out as it went in. The parts to check afterwards are tags, a few pieces of syntax that belong to Bear, and attachments.

## Export from Bear on the Mac

From [Bear's export FAQ](https://bear.app/faq/export-your-notes/):

1. Go to Bear > Preferences > General and turn on "Keep tags during export".
2. Click Notes in the sidebar to see every note, then press ⌘A. For a few notes, hold ⌘ and click each one in the note list instead.
3. Choose File > Export notes, or press ⇧⌘S.
4. Choose Markdown in the save panel, pick a folder, and export.

Bear's page doesn't mention a limit on how many notes you can export at once. On an iPhone or iPad, swipe right with two fingers in the note list to select notes, then tap the more icon and choose Export. For everything, select Notes in the sidebar, tap Notes with the arrow at the top, and choose Export.

Try a dozen notes first, with the things you use most: tags, images, tables, links to other notes.

## Which format to choose

These are the formats Bear lists, and which need Bear Pro:

| Format | Free or Pro |
|---|---|
| Markdown (.md) | Free |
| Plain text (.txt) | Free |
| Text Bundle V2, Markdown (.textbundle) | Free |
| Bear Note (.bearnote) | Free |
| Rich Text Format (.rtf) | Free |
| HTML, Word (.docx), PDF, JPEG, ePub | Pro |

For moving to plain files, Markdown is the one to pick. A `.md` file is what nearly every editor opens directly. TextBundle is also Markdown, but packaged, and not every editor opens it. Coffee doesn't: it reads `.md`, `.markdown` and `.txt` files.

## Keeping your tags

In Bear, a tag is part of the text. You write `#work` anywhere in a note, `#vacation plans#` for a tag of several words, and `#recipes/italian` for a nested one, according to [Bear's tags FAQ](https://bear.app/faq/how-to-use-tags-in-bear/). Bear's export page names the "Keep tags during export" setting without saying what happens when it's off, so check your test export: open a file in TextEdit and see whether the `#tags` are still in the text.

Whether that's enough depends on where the notes are going. Some editors read tags written in the text, as Bear does. Others read them from front matter, the block of data at the top of a file:

```
---
tags: [work, recipes/italian]
---
```

Coffee is in the second group. It reads tags from front matter only, so `#work` in the middle of a paragraph stays as ordinary text. Your tags aren't lost, but you need to move the ones you rely on into front matter if you want Coffee to use them. There's more on the format in [what front matter is](https://coffeetext.app/blog/what-is-front-matter).

To see which tags you actually use, go to the exported folder in Terminal and list them, most used first:

```
grep -rhoE '#[A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9/_-]*' --include='*.md' . | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
```

Expect a few false alarms, such as web addresses that link to a section of a page, and it misses multi-word tags. It tells you whether you have five tags or two hundred, which decides whether to move them by hand.

## Bear syntax that reads differently elsewhere

[Bear uses CommonMark](https://bear.app/faq/how-to-use-markdown-in-bear/) and adds a few things of its own. Here's each one, and what Coffee does with it:

| In Bear | Written as | In Coffee |
|---|---|---|
| Highlight | `==Highlighter==` | Drawn as a highlight |
| Underline | `~Underline~` | Shown as text with the tildes, as Markdown has no underline |
| Strikethrough | `~~Strikethrough~~` | Drawn |
| Wiki link | `[[Note title]]` | A working link to the note with that name |
| Todo | `- [ ] ` | A checkbox you can click |
| Footnote | `[^1]` and `[^1]: text` | Drawn |
| Tag | `#work`, `#two words#`, `#a/b` | Plain text, unless it's in front matter |

Underline is the one to search for if you used it a lot, since in most editors it shows up as text between tildes. Highlight is worth checking in any other editor you try, as `==` isn't part of CommonMark.

Wiki links only work if the note they name still has that name. A file called `Trip plans.md` answers to `[[Trip plans]]`, so look at your file names before you change them.

## Attachments

Bear's export FAQ doesn't describe what happens to images and files in a Markdown export, so I won't guess. In your test export, check:

- Is each image a file in the export folder, and does the link to it in the note work?
- Are PDFs and other files there, or only the images?

If something is missing, keep those notes in Bear until you've found a way to bring them across. Exporting doesn't remove anything from Bear.

## Another route: Obsidian's Importer

[Obsidian's Importer plugin](https://obsidian.md/help/import/bear) reads a Bear backup instead of an export. In Bear on the Mac, choose File > Backup notes, which saves a `.bear2bk` file. Then, in Obsidian, install and enable the Importer community plugin, choose "Bear (.bear2bk, .zip)" as the file format, select the backup, preview, and import. Obsidian's page says the result is Markdown files, and that templates control how the Bear data comes across.

That page doesn't say how it handles tags or attachments either, so the same checks apply. Obsidian is free and keeps notes as Markdown files in a folder, so you can use it for the move alone.

## Going back

You're not locked out of Bear afterwards. Its [import FAQ](https://bear.app/faq/import-your-notes/) describes File > Import From > Markdown Folder, which brings in the Markdown files along with the attachments they refer to, as long as those are in the chosen folder or its subfolders. The notes then live in Bear's database again.

## Where Coffee comes in

Coffee has no Bear importer, and doesn't need one. Export with Bear, then choose the folder as your library when Coffee first asks, or later in Settings. Coffee works on the files where they are, and takes each note's title from its file name.

After that, Coffee lets you pin notes and sort each folder by date modified, title or date created. Replace in All Notes (⌥⇧⌘F) shows each match with what it becomes, lets you leave any out, and can undo the whole replace, which suits clean-up jobs such as turning `~underline~` into something else across every note. Version history keeps earlier versions of each note, each saying what changed.

There's a side-by-side comparison in [Coffee vs Bear](https://coffeetext.app/blog/coffee-vs-bear). The short version: Bear has iPhone and iPad apps and sync, while Coffee runs only on a Mac with macOS 15 or later and has no sync of its own. You can try Coffee for 14 days without a card, then it's €3 a month, €29 a year or €79 once with two years of updates.

## Questions

### Can Bear export to Markdown?

Yes, in the free version. Select notes, choose File > Export notes, and pick Markdown. Bear Pro adds HTML, Word, PDF, JPEG and ePub.

### How do I export all my Bear notes at once?

Click Notes in the sidebar, press ⌘A to select every note, then choose File > Export notes. Bear's FAQ doesn't mention a limit on how many.

### Do Bear tags survive the export?

Turn on "Keep tags during export" under Bear > Preferences > General first, then check a test export. Tags in Bear are written in the text, so whether another editor reads them depends on that editor.

### Does Coffee read Bear's #tags?

No. Coffee reads tags from front matter only, so `#tags` in the text stay as plain text. Move the ones you use into a `tags:` line at the top of each note.

### Do wiki links from Bear work in Coffee?

Yes. A `[[Note title]]` link opens the note with that file name, as long as the file kept the name the link uses.

---

Written by Pedro Thomaz, who makes Coffee, a Markdown editor for the Mac on macOS 15 or later. It's free for 14 days with no card or account, then €3 a month, €29 a year, or €79 once with two years of updates. More at https://coffeetext.app/llms-full.txt