Joplin

Joplin is a note-taking and to-do app by Laurent Cozic, first released in 2017, with versions for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Linux built from one code base. Notes are written in Markdown, or in a rich-text editor, and organised in notebooks with tags; the point of the app is to keep them in sync across your devices through a storage service you pick.

What it does

• Notes and to-dos in notebooks and sub-notebooks, with tags, search and attachments.
• Sync with Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, S3, Joplin Server or a local folder, every five minutes by default.
• End-to-end encryption for synced notes, when you enable it.
• Camera and document scanner for adding photos and scans to notes.
• Voice typing, which downloads a speech model of about 236 megabytes the first time you use it, from Joplin’s GitHub.
• Plugins, off by default and described in the app as still in beta on mobile.
• Import and export as JEX archives.

The web clipper works with the desktop app; on Android you share pages and text into Joplin instead.

What F-Droid’s build leaves out

F-Droid removes the Google components from Joplin’s Android app: Google Play services, Firebase, ML Kit, which is why QR code scanning is missing, Google Play’s install referrer and licence check, and the location library. Without that library, the app records a fixed test location in France for new notes, as described in the questions below; Joplin closed the report about it as not planned.

What goes online

Nothing until you set up sync or use a feature that needs it. Joplin’s privacy notice: its applications “do not send any data to any service without your authorisation.” From the code of this version:

• Your sync service, once you choose one.
• GitHub, for the plugin list once plugins are enabled, and for the voice-typing model when you first use it.
• Images and links in your notes when you open them.

There is no analytics, crash reporting or update check in the mobile app.

About this file

• This is F-Droid’s build of version 3.7.8, compiled from the tagged source without the Google components and signed with F-Droid’s key. The APK on Joplin’s website and GitHub is signed by Laurent Cozic, so the two can’t update each other. F-Droid updates Joplin by hand, and its own description warns that it can lag behind; Joplin’s GitHub had 3.7.10 on 13 October 2026.
• The 155.0 MB file contains the app for ARM and x86, 32- and 64-bit, which is why it is large: React Native, OpenSSL and the speech-recognition library for four processor types, and a 30-megabyte JavaScript bundle. It runs on Android 7.0 and later and declares 19 permissions: internet and network state, storage and photos, the camera, the microphone for voice typing, location for geo-tagging, notifications and background work for sync and reminders, fingerprint for the optional lock, and one AndroidX adds for internal use.
• Joplin is licensed under the AGPL-3.0 or later; F-Droid’s listing still says MIT. Its logos and icons are excluded: the licence says they are “copyright (c) Laurent Cozic, all rights reserved, and may not be used without a permission”, and the app’s icon is part of this file. Joplin® is a trademark of JOPLIN SAS registered in the European Union.
• The screenshots are the project’s own, from 2022, taken on an iPhone.

CPU types in this build: arm64-v8a (64-bit ARM, almost every phone since 2017); armeabi-v7a (32-bit ARM, older and budget phones); x86 (32-bit Intel, emulators); x86_64 (64-bit Intel, emulators and Chromebooks).

Versions currently kept in the F-Droid repository. We host and check only the newest one. Full changelog.