jeremylongshore Apple Notes Performance Tuning
Performance Benchmarks
| Operation | 100 notes | 1000 notes | 10000 notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| List all | ~0.5s | ~3s | ~30s |
| Search by name | ~0.3s | ~2s | ~20s |
| Full-text search | ~1s | ~8s | ~80s |
| Create note | ~0.2s | ~0.2s | ~0.2s |
| Export all to JSON | ~1s | ~10s | ~100s |
Optimization Strategies
1. Limit Results
// BAD: Load all notes then slice
const all = Notes.defaultAccount.notes(); // Loads everything
const first10 = all.slice(0, 10);
// BETTER: Specify range (JXA supports this for some operations)
// Unfortunately JXA does not support server-side filtering
// Best approach: cache results locally
2. Local SQLite Cache
# Export to SQLite once, then query locally
osascript -l JavaScript scripts/export-to-sqlite.js
sqlite3 notes-cache.db "SELECT title FROM notes WHERE body LIKE '%project%'"
3. Incremental Sync
// Only process notes modified since last sync
const lastSync = new Date(fs.readFileSync(".last-sync", "utf8"));
const modified = allNotes.filter(n => n.modificationDate() > lastSync);