Bear

Bear can export notes as Markdown, which makes it a good fit for Octarine. The cleanest route is to export your notes from Bear, put the exported files in a folder, then use that folder as an Octarine workspace.

Export from Bear

On Mac, select the notes you want to move. To migrate everything, click Notes in Bear's sidebar and press Cmd + A. Then choose File > Export Notes... and select Markdown.

Octarine does not import .textbundle files directly. If your notes include images or file attachments, you can export TextBundle as a temporary package, extract the Markdown and assets from it, then move the extracted files into your Octarine workspace.

Create an Octarine Workspace

Create a folder for the migrated notes, then move the exported Markdown files into it.

Open Octarine and click the Workspace Switcher in the top-left corner. Select Create Workspace, give it a name, and toggle Use an existing folder?. Choose the folder that contains your exported Bear notes and press Create.

Tags and Organization

Bear uses tags instead of folders. If you keep tags during export, they will remain in the Markdown content and Octarine can read inline tags such as #writing or #projects/client.

If you want a folder-based structure in Octarine, create folders in your migrated workspace and move the exported notes into them. Octarine will preserve that folder structure in the file tree.

Attachments

Move exported images and files into a .attachments folder at the root of your Octarine workspace. Then update image and attachment links so they point to the moved files.

For images, standard Markdown image links will continue to work if the paths are correct. For attachment-style references in Octarine, use wikilinks such as:

[[diagram.png]]
[[research.pdf]]

Compatibility Notes

Bear's Markdown exports are generally portable, but some Bear-specific formatting may need a quick cleanup after migration. Check encrypted notes, sketches, rich embeds, and internal Bear links after import.

If a note links to another Bear note, verify that the link points to the right Octarine note. Octarine supports [[wikilink]] syntax, but links should include the path from the workspace root when the target note lives inside a folder.