apple-notes-performance-tuning

name	apple-notes-performance-tuning
description	Optimize Apple Notes automation performance for large note collections. Trigger: "apple notes performance".
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Edit, Bash(osascript:*), Grep
version	1.0.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","macos","apple-notes","automation"]
compatible-with	claude-code

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);

Resources

• Mac Automation Scripting Guide
• JXA Examples