Pergalino
Already have access? Open Pergalino
Your notes are files in your own Google Drive.
Pergalino is a Markdown notes app whose vault is a Drive folder you choose. Wikilinks,
backlinks, a graph, kanban boards and a document scanner, on top of plain
.md files that Obsidian, or a text editor, or you in ten years, can open
just as well.
--- status: in progress owner: "[[Anna]]" due: 2026-10-14 --- Quote from [[Meier Bedachungen]] is in, see the scan. #haus - [ ] Compare with the second quote 📅 2026-09-19
Roof repair
- status
- in progress
- owner
- Anna
- due
- 14 October 2026
Quote from Meier Bedachungen is in, see the scan. #haus
The left one is the file. It is what is in your Drive.
There is no database. There are files.
A folder you already have
Point Pergalino at any folder: in My Drive, one shared with you, or one on a shared drive. That folder is the vault. Nothing is copied anywhere else, and no account is created for you here.
Plain Markdown, nothing invented
[[wikilinks]], #tags, YAML frontmatter, Obsidian's task
syntax. Open the same folder in Obsidian and it works there too. Edit a note
there while Pergalino has it open and Pergalino notices within the minute.
Leave whenever you like
Stop using it and your notes are exactly where they were, in a format that will outlive this app. There is nothing to export, because nothing was ever imported.
What it does
All of it over the same folder of Markdown files, and all of it available offline once a vault has been read.
Links, in both directions
[[wikilinks]] complete as you type, and backlinks sit under every note.
Under those, the links you almost made: dangling links with a button to create the
note, unlinked mentions shown with the sentence they appear in, and related notes
the link graph puts nearby.
A graph of the whole vault
Drawn on canvas, in the sidebar or across the middle of the window. It settles and then stops, so a graph left open does not keep a phone warm.
A board is a note
Three lines of frontmatter turn any note into a kanban over the vault: what view, what to group by, what to filter to. Drag a card between columns and it writes that property on that note. Group by folder instead and dragging moves the file.
Properties with a vocabulary
Declare a vault's property names once and give each a type: text, number, date,
checkbox, a list to pick from, or the notes in a folder. The panel then shows the
control that fits, and due, Due date and
deadline stop being three fields. The vocabulary lives in the vault,
so it reaches every device that opens the folder.
Point your phone at the paper
The scanner finds the page in the camera view, waits for your hand to steady, straightens it, and saves the session as one PDF or as a picture per page, straight into the vault and linked from the note. It also names the file after what the page says, choosing a line that is literally printed on the paper rather than inventing one.
PDFs and pictures render in the note
Not a link to open somewhere else: the app downloads the bytes and draws them itself, so it works in a private window and under a second Google account. Docs, Sheets and Slides sitting in the vault preview in place and open in Google's own editor in one click.
Search that means one thing
One query language, in the side panel and in Quick Open: tag:,
path:, property:status=draft, an exact phrase in quotes,
and - in front of any of them to exclude. Ranked, over an index built
on the device. Milliseconds, not requests.
Offline, and installable
The tree and the note text are cached on the device, so a vault opens on a train. Add it to a phone's home screen and it behaves like an app. There is a macOS window too, and in that one a Google Doc is editable in place rather than previewed.
What to know before you ask
This is the part most products leave out. Read it before you sign up, not after.
- It is a preview. One person builds it. It changes several times a week and things break. There is no support desk, no uptime promise, and no plan to pretend otherwise.
- Access is manual, and there is a hard ceiling. Google's consent screen is in Testing, which caps the app at 100 test users. Your address is added to that list by hand, by a person, when there is room. If there is no room you wait, and there is no queue position to check.
- You will re-authorise about once a week. An authorisation granted in Testing mode expires seven days later. It is one tap with your account already chosen, it is every week, and it does not go away until the app goes through Google's verification.
- Pergalino asks for access to your whole Google Drive. It uses the full Drive scope, not the narrower "only the files you pick" one, so the permission Google shows you is the broad one and you should read it as the broad one. What it does with it: it reads and writes the files in the vault folder you chose. It also watches Drive's account-wide change feed to notice edits, which means it sees that files elsewhere in your Drive changed, and ignores them.
- Google's sign-in screen will say the app is not verified. That is what Testing mode looks like, and it is accurate.
- Your notes are not held here. The app talks to Drive from your browser. The one server involved holds your Google sign-in, so that you are not asked to sign in every hour, and nothing else. It never sees a note.
- Nothing to pay, and nothing to cancel. There is no plan, no card, and no trial that ends.
Ask for early access
Leave the Google address you would sign in with. Somebody reads the list by hand and adds people as there is room.
Your address is emailed to Pascal so he can invite you. There is no database and nothing else about you is kept. No newsletter, no sharing, no cookies. How it is handled.