Sempere
Guide contents

Getting started

Install Sempere

The app for iPad, iPhone and Mac, and the sempere command-line tool for macOS and Linux.

Sempere comes in three parts. You only need the app; the other two are optional.

PartRuns onWhat it is for
The appiPadOS 27, iOS 27, macOS 27 or laterWriting, reading, organizing. One app on iPad, iPhone and Mac.
The sempere CLImacOS 27 or later, Linux (x86_64, aarch64)Scripts, backups, exports, imports, sync.
The web viewerA current browserReading a vault without the app. See the web viewer.

The app

Sempere is coming soon to the App Store; the home page will link to it when it is available. You write with Apple Pencil on the iPad, a finger on the iPhone, and the mouse or trackpad on the Mac, which adds menus, keyboard shortcuts and windows.

There is no account to create. The first time you open the app, it asks you to create or open a vault. Continue with Create your vault.

The command-line tool

The CLI is a complete vault client and a device of its own: it creates and joins vaults, reads, edits, searches, imports, exports, backs up and syncs. On Linux it does everything except handwriting recognition and transcription, which need Apple’s frameworks.

Build it from source

You need Xcode 26 or later on macOS 26 or later (the post-quantum keys need macOS 26), or Swift 6.0 or later on Linux. On Linux, install zlib’s headers first (apt install zlib1g-dev on Debian and Ubuntu).

git clone https://github.com/anthonytw/sempere
cd sempere
swift build -c release --product sempere
sudo cp .build/release/sempere /usr/local/bin/
sempere --version

The binary finds the fonts it uses for text boxes in a fonts/ folder next to it, or in the folder named by SEMPERE_BUNDLED_FONTS. Without them, text boxes may be laid out with other fonts in exports.

Release archives

When the project publishes a release on GitHub, it carries a universal macOS archive and static Linux archives for x86_64 and aarch64, each with the binary, its fonts, the README, the changelog and docs/cli.md, plus a SHA256SUMS file. Check what you downloaded before you run it:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing
gh attestation verify sempere-*-linux-x86_64.tar.gz --repo anthonytw/sempere

The macOS binary is not notarized. If you downloaded the archive with a browser, macOS may refuse to run it until you remove the quarantine flag: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine sempere.

Optional tools

  • age 1.3 or later, to read your notes by hand. Distribution packages are often older; use the official release binaries. See Read your notes without Sempere.
  • Poppler (pdftoppm, pdftotext), for PDF page backgrounds in SVG and PNG exports and for the text of imported PDFs on Linux.

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