| title | I Fed 4 Years of Apple Notes to AI and Got a Psychological Profile of Myself | |||||
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| date | 2026-03-03 | |||||
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We all have that messy Notes app. The one with half-finished grocery lists sitting next to 2 AM existential thoughts. Packing checklists right above a raw line about loneliness. Gym logs followed by an emotional one-liner.
I had 100+ of these notes spanning 4 years. I never thought of them as data. They were just... scattered thoughts.
Then I asked an AI to read all of them and tell me who I am.
What came back was uncomfortable, accurate, and genuinely useful.
Here's how you can do it too - with just one prompt.
Unlike curated social media posts or polished journal entries, Apple Notes captures your unfiltered self. You write there when you're half-asleep, anxious, excited, bored, or planning something chaotic. There's no audience. No performance.
That's exactly what makes it psychologically rich. A therapist would love to read your Notes app. An AI can do something similar - at scale, instantly.
Without going into my personal details, here's the type of insights the AI surfaced:
I had dozens of detailed checklists - packing, groceries, maintenance, fitness. The AI pointed out this wasn't just "being organized." It was imposing control on chaos - a coping mechanism for uncertainty. I knew I liked lists. I didn't know they were emotional armor.
One of my hobbies showed up in way more notes than I realized. The AI mapped it to freedom, mastery, risk-taking, and identity formation. What I thought was just a hobby turned out to be a core part of how I process being alive.
I apparently talk to myself in a very specific way in my notes. The AI cited actual psychology research showing this pattern is a known emotional regulation technique. I was doing a form of self-therapy without realizing it.
Reading notes chronologically, the AI showed me a clear trajectory - from confusion and self-doubt to grounded action to emerging calm. I couldn't see this from inside. I needed all 100+ notes laid side by side to see that I've been growing the whole time.
The hardest part. Things like: where my strengths become weaknesses, what emotions I avoid, and what a therapist would probably focus on. Specific, evidence-based, not generic.
Two options - pick whichever suits you.
Open Apple Notes on your Mac or iPhone. Select the notes you want analyzed (or all of them). You can:
- On Mac: Select multiple notes → right-click → "Export as PDF" or simply copy-paste the text
- On iPhone: Open each note → Select All → Copy
- Quickest way: Just open notes one by one and paste them into a single text document. Even 20-30 meaningful notes is enough for good insights.
Then paste the prompt below + your notes into Claude or ChatGPT. Done.
If you have a lot of notes and don't want to copy them by hand, run this script on your Mac. It uses AppleScript under the hood to pull every note out of Apple Notes and dump them into a single text file - ready to paste into AI.
Step 1: Open Terminal (search "Terminal" in Spotlight) and paste this entire block:
cat << 'SCRIPT' > /tmp/export_notes.py
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import subprocess, re, html, json
from pathlib import Path
OUTPUT = Path.home() / "Desktop" / "my_notes_for_ai.txt"
SKIP = {"Recently Deleted"}
def osa(script):
r = subprocess.run(["osascript", "-e", script], capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=120)
return r.stdout.strip()
def html_to_text(h):
h = re.sub(r'<br\s*/?>', '\n', h)
h = re.sub(r'<li[^>]*>', '- ', h)
h = re.sub(r'<[^>]+>', '', h)
return html.unescape(h).strip()
def get_folders():
raw = osa('tell application "Notes" to get name of every folder')
return [f.strip() for f in raw.split(",") if f.strip() and f.strip() not in SKIP]
def get_notes(folder):
esc = folder.replace('"', '\\"')
script = f'''
tell application "Notes"
set f to folder "{esc}"
set out to {{}}
repeat with n in notes of f
set end of out to (name of n) & "|||B|||" & (body of n) & "|||E|||"
end repeat
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "|||S|||"
return out as string
end tell
'''
raw = osa(script)
notes = []
for part in raw.replace("|||S|||", "").split("|||E|||"):
part = part.strip()
if not part: continue
s = part.split("|||B|||", 1)
if len(s) == 2:
notes.append({"name": s[0].strip(), "text": html_to_text(s[1])})
return notes
print("Exporting Apple Notes... (this takes ~1 min)")
lines = []
seen = set()
for folder in get_folders():
print(f" {folder}...")
for n in get_notes(folder):
key = n["name"] + n["text"][:200]
if key in seen: continue
seen.add(key)
lines.append(f"\n---\nNote: {n['name']}\nFolder: {folder}\n---\n{n['text']}\n")
OUTPUT.write_text("\n".join(lines), encoding="utf-8")
print(f"\nDone! {len(lines)} notes saved to:\n{OUTPUT}")
print(f"\nNext step: Open that file, copy everything, and paste it")
print(f"into Claude (claude.ai) along with the analysis prompt.")
SCRIPT
python3 /tmp/export_notes.pymacOS will ask you to allow Terminal to control Notes. Click Allow. Then wait about a minute.
Step 2: A file called my_notes_for_ai.txt will appear on your Desktop. Open it, Select All (Cmd+A), Copy (Cmd+C).
Step 3: Go to claude.ai, paste the prompt below, then paste your notes after it.
That's it. Script handles the boring part, you get the insights.
I'm sharing my personal notes from Apple Notes. These span several years
and include everything - random thoughts, plans, lists, reflections,
recipes, work notes, travel checklists, emotional entries, and more.
They are unfiltered and raw. That's the point.
Please read ALL of them carefully and give me a deep psychological
analysis. Be specific, cite my actual notes as evidence, and be honest
rather than flattering. I want genuine insight, not comfort.
## 1. Psychological Profile
- What attachment style do my notes suggest? Cite specific notes.
- What are my primary defense mechanisms? (intellectualization,
sublimation, avoidance, projection, etc.)
- How do I see myself vs. my ideal self? Where is the gap?
- What core psychological needs dominate my notes? Rank these with
evidence: autonomy, competence, relatedness.
- What is my self-talk pattern? Do I use first person, second person,
coaching voice, or critical voice?
## 2. Emotional Patterns
- What emotions appear most often? What emotions are notably absent?
- How do I process difficult feelings? What are my go-to coping
mechanisms?
- Are there signs of anxiety patterns, depressive patterns, or
avoidance behaviors?
- What seems to trigger my strongest emotional responses?
## 3. Behavioral Patterns
- What do my habits and routines reveal about my inner world?
- If I make a lot of lists - why? What psychological function do they
serve beyond being practical?
- What do my hobbies and recurring interests symbolize psychologically?
- Is there a gap between what I plan/aspire to and what I actually do?
## 4. Growth Arc
- Read my notes in chronological order. What is my psychological
trajectory over time?
- Where was I emotionally in my earliest notes vs. my most recent ones?
- What has genuinely changed? What old patterns still persist?
- What phase of personal development am I currently in?
## 5. Shadow Patterns (Be Brutally Honest)
- What am I avoiding or not seeing about myself?
- Where might my biggest strengths secretly become weaknesses?
- What would a therapist likely want to explore with me?
- What is the single most important thing I'm probably not addressing?
## 6. Actionable Insights
- Based on everything above, give me 3-5 specific recommendations that
would genuinely improve my psychological wellbeing.
- These must be specific to MY patterns - not generic self-help advice.
- For each recommendation, explain which pattern it addresses and why.
---
Here are my notes (pasted raw from Apple Notes):
[NOW PASTE ALL YOUR NOTES BELOW THIS LINE]
- More notes = better analysis. 30+ notes spanning at least a year gives the AI enough to find real patterns.
- Include the messy ones. The 2 AM emotional notes, the abandoned lists, the one-liner thoughts - those are the most psychologically revealing.
- Use Claude over ChatGPT if your notes are long. Claude handles much larger context windows.
- Don't edit your notes before pasting. The raw, unfiltered version is exactly what makes this work. Typos, half-sentences, mixed languages - all of it is signal.
- Read the output slowly. Some of it will feel obvious. Some of it will feel uncomfortable. The uncomfortable parts are usually the most valuable.
This is not therapy. An AI reading your notes cannot replace a human therapist who can ask follow-up questions, read your body language, and hold space for you in real time.
But as a starting point for self-awareness? As a mirror that shows patterns you can't see from the inside?
It's remarkable.
Your Notes app already knows you better than you think. You just need to ask the right questions.
If you try this, I'd love to hear what you discover. The scariest insights are usually the most useful ones.
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Manual method | Copy-paste notes by hand into Claude/ChatGPT |
| Auto-export (Mac) | Run the script above → opens my_notes_for_ai.txt on Desktop |
| Then | Paste the prompt + your notes into Claude or ChatGPT |
| Best AI for this | Claude (handles long text best) |
| How many notes? | 30+ spanning 1+ years for good results |
| Cost | Free (Claude free tier or ChatGPT) |
| Time | ~5 min with script, ~20 min manual. AI analysis takes seconds. |