Add x-callback-url support for *reading* a note's contents

Bear feedback Feature Request
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1

Request:
Please add an x-callback-url endpoint that returns the content of a note, given a title or ID.

Why it matters:
Bear already has excellent x-callback support for creating and opening notes, but there’s currently no way to read an existing note’s text via automation. This limits what users can build with Bear’s otherwise fantastic integration system.

Many workflows – including mine – depend on reading a template note, processing it, and creating a new note based on that template. Without read access, our options are:

  • Accessing Bear’s SQLite database directly on macOS (works, but not portable to iOS)
  • Storing templates outside Bear (which breaks Bear’s role as the single source of truth)
  • Initiating automation from Bear’s Share sheet (possible but clunky and not fully automatable)

Proposed behavior:
Add a URL action such as:

bear://x-callback-url/read-note?id=<note_id>

or

bear://x-callback-url/read-note?title=<encoded_title>

that returns the note’s text to the calling app (e.g., Shortcuts, Scriptable, or a custom app) via x-success.

Benefits:

  • Enables full round-trip automations (read → process → write) on both macOS and iOS.
  • Keeps user data local and private – no need for external APIs.
  • Fits naturally with Bear’s existing x-callback model.
  • Unlocks advanced workflows for templates, journaling, spaced repetition, and note-generation.
3 Likes
2

Hello,

The /open-note x-callback-url provides a way to read note content via the x-success parameter and using the in-app token. The problem with xcallbacks is x-success has to be a registered app protocol to work, and this might be a huge limitation for the average script. Unfortunately, the x-callbacks do not contemplate other ways to return information.

Regarding Shortcuts, Bear’s get note action returns a note object containing the note text.

3

I am embarrassed that I missed that in the x-callback-url documentation. It’s a challenge for a simple script, but this is totally workable. Thank you!