# Best way to move an email into Bear as a note? **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Tags:** tags\ **Created:** [May 19, 2025, 7:50pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982 "2025-05-19T19:50:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AndyP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@AndyP](https://community.bear.app/u/AndyP)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2025, 7:50pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/1 "2025-05-19T19:50:20Z")
Now that Advanced Data Protection is here, I feel I can move out of Apple Notes and into Bear Notes. The Bear web plugin is extremely helpful and does a great job of sucking in a web or parts of a web page with images. The one other thing I would like is the ability to suck in an email as a Bear note. Is just copying and pasting the contents of the email the best option, or is there a better option? ---
**Author:** ![andy2](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/andy2/32/6181_2.png) [@andy2](https://community.bear.app/u/andy2)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2025, 12:24am UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/2 "2025-05-20T00:24:53Z")
I do it extremely primitively: I just take a screenshot of the e-mail and attach it to the note. I wonder whether it’s possible to attach an e-mail to the note, however. ---
**Author:** ![bolive](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/bolive/32/3160_2.png) [@bolive](https://community.bear.app/u/bolive)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/3 "2025-05-20T00:51:03Z")
Similar to @andy2 - I make a PDF of the email and copy/paste into note. ---
**Author:** ![andy2](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/andy2/32/6181_2.png) [@andy2](https://community.bear.app/u/andy2)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2025, 1:08am UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/4 "2025-05-20T01:08:49Z")
PDF is a good idea in that it preserves the text and is vector graphics. For short e-mails, different print settings (e.g. A5 in landscape mode) could create previews with less empty space. But text can also be recovered from screenshots with Live Text. There’s another option, however. Drag-and-dropping an e-mail into a Bear note creates a link to the specific message. Clicking on that link opens the message in Mail. The link is sufficiently stable that it works on a different device where both the note and e-mail are available. I’ve tested it by creating a link on my Mac and then opening the e-mail on my iPhone. ---
**Author:** ![AndyP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@AndyP](https://community.bear.app/u/AndyP)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/5 "2025-06-11T14:46:45Z")
I’m revisiting this now. I exported an email to PDF. I then opened the PDF in Preview and copied the contents and pasted it into Bear, which completely butchered the formatting and didn’t bring any pictures over., so that doesn’t seem to be an option. Apple Notes can’t do this either, so this isn’t just a Bear problem. As for dragging the email over, that sounds cool. But I want to move the email into a note so I can delete the original email. I guess I could just drag the PDF over, but I was hoping to avoid the attachment, as I just want the contents of the email as a note. ---
**Author:** ![AndyP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@AndyP](https://community.bear.app/u/AndyP)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/6 "2025-06-11T15:02:31Z")
So, I think this just isn’t going to happen for any email with sufficiently complex HTML formatting that is beyomd what markdown can handle. I think exporting to PDF and attaching may be the way to go. Since I am having similar problems with importing into Apple Notes with the various things I have tried, this is obviously just not something I can pull off. I installed Firefox, which lets me export any email to HTML. I tried to import that HTML into both Bear and Apple Notes. Both of them mangled the contents and didn’t include the images. For simpler emails, I’m sure I can copy and paste, but with complex emails that include images and tables, it’s just not going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![trix180](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/trix180/32/588_2.png) [@trix180](https://community.bear.app/u/trix180)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/7 "2025-06-11T16:02:07Z")
Have you tried to copy and paste from your mail to Bear? I’m unsure this will produce the desired effect and some attachments will not be carried over, but images should. ---
**Author:** ![AndyP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@AndyP](https://community.bear.app/u/AndyP)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 5:13pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/8 "2025-06-11T17:13:22Z")
I did. In the email I tried, it didn’t work. No images came over and the tables were not formatted properly. The big thing I’m trying to move over is receipts I got via email. ---
**Author:** ![onyx](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/onyx/32/7532_2.png) [@onyx](https://community.bear.app/u/onyx)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2026, 4:44pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/9 "2026-01-09T16:44:11Z")
People suggesting PDF seems helpful in context of formatted emails, seems overkill for simple text or MD content. Maybe I’ll save to apple notes and share from there? Anyone try something like that? ---
**Author:** ![AR0001](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/ar0001/32/7463_2.png) [@AR0001](https://community.bear.app/u/AR0001)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2026, 5:05pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/10 "2026-01-13T17:05:39Z")
I am curious about this as well as I frequently drop links to emails into Apple Notes, but that doesn’t work in Bear. Not sure if it’s something that could be implemented (I assume note since to the linking works only within Apple apps), but would be cool if it could. In general, I do a lot of linking across apps. ---
**Author:** ![trix180](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/trix180/32/588_2.png) [@trix180](https://community.bear.app/u/trix180)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2026, 1:07pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/11 "2026-01-14T13:07:25Z")
@AR0001 What mail client are you using and on which platform? Drag & Drop of messages from Apple Mail to Bear should provide a link on macOS. @onyx Copy and paste is not a good solution for you? Are you referring to macOS or iOS? ---
**Author:** ![onyx](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/onyx/32/7532_2.png) [@onyx](https://community.bear.app/u/onyx)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2026, 9:20pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/12 "2026-01-14T21:20:02Z")
I am mostly on iOS/phone so small screen etc. tried the trick where you can drag an email with one finger and use other hand to open an app to drop into and it just put the subject not the email contents ---
**Author:** ![trix180](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/trix180/32/588_2.png) [@trix180](https://community.bear.app/u/trix180)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2026, 10:54am UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/13 "2026-01-15T10:54:33Z")
I see. Apple Mail is designed not to let you share a single email for security purposes. I can only suggest the following: - Long pressing on the note text - Tapping Select All in the selection menu - Tapping Share in the same menu once the selection is extended - Select Bear as the destination However, I understand this is not a good solution because it leaves some data (Subject, destinataries, …) and requires some taps. ---
**Author:** ![AR0001](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/ar0001/32/7463_2.png) [@AR0001](https://community.bear.app/u/AR0001)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2026, 1:21pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/14 "2026-01-15T13:21:13Z")
Yes, I just confirmed that it works on MacOS. I wish it would work on iOS and iPadOS too. ETA: I am using the stock Mail app. ---
**Author:** ![IanT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@IanT](https://community.bear.app/u/IanT)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2026, 8:28pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/best-way-to-move-an-email-into-bear-as-a-note/16982/15 "2026-01-18T20:28:36Z")
You can export to bear from Spark. It doesn’t bring the images across but does provide a link.