Device Notes for ABM — the Mac app
Coming to the Mac App Store.
Device Notes for Safari ships as a real Mac app, not just an extension — so it does everything the browser versions do, and one thing they can't.
Connect it to the database you already keep — Airtable, Notion or Supabase — exactly as you would in Chrome. Or skip the service entirely and keep your inventory in a SQLite file on your own Mac. Four backends, and the choice is yours per database, not per product.
That fourth option is the one people come for: no account to create, no API token to paste, no sign-in that quietly expires in the middle of a Tuesday.
Four ways to store your inventory
| SQLite — on your Mac | A .sqlite file on your machine or an SMB share. Nothing to sign up for, nothing that expires, nothing that leaves the building. |
| Airtable | Your existing base, via a personal access token. The form builds itself from your fields. |
| Notion | Your existing database, via an integration token. Selects become real dropdowns. |
| Supabase | Your own Postgres project — URL, API key, table name. |
Switch between them whenever you like; the sidebar works the same either way.
Why the local option matters
If you manage Apple devices for a school, a church, a clinic, or any organisation that would rather not put its asset register in someone else's cloud, the usual answer is a spreadsheet on a shared drive that nobody updates because it's never open when you need it.
This is that spreadsheet — except it appears beside the device, in Apple Business Manager, exactly when you're looking at that device.
- It's your file. A
.sqlitedatabase on your Mac. Back it up like any other file, keep it on an encrypted volume, hand it to your successor on a USB stick. It's yours in the way a file is yours. - It works on a share. Point the app at a database on an SMB share and several admins see the same records.
- It survives you. SQLite is an open, documented format that will still open in twenty years. There's no vendor to outlive.
Tools for the local database
Choose Airtable, Notion or Supabase and the app behaves like the browser versions — point it at your data and go. Choose the local option and you get a few things a browser extension has no way to offer:
A database library. Keep more than one database and switch between them from a menu — useful if you look after several organisations, or want last year's inventory kept separately. Add an existing file, or start a fresh one.
CSV in and out. The app writes a template with the seventeen columns it expects; fill it in with Numbers or Excel, import it, and you have a working database. Export back to CSV whenever you like — the data is never locked in, and that's deliberate.
Field types that make sense. The importer reads your columns and works out what they are: TRUE/FALSE becomes a real checkbox, numbers stay numeric, everything else is text. In the sidebar those show up as checkboxes and number fields, not as strings you have to be careful with.
⚠️ Google Sheets and Excel are Chrome/Edge only. Those two sign you in through a browser-extension identity API that Safari doesn't provide. If your inventory lives in a Google Sheet or a Microsoft 365 workbook, use the Chrome or Edge version — or export it to CSV and import it here as a local database.
How it works day to day
Open Apple Business Manager in Safari, click a device, and the sidebar shows that device's record from your database — assigned user, department, model, storage, notes, whatever columns you keep. Edit a field, hit Save, and it's written straight to your file. If the serial isn't in your database yet, you get a pre-filled form to add it.
And in the device list, every serial number gets its name added underneath, so a page of serials reads as a page of names.
What you'll need
- A Mac running a current version of macOS with Safari.
- The app from the Mac App Store — it installs the Safari extension with it.
- A minute in Safari's settings to turn the extension on and allow it on
business.apple.com. Safari asks permission per site, which is a good habit on Safari's part and takes one click.
Price
The app is free to download, and viewing your device information is free.
Editing and creating records is $59 a year, after a 14-day free trial — handled through your Apple Account like any other App Store subscription, so there's no licence key to paste and nothing for us to store about you.
Safari is sold as an individual subscription only. If you need one licence covering a whole team, the Chrome and Edge version has an Org tier for that.
Resources
- Device Notes for ABM — Chrome and Edge
- Privacy policy
- Questions: support@codertricks.com
Made by 2Falls Inc / CoderTricks. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc. Apple Business Manager, Safari, Mac and Numbers are trademarks of Apple Inc.