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• Note Taking Apps
• Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac in 2024

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There are numerous note-taking apps for Mac out there. Still, it’s crucial to prioritize those native to or specifically designed for macOS to ensure a smoother, more user-friendly experience. Continue reading to find the best note-taking apps for Mac.

Last Updated: 09 Jan'24 2024-01-09T12:00:00+00:00

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Key Takeaways: Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac

• Goodnotes — The best note-taking app for Mac and iPad
• Apple Notes — A native, straightforward and uncluttered solution for note-taking
• Evernote — Efficiently plan, collaborate on and organize your notes
• Obsidian — Customize your note-taking experience by installing plugins 
• Notion — Enhance your note-taking with the help of an AI assistant

If you’re one of Apple’s 100 million active Mac users, you’ll be looking for the best note-taking apps for Mac for both personal and work tasks. The best note-taking app for Mac shouldn’t feel like a borrowed Windows application; it should naturally fit into the macOS operating system, sync effortlessly with Apple’s features, and mirror macOS’s clean, distraction-free look. 

The note-taking app should also offer reliable and speedy performance. After all, the last thing you want is glitches when noting down important information. That’s why we have found top-notch note-taking apps tailored for macOS that also sync effortlessly with other Apple devices, especially the iPad. Keep reading to find out how to elevate the note-taking experience on your Mac.

Best Mac Note-Taking App: Cloudwards Editor’s Choice

GoodNotes is our top recommendation, largely thanks to its unique features — including the math assistant and the ink-to-shape tool , broad visual customization choices and seamless integration with Apple devices. Created with iOS and macOS at its core, it even aligns with their specific easy-to-use user interface nuances, particularly the minimalist look of the application.

Features of a Great Note-Taking App for Mac: How to Choose

While there are several best note-taking apps available, some might lack essential features that truly optimize the experience for Mac users. Here’s why certain key features are must-haves for a quality note-taking experience on macOS. 

• iCloud Sync: Storing notes in the iCloud format ensures compatibility and even boosts security.
• Integration With macOS Services: Note-taking apps should function well with macOS features like Siri, Handoff, widgets and others. Ideally, the developers should offer customizable touch bar controls for quick tasks.
• Organizational Tools: A great note-taking app for Mac should have organization features like tags, keywords and filters but also sync seamlessly with macOS’s built-in tools.

5 Best Free Note-Taking App for Mac & iPad

With the apps we have picked for you below, transitioning between your Mac and iPad is very easy, thanks to their seamless syncing. They offer an intuitive, native feel, allowing you to jot down thoughts on your Apple devices without relying on an internet connection or opening a window on a web browser.

1. Goodnotes

More details about GoodNotes:

• Free plan: Yes, limited to three notebooks
• Provider website: goodnotes.com
• Free & paid plans
• Integrated with Apple Pencil
• Impressive organization
• AI-powered features
• Limitations on the free plan
• Late releases on macOS

The macOS Goodnotes app is packed with features, catering to both academic and professional note-takers. It offers a variety of page styles — from dotted to Cornell — and you can decide the page’s orientation. Users can combine handwritten and typed notes, drawings and stickers on one page. There’s also an ink-to-shape tool, a laser pointer for presentations and PDF annotation support.

The organization in Goodnotes is its strong suit. You can store your notes in notebooks, and for an extra layer of order, place those notebooks in folders. You can even personalize these folders with custom colors, icons and notebook covers. That said, due to its vast iPad user base, new features often debut on iOS first, meaning Mac users have to wait a bit longer. 

Study Smarter With Goodnotes 6

The “marketplace” in Goodnotes is a hub for planners, templates, stickers and educational materials from independent creators. It is excellent for students preparing for exams like the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), providing science-backed study techniques and interactive materials.

Goodnotes also offers AI-powered features. For example, the Math Assistant feature helps students solve math problems and even points out errors. The AI typing tool can summarize, change the tone and refine your words. Plus, there’s a spell-check feature that even works for handwritten notes.

The free Goodnotes version has its limitations, allowing just three notebooks and fewer exam prep resources. On the other hand, the Pro version, priced at a one-time payment of $29.99 or $9.99 annually, unlocks all features. If you are buying the Pro version with a one-time purchase, you can use it on all your iOS/iPadOS and macOS devices.

2. Apple Notes

More details about Apple Notes:

• Free plan: Yes, limited to 5GB storage
• Provider website: apple.com
• Free application
• User-friendly interface
• Works with Apple continuity
• Limited storage

Every Apple device comes with Apple Notes preloaded, ensuring smooth syncing across devices. It is simple, user-friendly and offers more than just the basics, setting it apart from competitors like Google Keep (read our Google Keep review ).

Recently, Apple Notes introduced bidirectional links, allowing users to hyperlink to other notes. This can be done by searching for a note’s title or inputting its URL within the current note. Additionally, Apple Notes offers Smart Folders, which help sort notes via filters like tags or dates. You can even pin folders to your Notification Center or Mac desktop for quick access.

Deeply integrated into macOS, Apple Notes lets users mark up attachments directly from the touch bar. The handoff and continuity feature ensures a seamless switch between Apple devices, allowing you to pick up right where you left off. If you want to learn more about the app, you can read our detailed Apple Notes review .

Lock Your Notes With Apple Notes

For those concerned about privacy, Apple Notes is end-to-end encrypted and offers a locking mechanism. Notes can be protected using Touch ID, your Mac’s login password or a custom password. If you ever forget it, you can easily change the password in the app’s settings. 

However, keep in mind that the old password will still work for notes that were previously locked with it, while any new notes you lock will use the new password. This means you will have to manage multiple passwords, which can get confusing when trying to figure out which password goes with which note.

While Apple Notes is free, the 5GB storage on iCloud might fill up quickly since it’s shared with other Apple services. Thankfully, iCloud offers affordable storage upgrades, with the 200GB plan at just $2.99 per month being the best choice.

3. Evernote

More details about Evernote:

• Pricing: $10.83 per month (one-year plan)
• Free plan: Yes, limited to 60 MB monthly uploads
• Provider website: evernote.com
• Free to use
• Extremely feature-rich
• Works with Google & MS
• Strict upload & size limits
• Occasional slowdowns
• Pricey plans

For macOS users seeking a reliable tool for professional note-taking tasks, Evernote is an excellent pick. Evernote blends a unique shared spaces feature for team collaboration with planning and organization features. There’s also a privacy feature that lets you decide who on your team sees what — be it everyone, a select few or just you. 

Evernote makes it easy to manage tasks, as you can set deadlines, prioritize tasks and even set reminders for personal or team projects within the application. Plus, it syncs smoothly with apps like Microsoft Teams, Google Drive and Google Calendar. However, the app can sometimes be a tad slow.

Evernote Lets You Store Important Emails

You have the option to save emails directly into Evernote. It can store up to 200 emails daily, which are stored in Evernote notebooks. It is a useful feature to save and organize travel reservation information directly from an email or snippets of reports that might be sent to your email address. 

You can categorize, tag and even use the auto-filing function to organize similar notes. However, you will need a paid subscription to get an Evernote email address to use this feature. 

The free Evernote plan is basic, with limited features and note/file size caps. For more features and larger note/file sizes, the Personal plan is $10.83 per month, and the Professional is $14.17 per month — if you choose the one-year plans. These paid plans unlock all the features, offering a richer experience. 

There’s also a Team plan for $24.99 per user per month, and all plans offer a 14-day free trial . To find out more about its pricing and features, check out our Evernote review .

• 2 devices, 60MB
• Unlimited devices, 10GB
• Unlimited devices, 20GB
• Unlimited devices, 20GB + 2 GB per user

4. Obsidian

More details about Obsidian:

• Pricing: $4.17 per month (one-year plan)
• Free plan: Yes, limited to personal use
• Provider website: obsidian.md
• Third-party plugins
• Integrated with Mac Scripting
• Syncing requires a subscription

Obsidian can be a bit complex for beginners due to its Markdown syntax, which is a basic markup language that offers plain-text formatting. This feature is a comprehensive solution for programmers and writers. 

Obsidian stores all notes locally on your device, ensuring you have full control and can easily transfer notes to and from other applications. Plus, it offers syncing with the best cloud storage services like Dropbox, iCloud and OneDrive.

The app’s integration with macOS is impressive. Obsidian saves notes as plain-text Markdown files in a local folder, and you can easily search, access and organize notes using Spotlight and Finder. 

Users can also automate repetitive and complex tasks in Obsidian using Apple’s built-in scripting techniques, such as AppleScript and Shell Scripting. For example, you may create an automated reminder to remind you to brush your teeth daily in Obsidian. When you complete the task for the day, the automation will automatically set the next due date for tomorrow.

Download Third-Party Plugins in Obsidian

One of the standout features of Obsidian is its ability to extend its capabilities through third-party plugins. Even if a specific function isn’t built into the app, there is a good chance you can find a plugin that does what you need. 

For example, you can add a calendar widget to the Obsidian application by simply downloading the “Calendar” plugin. Installing plugins is straightforward — just click the “settings” icon, select “community plugins” and explore the extensive collection available.

However, it is important to be cautious with community plugins, as they can run third-party codes and potentially harm your device. Obsidian maintains strict security measures, requiring third-party plugins to pass a rigorous review process to comply with developer policies. If dealing with sensitive data, we recommend conducting an independent security audit before using any community plugins.

Obsidian is completely free for personal use , with no limitations on features or tools. For business use, it costs $50 per user per year. Some services, such as internet publishing and syncing, are paid. You can read our complete Obsidian review to learn more about the app’s offerings.

• Only local storage
• Required for businesses
• 10GB cloud storage
• Web-hosting for Wikis
• Beta versions of Obsidian and VIP badges

More details about Notion:

• Pricing: $10 per month (one-year plan)
• Free plan: Yes, limited to individual use.
• Provider website: notion.so
• Collaborative features
• AI assistant

To make note-taking on a Mac more intuitive, Notion offers a dedicated application. It offers trackpad gestures and customized keyboard shortcuts, all tailored to the operating system. This program works exceptionally well with the MacBook Pro’s touch bar, enabling users to select “autocomplete” suggestions directly from the touch bar.

Notion allows you to collaborate with others, establishing a private “workspace” within the app to ensure you and your teammates remain perfectly aligned. The data in your workspace is automatically backed up to the cloud, but if you need local copies for storage, you can export everything at once. For more information on collaboration, you can read our Notion review .

Notion provides multiple filters for cloud-stored data, such as page type, author, workspace, note content and other specifications, to make it easier to perform content searches. Additionally, Notion pages allow you to embed any online information or media, including voice notes, YouTube and personal videos.

Use Notion AI to Streamline Your Note-Taking 

You can enhance your productivity in note-taking with Notion’s AI-powered assistant, which offers many features. These include translating notes, summarizing content, proofreading for grammatical or spelling errors and even adjusting the tone of your writing. Moreover, Notion AI can create content from scratch, from brainstorming ideas to writing complete press releases.

The free version of Notion is enough for individual use, supporting unlimited paragraphs, images, videos, lists, charts and more inside notes. However, team collaboration on the free plan has its limitations. Upgrading to the Plus plan at $10 per user per month or the Business plan at $15 per user per month lifts these restrictions, offering unlimited file uploads and collaborative features.

Final Thoughts

It’s crucial to choose a note-taking app for Mac that integrates flawlessly with the macOS operating system rather than settling for mere Windows alternatives. The best note-taking apps for Mac leverage macOS’s built-in capabilities, such as Spotlight and the touch bar, and they sync with iCloud to ensure smooth data transfer across all Apple devices.

Goodnotes stands out as a trustworthy note-taking app for both macOS and iOS, meeting all these essential criteria. Similarly, Apple Notes, the software specifically designed for Macs and preinstalled on your device, is another excellent option. Following closely are Evernote, Obsidian and Notion, each offering unique features to meet the varied needs of their users.

For those of you who rely on your Mac for note-taking, which app from this distinguished list suits you best? Does it fulfill all your note-taking needs? Let us know in the comments below and, as always, thanks for reading.

FAQ: Best Mac Apps for Note-Taking

Apple Notes, the note-taking app provided by Apple itself, comes preinstalled on Mac devices.

Goodnotes stands out as the top choice for note-taking apps for students. With its support for handwriting, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and access to exam preparation materials, among other valuable features, it proves to be a versatile tool.

The perfect note-taking app for businesses should facilitate real-time collaboration and provide a workspace for assigning tasks, setting deadlines and managing team members efficiently.

Yes, Goodnotes has a separate application specifically designed for Mac users.

Writers will find Obsidian to be the top note-taking app, thanks to its unlimited storage capacity, the ability to extend features through plugins and the use of separated vaults for note organization.

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Best Note-Taking App In 2023 For Researchers: Academic & Industry

In the fast-paced world of 2023, where information is king, finding the best note-taking app has become a crucial quest for researchers and professionals alike. Whether you need to streamline your research papers, collaborate with others, or manage projects with precision, the right note-taking tool can make all the difference.

From the cross-platform capabilities of Evernote to the streamlined simplicity of Bear, this comprehensive guide explores the top note-taking apps, their strengths, and even their quirks. What are the best note-taking apps in 2023?

Some of the best note-taking apps for researchers in 2023 include:

• Apple Notes

Microsoft OneNote

Google keep.

Join us as we delve into the world of digital notebooks, markdown formats, PDF exports, and more, in our quest to uncover the best note-taking app for your needs.

Slite – Perfect For Project Management

Slite is a note-taking app designed for team collaboration, Slite is primarily pitched as a knowledge base platform, aiming to centralize a team’s collective knowledge. In the context of research, this application could be invaluable.

Researchers often collaborate with others, sharing insights, annotations, and edits on research papers. Slite, being a digital notebook, caters to this collaborative environment. It allows researchers to organize their research, create notes, and collaborate on notes in real-time.

This note-taking software is especially efficient for onboarding processes, streamlining how new team members integrate into ongoing projects.

One of Slite’s strength is its AI assistant, a unique feature potentially integrated with Open AI.

It enables users to utilize a command bar to swiftly search across their team’s knowledge base.

For example, when a researcher queries, “Where is our analysis on XYZ?”, the AI can quickly pinpoint the relevant document, streamlining the note-taking experience.

Slite also has a great feature, called ‘Projects’. Here, researchers can organize their notes, refining specific processes integral to their research routine.

For instance, if a research project involves a sequential method, each step can be outlined and assigned, making the research process more transparent for all involved.

However, every app has its limitations. Slite’s free version caps users at 50 documents and discussions, which may be restrictive for expansive research projects. 

Apple Notes – Best Note-Taking App For Apple Users

In 2023, with a plethora of note-taking apps available, Apple Notes continues to make a mark as an inherent tool on Apple devices.

Originally launched with iOS 1.0, this note-taking application has matured over the years, introducing features that make it a potent contender among best note-taking apps.

Apple Notes employs a folder system, distinguishing between regular folders and smart folders – a nifty addition that auto-sorts notes based on tags.

Researchers, who often deal with a wealth of information, will appreciate its advanced search capabilities. 

The optical character recognition feature allows them to search terms within handwritten notes or scanned documents , ensuring no vital research notes go unnoticed. The app’s organization extends to sorting notes by edit date, a boon for researchers to keep track of latest edits.

Researchers can easily collaborate on notes, adjusting permissions to either view or edit. With the unique feature of Quick Notes, jotting down spontaneous ideas or research papers’ insights becomes instantaneous.

Apple Notes is not perfect however. Importing content, especially from non-Apple devices, feels cumbersome. Also, the app’s export function is limited; converting notes to PDFs sometimes results in a blurred output due to raster ink usage.

In the ecosystem of apps in 2023, Apple Notes, especially for users engrossed in the Apple world, remains a top-tier note-taking app. 

Evernote – Best Note-Taking App For Power Users

Evernote is a popular digital notebook that allows users to seamlessly take notes and sync them across devices.

For the modern researcher, the app’s cross-platform note-taking capability ensures that capturing sudden bursts of inspiration is never a miss, whether you’re on a mobile app, web app, or desktop.

A significant strength of Evernote lies in its versatility. It’s not just about text; users can capture a myriad of note formats, from:

• Attachments
• Audio notes.

The optical character recognition feature deserves a special mention, enabling the app to identify words even in handwritten notes. 

Evernote’s task system acts as both a note-taking tool and project management software, helping users track their daily objectives. One user, who relies on Evernote to manage ADHD, lauds its easy task system which syncs in real-time across devices.

Evernote’s organizational prowess is very notable, offering notebooks and a search feature that can even pull words from uploaded documents.

One issue with Evernote is that it can be too powerful, and be overwhelming for some. While the app offers various functionalities, some users might wish for a more flexible note-taking format with a more intuitive interface.

In the rapidly evolving world of digital tools, Microsoft’s OneNote emerges as a powerful note-taking app. Touted by many as the best note-taking app for multi-platform users, OneNote is a digital notebook that offers seamless sync capabilities across iOS, Windows or Android devices.

OneNote’s strength lies in its adaptability. For researchers, OneNote is not just a digital notebook but a comprehensive note-taking tool.

The app offers functionalities like the ‘Researcher’, which is invaluable for those writing research papers. It allows users to pull information from credible sources and even automatically formats citations—a feature that streamlines the academic writing process. 

The cross-platform nature of the app is showcased by its sync with other devices, whether it’s an iPhone, iPad, or a two-in-one PC. One can take notes on one device and seamlessly access them on another, a capability that even rivals like Apple Notes and Google Keep are striving for.

One major issue with OneNote is its format sometimes exhibits unpredictability, with text boxes appearing haphazardly, which can be confusing.

While the app offers extensive features, some, like the math helper, are tucked behind a subscription fee, unlike the free plan in Evernote or Google Docs.

Additionally, while it’s a robust note-taking app, OneNote might not replace project management tools or the collaborative capabilities of Google Drive entirely.

In comparison to 2023’s other note-taking tools, OneNote’s capacity to import PDFs, export notes, and collaborate with others is commendable. Its ability to rival standalone apps like Evernote and Apple Notes demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to refining this digital notebook. 

Bear – Simple Digital Notebook

The Bear app stands out for its simplicity and aesthetic appeal. Unlike other best note-taking apps like Evernote or OneNote, Bear offers a streamlined experience, resonating with researchers who prioritize minimalistic interfaces.

Bear was developed by a team from Parma, Italy, in 2016, and has since become a beloved note-taking tool among Apple users.

For a researcher, taking notes without distractions is essential, and Bear’s markdown format hits the mark, with the added perk of advanced markup options, such as inline code blocks.

This digital notebook doesn’t overcomplicate the process but ensures the user has all they need for effective research.

One of Bear’s prominent strengths is its dedication to user data privacy. Unlike some note-taking apps, Bear’s default setting stores notes locally on devices, thus minimizing data leakage risks.

Plus, for those wary of the dreaded app lock-in, Bear supports the export of notes to numerous file formats, ensuring that switching to a different note-taking app or platform is hassle-free.

One criticism about Bear is it’s use of hashtags instead of folders, which some users find less intuitive.

Moreover, its exclusive availability on Apple devices limits its reach, although a web app version is reportedly in the works.

Bear’s free version is notably generous, offering all features with the exception of cross-device sync, which is reserved for the Pro plan. It’s a competitively priced app that offers quality service, making it a contender in the list of best note-taking apps for 2023. 

In the landscape of note-taking apps in 2023, Google Keep emerges as a significant contender. As a note-taking app, it’s designed for swift capture of ideas, essential for researchers who often need to jot down sudden insights.

One of its primary strengths is its simplicity, focusing on quickly capturing notes and making them accessible across devices. It integrates seamlessly with the broader Google ecosystem, which means if you’re working within Gmail or Google Docs, your notes are just a sidebar away.

For the uninitiated, Google Keep is more than just a digital notebook. For researchers, the voice memo feature stands out, converting voice recordings directly into text, thus making it a valuable tool when conducting interviews or vocalizing thoughts.

Google Keep also offers collaboration features, allowing users to share and collaborate on notes with others in real-time. This is handy when working on joint research papers or group projects.

Unlike Evernote, a popular note-taking app, Google Keep doesn’t excel at archiving vast volumes of notes or organizing them into intricate notebook structures. Instead, it relies on labels for categorization, which might not suffice for detailed research notes organization.

While Google Keep’s camera feature aids in capturing images, it lags behind when compared to Evernote’s sophisticated document capture capabilities.

Researchers should also be aware of the location-based reminders, a feature unique to Google Keep.

Imagine setting a reminder to review certain research notes when you arrive at your university or research facility. This sort of integration between physical location and digital reminders can be invaluable.

Google Keep does offer a robust suite of features for the researcher seeking a free, integrated, and straightforward note-taking tool. Its mobile app ensures that you can take notes on the go, and its collaborate with others feature makes teamwork smoother. 

In the ever-evolving realm of note-taking apps, Notion stands out in 2023 as a comprehensive tool that promises more than mere note-keeping. Notion surpasses the functionalities of its competitors such as Evernote, Google Keep, and even Microsoft’s OneNote.

The platform has been recognized as the best note-taking app that goes beyond digital notebook functionality to a broader project management space.

For researchers, Notion acts as a digital playground. Unlike traditional note-taking apps, Notion offers the capability to create dashboards customized to individual workflow preferences. It’s not just about taking notes; users can also:

• Embed Loom videos
• Integrate calendars
• Generate templates for repetitive tasks
• and many more.

Researchers can efficiently organize their research notes, develop content calendars for publishing, and even design databases. The cross-platform note-taking experience ensures consistency, whether accessed via web app or mobile app.

Notion’s ability to collaborate on notes is unmatched. Sharing specific pages, embedding various content formats, and the ease to sync your notes across devices make the process seamless.

For instance, databases can be shared, filtered, and viewed in different formats, like a Trello-style board or a conventional calendar.

Notion’s flexibility, its biggest strength, can also be its most significant weakness. The sheer range of possibilities can overwhelm new users, and without a streamlined approach, one can end up complicating tasks.

Its expansive nature requires time to master, with a potential risk of becoming a productivity drain instead of a booster.

Obsidian has risen as a formidable contender for the best note-taking app title. Operating as a digital notebook, Obsidian stands out from the multitude, including popular names such as Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep, and Apple Notes.

So, what makes Obsidian unique? Unlike many note-taking apps that store notes in the cloud, Obsidian keeps your notes in a local folder, providing users control over their data.

This note-taking app also adopts a markdown format, which is not just for those familiar with coding but is a user-friendly way to take notes.

With a cross-platform note-taking feature, Obsidian allows users to access your notes across various devices seamlessly.

A distinguishing feature is its ability to create and visualize links between notes, enhancing the note-taking experience and making it easier to organize your research.

This interconnected web can be an invaluable asset, especially for researchers who wish to see connections between different research notes or topics.

While Obsidian thrives in note linkage and local storage, it might present a steeper learning curve for those accustomed to more straightforward apps like Google Docs or Apple Notes.

Another issue is the absence of a free version. This may deter some, but Obsidian’s robust features could justify its price tag for dedicated users.

In comparison to apps like Roam Research, which also emphasizes interconnected note-taking, Obsidian’s strength lies in its local-first approach.

Still, if collaboration is a key aspect of your research process, you might find apps that prioritize real-time collaboration, such as Microsoft’s OneNote, more suitable.

Glasp – Take Notes Differently

In the expansive realm of note-taking apps in 2023, Glasp emerges as a unique web app designed specifically for researchers and avid online readers. With the app’s Chrome extension, users can effortlessly highlight and capture text from web sources.

Here are some features of Glasp:

• Social Web Highlighter : Glasp’s focus on highlighting and sharing web content makes it stand out. Users can create profiles based on the web content they clip, similar to how social media platforms like Facebook work. This adds a social element to the note-taking process, enabling collaboration and sharing of insights.
• Integration with Other Note Apps : Glasp’s compatibility with other popular note-taking apps is a significant advantage. This allows users to export their clippings or highlights to various note-taking platforms, ensuring flexibility and the ability to organize their research across multiple apps seamlessly.
• Cross-Platform Note-Taking : The cross-platform note-taking feature is essential for users who use different devices or platforms for their work. It ensures that notes and clippings can be synchronized and accessed from anywhere, enhancing productivity and convenience.
• Heatmap Feature : The heatmap feature is an interesting addition, as it helps users visualize their note-taking habits over time. This can be valuable for improving the research process, identifying areas of interest, and staying organized.

Glasp is however, in beta, which can be a reason for caution for some. Researchers accustomed to using more established platforms like OneNote or Roam Research may find the transition challenging. Additionally, while the app offers various note-taking tools, Glasp’s main strength lies in its unique blend of note-taking and social sharing.

Wrapping Up – Best Note Taking Apps In 2023

As the note-taking app landscape continues to evolve, each app offers its own strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the right note-taking app for yourself ultimately depends on your specific needs, preferences, and workflows. 

So, whether you’re looking to streamline your research papers, collaborate with others, or manage projects, there’s a note-taking app out there in 2023 to cater to your requirements. Choose wisely, and may your note-taking journey be both efficient and productive.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

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In Meditations on First Philosophy the philosopher René Descartes describes a series of doubts about the nature of reality, arriving at the famous phrase:

• [[ I thin ]]
• I thin k therefore I am
• Just thin k about it
• Thin king, Fast and Slow Books/
• The Thin g Movies/

He argues that doubting requires thinking, and therefore, the act of thinking confirms his existence.

Rationalists

• Reason and innate knowledge → acquire knowledge
• Fundamental truths and principles can be known independent of experience
• A priori reasoning
• Reason and deduction

Empiricists

• Experience and sensory perception → acquire knowledge
• All knowledge is derived from experience and observation of the external world
• A posteriori reasoning

I think therefore I am

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The 11 Best Note-Taking Apps in 2023 – Evernote, Notion, and More

C.I.G. is supported in part by its readers. If you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read more here.

Taking notes used to be so simple. You’d take out a sheet of parchment, dip your quill in ink, and get to writing.

Then a bunch of nerds got together and started  inventing things — and that’s when note-taking got complicated. Suddenly we had to choose from different models of typewriters and competing keyboard layouts.

Later the computer showed up, and with it, we got GUIs and dozens of different writing applications. And then the Internet came along, bringing cloud syncing into the mix.

In 2023, we’re faced with a dizzying array of tools and apps for taking notes. How do you choose which one to use?

Luckily, we’ve done the research. After putting dozens of apps through their paces and testing every feature — from the writing experience to shortcuts to sharing capabilities — we’ve put together this list of the best note-taking apps currently available.

Read on to find out which tool is the right one for you, your devices, and your price range!

Looking for tips on how to actually take your notes? Once you’ve chosen your app, check out our guide to the 6 best note-taking methods .

The Top 11 Note-Taking Apps of 2023

Overview:  Offers a powerful, database-driven note-taking experience that’s unlike most apps out there.

• Flexible pages. Notion has a template engine that allows you to turn pretty much anything into an easily-duplicated template, including a multi-layered collection of pages. It also has great media embedding and previewing tools, including a gallery view for photos and videos.
• Powerful tables. Tables in Notion aren’t just charts; they’re databases. Think of Notion’s databases as Google Docs + Google Sheets. Every row in a table is its own Notion page that you can go into and update.
• Nested hierarchical organization. You’re probably tired of this. But Notion does this. You can even turn a set of text into a dropdown so you can roll it up when you want non-immediate information out of the way.
• Hybrid editor. Notion lets you write in Markdown or use normal keyboard shortcuts and UI elements to format your text.
• Free personal accounts.  As long as you don’t mind the 5 MB file upload limit, Notion’s free plan offers everything you need to take notes.
• No offline support. Currently, you need to have an internet connection to use Notion. The team is working to change this, but it’s a big limitation at the moment.

Price:  Free

Platforms: Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web

Notion is one of the most flexible and powerful apps I've ever used. It can be a note-taking app, but there's also a database feature with multiple views (including Trello-style kanban boards and calendars) the ability to make anything into a template, and great collaboration features. At CIG, we use it for all of our team documentation, and I also manage every YouTube video I make with it.

2. Evernote

Overview: Evernote is a cross-platform note-taking app that’s great for processing hand-written notes and clipping articles from the web. The price, however, could be prohibitive on a student budget.

• Multiple file formats. If you’re on a paid plan, Evernote can hold anything your professor throws at you: PDFs, PowerPoints, the 3 different sheets of requirements for one project. One fun extra: If you paste a Google Docs link, Evernote creates a Google Drive icon in-line and changes the URL to the name of the doc.
• Scanner for mobile. You can use Evernote as a scanner to take photos of pages of books when you don’t want to pay for photocopying. It also has optical character recognition.
• Web clipper for browsers. Great for saving those New York Times articles that are hidden behind a paywall so you can use them for your essay later. You can pick how much of the page you want to capture: everything, just the article text, or a highlighted selection of text.
• Limited organization. Imagine your study area’s desk : You have notebooks lying around that contain class notes, random doodles, and frustrated journal entries. You can pile up semi-related notebooks into stacks. You can put sticky notes or flags into pages of the notebook that contain certain topics you want to refer to. That’s the extent of organization with Evernote: stacks, notebooks, notes, and tags.
• No Markdown support. If you typically write in Markdown to speed up your writing process, you’ll find its lack of support in Evernote frustrating.
• Pricey. If you use Evernote to scan documents and save research papers as I do, the 60 MB included in the free plan won’t cut it. And if you want to use it with more than 2 devices or use optical character recognition, you have to go Premium. At least students get 50% off Premium for a year.

Price:  $7.99 / month

Overview: Microsoft’s free cross-platform note-taking app gives Evernote a run for its money, though the interface leaves something to be desired.

• Totally. Free. It has everything Evernote can do, but there’s no premium tier. So you get the full feature set out of the box.
• On basically all the platforms (for free). Just had to emphasize this: With OneNote, you get unlimited devices — a feature that other note-taking apps, like Evernote and Bear, keep behind a premium subscription.
• Freeform. Unlike Evernote, you can put text boxes everywhere on the screen for OneNote. You can draw. You can even change the background to look like a ruled notebook!
• Even less organization than Evernote. It lacks note sorting options, such as sorting notes by newest created or newest modified.
• Messy interface + Limited tagging capabilities.  With OneNote, you have notebooks and dividers within notebooks. Then you can also indent notes within notes. But it’s all over the user interface: notebooks on the left, dividers up top, then notes on the right. I’m a messy note-taker myself, but c’mon.

Price:  Included with a Microsoft 365 subscription (starting at $69.99 / year). Check if you have free access through your school or company.

Platforms:  Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web

4. Roam Research

Overview: Roam Research takes a different approach to organization than most note-taking tools. You can instantly link one note to another to create a web of information, doing away with the need for tags and folders.

• Delightful writing  experience . Roam has strong support for Markdown, and the app is set up so that you can immediately begin writing when you open it.
• The setup of the app encourages daily journaling. The default page when you open the app is a “Daily Note” for the current day. I’ve found this encourages me to journal in the course of using the app, which often leads to new ideas.
• Fluid note-to-note linking . One of the core features of Roam is how easy it is to link notes (what Roam calls “Pages”) to each other. After you get the hang of the syntax, you’ll find yourself automatically linking notes (and ideas) together.
• Easy to visualize the connection between notes. Roam features a “Graph Overview” that shows the connections between your notes as a web. It’s an interesting alternative to the hierarchical view that most note-taking apps use.
• No offline capability.  Roam currently works only in the browser, and it requires an internet connection to access your notes. However, the founder claims an offline version of Roam is in development.
• Learning curve. Roam is very powerful once you learn how to use it, but expect to spend a few hours learning the syntax and overall philosophy of the app.
• Expensive.  Access to Roam will cost you $15/month – more than any other tool on this list. Roam’s fans passionately argue that the tool’s design innovations more than warrant the price. We’ll leave that up to you to decide.

Price:  $15 / month (after a 31-day free trial)

Platforms: Mac, Linux, Windows, Web

Here’s an overview of Roam Research from our founder Thomas Frank:

Overview: Bear features powerful Markdown capability and an excellent writing experience. The only downside is its lack of Windows support.

• Hybrid Markdown editor. You don’t have to imagine what your formatted Markdown will look like after you write because Bear formats text as you type.
• Simple organizational system. Using “#” and “/”, Bear lets you tag each note and nest those tags within each other. #NestedHierarchy
• Archive feature. A small but time-saving feature. Archiving a note takes it out of search and organization without deleting it.
• Clean writing experience. Bear looks good out of the box — writing is readable, simple, and clean. The Premium version gets you a half dozen free themes that look even slicker.
• Just Mac and iPhone. If you have a Windows setup…sorry.
• Limited organization After a few weeks of using Bear, I started bumping up against the limitations of its organization system.

Price: Free for most features. Upgrade to the Pro subscription ($1.49 / month) to sync your notes between devices and get additional export options.

Platforms: iOS, Mac

6. Apple Notes

Overview: Apple Notes offers solid organization and formatting features, though it lacks Markdown support and is (unsurprisingly) only for Apple devices.

• Free.  If you have an Apple device, you have access to Apple Notes.
• Good-enough formatting tools. You get the usual bold , italics , and fonts.
• Allows cross-platform editing via the browser. No need for Google Drive/Dropbox workarounds. Just log in to your iCloud account from a browser and you can pull up your notes on a PC.
• Can create nested lists of hierarchical folders. This is surprising, given that some paid apps don’t have this feature. Well played, Apple.
• No hybrid Markdown. You can’t have it all in a free tool, can you?

Platforms:  iOS, Mac

7. Google Keep

Overview: Google Keep offers a basic, cross-platform note-taking app that plays well with other Google tools. The only downside is its lack of organizational features.

• Free.  All you need is a Google account.
• Simple. Imagine how you use sticky notes, and Keep will make sense to you. You write something on the note, stick it in a place you’ll remember, then (ideally) transfer it somewhere permanent. The Google Keep interface even looks like a wall of stickies.
• No hierarchical organization. There’s only one level of tags. Depending on how much organization you need, this may not matter.

Platforms:  Android, iOS, Web

8. Standard Notes

Overview: Standard Notes takes security seriously and has powerful search features. The only downside is its lack of in-app image hosting.

• Most security-focused. Everything you write is encrypted by default, and only you can access it.
• Free (mostly).  The free version of the app includes most features. But you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan if you want support for rich text and Markdown.
• Powerful search. Custom tags are infinitely nestable, similar to Bear. You can also define and save custom searches based on different criteria.
• Supports all major devices. Including Linux.
• Limited image support. It can’t host in-app. You have to save your images elsewhere before you can save them in the app.
• Can’t drag-and-drop notes between folders and tags.

Price:  Free for basic features. Upgrade to the Core Plan ($29 / year) to get rich text, Markdown support, and other features.

Platforms:  Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Web

9. Obsidian

Overview:  Obsidian combines customizable knowledge organization features with a Markdown editor that’s a delight to use.

• Simple.  Obsidian is based around Markdown and a simple (local) file/folder structure. This means that even if the app eventually disappears, you’ll still have all your data in a universally readable format.
• Highly customizable.  If you have the skills, you can write your own Obsidian plugins. You can also turn features of the app on and off to suit your needs.
• Powerful organizational features.  Obsidian lets you create links between pages, helping you to expand upon your previous work. It also lets you view the connections between your notes on a graph (similar to Roam).
• Cross-platform . Obsidian is available on basically any platform you could want.
• Works offline.  You never need an internet connection to use Obsidian since all of your data is stored locally. In fact, you don’t even need an account to use the app.
• Limited image support.  While it is possible to embed images within your notes , you’ll still need to use the Markdown syntax. You can’t drag and drop images into notes as you can in Notion or other apps on this list.
• Text-based.  If you like highly visual notes, Obsidian won’t be for you. We recommend an option such as Notion instead.
• Syncing notes is a paid feature.  If you want to sync your notes across devices, you’ll need to pay for Obsidian Sync (currently $10 / month).

Price:  Free (for personal and educational use)

Platforms:  Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows

10. Ulysses

Overview: Ulysses is great for both note-taking  and  writing long-form essays or articles. But it lacks a free version and only works on Apple devices.

• A fully-featured writing app . If you want an app that you can use throughout your entire writing process from research to writing and printing, then Ulysses is your pick.
• Focus mode. Many authors write books in Ulysses. But unlike some other heavy-duty writings apps, Ulysses gets out of your way with its Full-Screen focus mode.
• Customizable. Ulysses has themes, including Dark Mode. You can also choose from several different markup styles and publishing formats — it’s really quite flexible.
• Publishing to WordPress. After writing, editing, and formatting an entire blog post within Ulysses, I don’t have to log in to my WordPress dashboard to publish it anymore. Ulysses allows me to format images, tags, categories, and meta-data and upload all of them from the app.
• Pricey. It’s $5.99 / month with no free plan, but you can apply for a student discount for 6 months and get it down to $1.99 / month.
• Mac and iOS only. As with Bear, the Ulysses app is exclusive to Apple devices. But if you just want to edit your files on a Windows computer, you can save them in a synced Google Drive or Dropbox folder and then edit the rich text file it provides.

Price:  $5.99 / month

Overview: Typora is highly customizable and works on all major operating systems, though it lacks online and mobile apps for working on the go.

• Hybrid Markdown editor. It formats text as you type, and it’s faster than Slite.
• Focus Mode. It dims the text you’re not currently working on.
• Table of Contents mode. Like Slite, it allows you to zoom into headings and outlines.
• Themes. Lots of themes that you can customize with CSS — a language that lets you dictate exactly how you want your content presented.
• No in-app storage. Since it’s just a Markdown editor, Typora doesn’t store notes in the app. Files are actually stored in your computer’s file system, meaning you can’t move notes around in the app.
• Desktop-only writing app. Typora doesn’t have a mobile app, but you can always complement it with a Markdown-editor mobile app such as iA Writer .

Price: $14.99 (one-time purchase)

Platforms: Linux, Mac, Windows

Take Notes Your Way

There are a lot of note-taking apps out there. And as with most recommendations, you have to figure out what works for you.

I hope that this list will help you decide on your note-taking app, whether it’s on this list or not.

Bonus: If you want to ensure that the rest of your productivity system is optimized as well, you might want to check out these guides:

• The Best To-Do List App in 2023
• The Best Time Tracking Apps in 2023: Toggl, Clockify, and More
• The 40+ Best Apps for College Students
• 15+ Writing Apps to Brainstorm, Draft, Edit, and Publish Your Work

Explore the Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac Users

For those struggling to corral your thoughts and perspectives into your 16 inch screen, Mac users have some of the best note taking apps to choose from.

Each app brings its own unique set of features and advantages to the table, catering to different workflows and styles of organisation. This guide dives into the best note-taking apps for Mac devices, empowering you to capture fleeting ideas, structure complex projects, and unleash your creative potential. Whether you are a detail-oriented professional yearning for a feature-rich powerhouse or a minimalist designer craving a new canvas for your thoughts, there’s a perfect note taking app waiting to be discovered. 

From flexibility to innovation, here are the front runners for best note taking app

Microsoft OneNote: Renowned for its seamless integration with the Microsoft Office suite, OneNote excels at handling complex projects with its flexible structure. Think digital filing cabinets! Create notebooks, sections, and pages to meticulously categorise information. Embed multimedia like images, audio recordings, and even web clippings, making OneNote a one-stop shop for capturing comprehensive notes. Powerful collaboration features enable real-time co-editing, ideal for brainstorming sessions or team projects.

Notion : Hailed for its versatility, Notion transcends traditional note-taking, transforming into a powerful project management and knowledge base tool. Structure your notes with a block-based system, allowing for a high degree of customisation. Integrate databases, kanban boards, and wikis, making Notion ideal for complex workflows and collaborative projects. While Notion boasts a user-friendly interface, its extensive feature set might have a steeper learning curve for beginners. 

Evernote : A titan in the note-taking realm, Evernote offers a robust feature set for power users. Organise notes using notebooks, tags, and advanced search functionality. Capture ideas in various formats, including text, sketches, audio recordings, and web clippings. Evernote excels at handling large amounts of information, making it perfect for researchers and knowledge workers. While the free version offers a solid foundation, unlocking the full potential requires a premium subscription. 

Apple Notes : Pre-installed on all Apple devices, Notes offers a beautifully simple and intuitive note-taking experience. Craft text notes, create checklists, and add images or sketches with ease. Notes integrates seamlessly with the Apple ecosystem, allowing for effortless note syncing across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. While lacking some of the advanced features of its competitors, Notes excels in its minimalist approach, perfect for users who prioritise a distraction-free note-taking environment. 

BEAR: For those seeking a focus on beautiful note-taking and powerful Markdown editing, BEAR offers a compelling option. Craft notes in a distraction-free writing environment and leverage the versatility of Markdown for rich text formatting. Organize notes with tags and flexible linking. While BEAR lacks some of the collaborative features of other apps, it excels in aesthetics and a focus on the writing experience. 

Benefits of utilising note taking apps in your day-to-day

On any given day, we’re bombarded with ideas, inspiration, and raw data; effectively capturing, and organising this information is crucial for productivity and creativity. Modern note taking apps for Mac offer a plethora of advantages: 

• Enhanced organisation: Note-taking apps provide a structured environment with features like folders, tags, and search functionalities, allowing you to effortlessly categorise and retrieve information. 
• Versatility in capture: Capture ideas in diverse formats, including audio recordings, sketches, web clippings, and even video snippets. This caters to different learning styles and preferences, allowing you to record complex lectures or visually map out creative ideas. 
• Accessibility at your fingertips: Note-taking apps offer seamless syncing across your devices, ensuring your notes are always accessible, whether you are on your phone, tablet, or computer. 
• Collaboration made easy: Many note-taking apps offer real-time co-editing features, enabling teams to work on notes simultaneously and foster a more collaborative workflow . 
• Boosting creativity: Note-taking apps can be powerful tools for sparking new ideas and fostering creativity. Utilize mind maps to visually brainstorm, embed inspirational images, or create mood boards to fuel your creative projects. 

To maximize your note-taking experience, develop a robust organization system. Utilize tags, hierarchical structures like notebooks and sub-notebooks, or color-coding to categorize your notes.

Also- don’t try and reinvent the wheel. Many note-taking apps offer pre-built templates for tasks like meetings or research. Embrace these templates to streamline your workflow and guarantee capturing all essential details. Finally, embed web clippings, external documents, or PDFs directly into your notes. This eliminates juggling multiple sources and keeps everything centralized within your app, fostering a seamless workflow. 

Distilled   

With the right note-taking app by your side, you can transform the chaos of information overload into a well-organized springboard for creativity and productivity. So, explore the options presented here, experiment, and discover the digital companion that empowers you to capture, organise, and unleash your ideas.

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How-To Geek

The best note-taking apps for mac.

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How I Made the Mac Menu Bar Useful With These 5 Free Apps

6 ways to get the most out of your quest vr headset, 8 things i've learned from using my phone as my pc, quick links, free and simple for apple users: apple notes, feature-rich and powerful: microsoft onenote, text-only and cross-platform: simplenote, polished and premium: bear app, collaborative development: boost note, apple notes is a great starting point.

Note-taking apps are essential tools for organizing things, and there are many available for macOS. A good note-taking app has all the features you need and none that you don't.

There's also no single perfect app for everyone, so we've compiled a list of the best so you can make an informed decision.

If you primarily use Apple devices, Apple Notes is a great option. The app has come on leaps and bounds since the early iOS days, with Apple not only adding powerful features but also making it much more pleasant to use.

Related: What Is Apple's Freeform App and How Do You Use It?

Apple Notes syncs with all your devices using iCloud, which means you can access your notes across devices using the built-in Notes app. If you need to access your notes from a non-Apple device like an Android smartphone or Windows PC you can use the web-based version by logging in at iCloud.com. It's not perfect if you spend a lot of time with those operating systems, but it's better than nothing.

The app supports attachments including photos, maps, web links, and documents which you can "scan" using the built-in document scanner on iPhone and iPad. There's simple text formatting, tables, and the ability to create checklists. You can even lock notes with a password and use Face ID and Touch ID to unlock them on supported devices. There's also support for markup with a finger or Apple Pencil on compatible devices (not on Mac for now though).

Apple relies on hashtags and folders for organization, and you can even elect to keep notes out of iCloud and just on your Mac or mobile device. Your data is indexed and easy to find on Apple devices thanks to Spotlight search, which can often fail with third-party solutions. You can even use smart folders to collate notes based on tags.

Notes also has some powerful collaboration features . You can add other users with an Apple ID to your notes and even use in-line mentions to draw their attention with a notification.

Related: How to Quickly Add Links, Photos, and Media to Apple Notes on iPhone and iPad

Microsoft OneNote is a heavyweight note-taking app that includes a huge number of features, and it doesn't cost a penny to use. You don't need a subscription to access all of the app's features, including cloud sync across platforms . If you use more than a Mac then you'll be pleased to know that OneNote has native apps for almost every platform, including Android, Windows, and the cloud. There's also a native Apple Silicon version, which performs excellently on Apple's latest computers.

Related: The Beginner's Guide to OneNote in Windows 10

OneNote more closely resembles part of the Office suite than a simple note-taking app, with an array of UI elements and formatting options absent elsewhere. This is part of OneNote's approach to letting you lay out your notes precisely how you want to. It's a scrapbook-like approach: you can type anywhere, format the text, drag the container around the page, and arrange other items alongside it.

This approach is liberating for power users and overkill for anyone looking for a simple note-taking app. It's great if you're organizing meeting notes, snapping photos of whiteboards, and annotating product designs or concept art. It's a bit much if all you want to do is make a shopping list or take a quick memo (but it still works).

Related: How to Draw in Microsoft OneNote

There's a heavy emphasis on drawing , complete with a "Convert to Shapes" option if you lack artistic merit. You can also take audio recordings, solve equations , create tables, attach files , change the paper color, secure notes with a password , or have the body text read aloud to you .

This exhaustive approach is reflected in OneNote's approach to organization, which uses notebooks, sections in notebooks, and pages in sections. You can select from in-built tags like "To Do" and "Important" to organize things quickly or create your own. Re-ordering and sorting notes, sections, and notebooks is also fast and easy to do.

Collaborative features are also strong, with a simple "Invite to Notebook" link allowing anyone to contribute. You can share view-only links, check when your note was last synced with the server, and see other people making changes in real-time .

If you crave simplicity but need better native support than Apple Notes, take a look at Simplenote . The clue's in the name, but Simplenote is about as no-frills as a note-taking app can get. This comes at the cost of features, but it makes for a fast and pleasant note-taking experience.

Simplenote has no support for attachments, which means it's a purely text-based note-taking experience. It's completely free to use, with free syncing between the many native versions available. That includes macOS, Windows, Android, and a large variety of Linux versions. If you don't want to use the Mac App Store or Google's Play Store you can download Simplenote directly from GitHub .

The app has support for plain text, Markdown , and simple checklists. Organization is done purely by way of tags, which have a dedicated field at the bottom of notes. Searching and syncing is extremely fast, which is further helped by the fact that the app has a native Apple Silicon version for chips like the M1 .

Despite the no-frills approach, Simplenote still manages to include support for basic collaboration. Type an email address into the tags field and the recipient will receive an invite to contribute to your note. You can even see and roll back past versions of notes, a benefit of the app's text-only approach.

Bear is a beautiful note-taking and general-purpose writing app for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. There's no native Windows or Android version, but a web version is in the works. If you aren't strictly limited to Apple devices, Bear is probably not a good fit for you.

The app takes a highly polished approach to capturing your thoughts and other written content, with a heavy focus on Markdown. Bear is a bit different in that it presents Markdown as a rich preview while writing, beautifying the words on the page before you've exported or previewed them. It's all about making the experience of writing more pleasant, which in turn might help you get more done.

The editor also highlights over 150 programming languages (perfect for code snippets) and can recognize elements like email addresses and web links . You can add file attachments to your notes and there's in-line support for images. Organization is done purely by way of hashtags, except there's no separate field (they have to be mentioned in the body of your note).

Most of Bear's features are free, but in order to access syncing between devices, you'll need to pay a monthly or annual subscription ($1.49 per month or $14.99 per year). You'll also get the ability to lock your notes, more export options, and some additional themes.

If you're a programmer or web developer who uses a note-taking app differently from most people, Boost Note could be a good fit. It's a Markdown editor that is aimed squarely at developers, with an emphasis on collaboration. Boost Note describes its interface as "IDE-like" with a flexible organization system that allows you to nest notes in multiple folders .

Related: 20101209_103927.jpg

You can also use smart folders to group notes by certain criteria, and there's both a fast and full-text search for quickly getting where you need to. It's possible to link directly to notes or embed certain aspects of other notes within the note you're currently working on. You'll get proper note revision history so you can roll back or view previous versions, as you would with other programming tools .

At the heart of Boost Note is collaboration. You can have multiple teams within a shared workspace, working on the same projects at the same time in real-time. It's even possible to generate public URLs to share documents with clients or external collaborators without having to set up additional accounts.

Boost has a native version for most major operating systems including Windows and Linux flavors like Debian ( Ubuntu ) and Red Hat, plus mobile versions for Android and iOS. Boost Note also has a web version that you can access from most modern browsers.

Boost is free as long as you have a small team of three members or less. You only get 3 days of versioning history, 100MB of storage, and 10MB uploads at that tier. Pricing then increases on a per-member basis, at $3 or $8 per member per month . You get more storage, more versioning, and expanded support depending on whether you opt for the Standard or Pro tier.

There's a reason Apple Notes is first on this list, and that's because you get a huge number of features in an easy-to-use package for free. You'll have to keep using Apple's ecosystem, but if you're a Mac or iPhone user already that's probably not going to be an issue.

You can even access Apple Notes on Android and Windows if you're happy with a web version. And for iPad users, there's no easier way to jot down your handwritten notes  or draw perfect shapes .

David Mytton

The best note taking apps for mac – markdown, open format, cross platform.

Back in Nov 2019 when I first wrote this blog post, the context for rethinking my note taking setup was based around growing problems with Apple’s software quality.

Having enjoyed Apple’s minimalist approach to the new Notes app launched as part of the 2016 release of iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, and having built up >1k notes ranging from book highlights to saved web pages to meeting notes to journal articles, bugs in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 triggered my search for alternatives.

Apple sorted out a lot of those issues in subsequent releases – sync bugs, search bugs, crashes – but it was too late. I had already started a search for an Apple Notes alternative that used Markdown, was cross platform, and allowed me to control the source files.

This is an updated blog post (Jun 2022) that reviews the last few years of trying different note taking apps and what I finally ended up switching to.

The best note taking apps for Mac are Craft , Obsidian , Logseq and iA Writer . Read on for more details.

Requirements for a note taking app

Simplicity + cross linking.

I want to write my notes in plain text with basic formatting. I’d like to be able to embed images (files managed by the app), make lists and include headings to structure the notes. Tables are nice but optional.

This means using Markdown formatting saved to a plain text file. Markdown is a well understood format that has many apps that can edit and render on any platform. This is the best way to ensure the files are accessible into the future and can be migrated to different apps if necessary.

In recent years, the idea of cross-linking, backlinks and wiki-style linking has become common. This has never been possible in Apple Notes – each note is independent, and remains so even in the latest release – but products like Roam Research have made this technique popular. The main benefit is being able to discover unlinked references to other notes you’d forgotten. The magic is that it happens automatically when you use the same phrasing or keywords. Cross-linking between notes is therefore a requirement for me.

Non-proprietary format

The “new” Apple Notes app moved away from IMAP to iCloud sync. This worked better (until the bugs started appearing), but is a proprietary database format. I can’t easily see or edit the individual notes on disk to make backups or export. They are contained in a SQLite database in ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes alongside attachments and images organised by internal note IDs. It’s usually dangerous to meddle with app files like this. In the latest macOS releases, there are even restrictions on accessing the directory!

Apple Notes doesn’t have an export option except individual notes as PDFs. The only way around this is using the Apple Privacy data download service which allows you to export Apple Notes as HTML with their associated attachments. This is how I was keeping a backup of all my Apple Notes.

Another advantage of using files on disk is that I can control how they sync. The app may provide its own sync service, but I want the option to choose Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive or some other system. Indeed, for privacy reasons I have been using Syncthing connected over a private P2P network using Tailscale . This means most of my files are entirely private and encrypted and can sync very fast over my local network. There are tradeoffs e.g. no mobile apps or web UI, but I use OneDrive for those files that I need to share or access elsewhere. Files on disk can also be backed up independently. I use a combination of Apple Time Machine and Arq .

Having now tried many different note taking apps, being able to test alternatives is easier if I can drop the existing files in. Markdown handles all the formatting, so the files themselves must be accessible. This means the app should just work with plain files on disk.

However, the problem with Markdown is that it is interpreted and rendered slightly different by each app. The basic formatting is always the same – bold, headers, lists, etc – but the more advanced functionality, like cross links, folders, embedded images, all tend to have their own custom implementation. This makes it a pain to move them between apps because you end up having to refactor your tags or links.

One solution to this is a container standard called TextBundle . The content is still in Markdown, but the links and related assets are in their own format. This means you can let the app implement its own proprietary rendering, storage and sync, but still be able to get your data out.

This is where TextBundle comes in. TextBundle brings convenience back – by bundling the Markdown text and all referenced images into a single file. Supporting applications can just exchange TextBundles without asking for additional permissions. Beyond being a simple container, TextBundle includes a standard to transfer additional information – to open up new possibilities for future integration.

You can then benefit from a better UX and advanced features which would be difficult to achieve with Markdown alone. Quite a few apps support TextBundle, including Craft and Bear .

Regular updates / actively maintained

The problem with Apple software is that their main revenue is generated by hardware sales and a bundled OS, not any of the apps. This is changing with Apple TV+ and some iCloud services, but they are primarily there to compliment the OS. There is no competitive incentive to keep them up to date, add new features or fix bugs.

The annual update cycle is a legacy from the old days of shipping physical software. This makes sense for annual iPhone hardware refreshes, but is totally outdated for shipping software. Microsoft updates Office every month and Windows every 6 months . How do you report bugs or get support for Apple Notes? You can’t.

My experience with the poor quality of these latest Apple releases has changed my approach – if I am going to rely on software then I want the developer to be properly incentivised to maintain it i.e. I need to pay them for it.

For example, this is one reason why I use and pay for 1Password vs using Apple iCloud Keychain (as well as all the other features 1Password has). It’s also why I don’t mind the move to subscription business models for software.

Cross-platform

This is not a requirement, but a “nice to have” if the app I use on macOS also works on mobile, Linux, the web, etc. I regularly switch between different OSs, particularly trying out different Linux distros, so I want to be able to work with my notes on whatever system I’m currently on.

The web is great for this, and is one reason why Electron has become so popular. The worst Electron apps are slow, buggy, bulky, and have a weird UX that doesn’t fit the platform. But there are good ones, and they’re getting better. VS Code is an example of a great Electron app. Microsoft Teams not so much. But it is possible, and that brings cross-platform support.

Note taking app reviews

All this means dropping out of the Apple ecosystem, switching my notes to Markdown and aiming for them to be simple files on disk. I’d like it to be open source, but if I can manage the files then that matters less. And I want to be able to pay (or donate).

Ultimately, my goal is to be flexible about the platform I use, selected based on the best core OS and hardware. I don’t want to be restricted by proprietary apps and file formats. The Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air has brought me back to using macOS as my daily driver OS, but I don’t want to be locked to it.

The best note taking apps for Mac

Based on reviewing all the apps below, these are the best notes apps for Mac:

• Craft Craft is the best notes app for macOS – it is truly Mac-native and fits into the Apple design guidelines perfectly. It is also a very powerful notes tool with editing based around blocks of different types – tables, paragraphs, lists, images, etc. It supports Markdown includes support for separate “external location” notebooks which operates purely on local files for you to handle sync yourself. The main downside is it uses its own proprietary JSON-based fileformat which goes against my “Markdown only” requirement. However, the UX is so good and it has options to export to Markdown, TextBundle and others, that I ended up switching from Obsidian.
• Obsidian Hits all my requirements – a simple, Markdown editor that opens files on disk, is regularly updated and cross-platform. It is Electron, but has become much faster than when I originally tried it back in 2019. The killer features are the plugins, the Kindle Sync plugin in particular. This is why it beats Logseq.
• Logseq I used Logseq for a long time before switching to Obsidian because of the community plugins. It’s a great app that hits all my requirements. The UI is more minimalist than Obsidian, but can get messy due to how it parses Markdown as blocks in the editor. It’s also open source.
• iA Writer A good native macOS experience with simple, well designed apps for macOS, Windows, Android and iOS. However, even though it includes tag parsing, quick open/search and working with files on disk, it is mainly designed as a tool for writing (in Markdown). It’s amazing for that purpose, and does a good job at being a note-taking app, but it’s a bit of a hack. A recent update adds wiki-style backlinks and they say they’re going down the route of being a knowledge manager. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.

I had been using Obsidian as my primary note-taking app for over 6 months before I discovered Craft . It quickly imported my Markdown files and as I got into testing it, the high quality UX became apparent. Coming from the Electron-based Obsidian, the native macOS UI was much more responsive and completely aligned with the system design. Colours, fonts, shortcuts, tabs are all consistent with other apps on Mac and the editor works really well. Content blocks mean you can create structure and add decorations to make things stand out.

Little touches make the difference – like how search highlights results within the preview window, or the ability to look into a linked note by hovering, or sub-notes within notes that you can link from within the text. More examples include embedded dates link together consistently, daily notes show up on the in-app calendar, you can auto-create notes from your linked calendar events, create deeplinks into a note.

All of this comes together for a really great experience on the Mac. They also have an iOS version which has lots of similar touches optimised for mobile. Plus a web version! Feature parity is not quite there with the desktop or mobile apps, but you can access and edit all your notes from any web browser with basically no real loss of functionality. This includes sharing notes with others (anyone can view, but they require a free Craft account to edit and collaborate).

The main downside is that Craft uses its own JSON-based document format. You can see this when you use an “external space” where the files exist on disk and you can sync them yourself rather than using Craft’s service (this disables sharing and the web UI). It almost stopped me from switching, but the ability to easily export everything to Markdown, TextBundle, PDF or Word reassured me I could get my data out if needed.

That, and the lack of plugins. This is where Obsidian shines and I am going to miss the ability to pull in my Kindle highlights automatically from Readwise .

I originally looked at Obsidian back in 2019, but it was very slow due to being built in Electron. I also didn’t like the way it implemented tagging. It supported everything I wanted – Markdown editing of files on disk with backlinks and powerful search, but the performance was the blocker.

This has now changed. Obsidian have resolved all the performance concerns I had, and significantly polished the UI to make it much closer to the minimalism of iA Writer and Logseq. It supports modern features like wiki-style backlinks and discovery of notes, powerful search and a command palette + quick search.

Obsidian is cross platform and includes an optional paid sync service, which is useful if you want to use their mobile app. I rarely take notes on mobile so I don’t need it, instead syncing everything using Syncthing connected to a private network using Tailscale .

But the killer functionality comes from the community plugins, and the Kindle Sync plugin in particular. I read a lot of books and make highlights / notes on my Kindle. Until Obsidian, I had a manual workflow of extracting them using the Bookcision bookmark then pasting them into a Markdown note. Keeping a copy in my notes allowed me to search and discover them through backlinks. Now they’re synced automatically and kept up to date.

I also particularly like Obsidian’s split view – reminds me of tiling window managers on Linux! – and I use several plugins: Kindle Highlights , Markdown prettifier , Image editor , Paste URL and System Dark Mode . It even has vim-mode, which makes manipulating text much faster.

Obsidian is not open source. It’s not a requirement because I have full control over my data, but I have a philosophical preference for using open source products that are part of my core workflow. There’s no requirement to pay, or even sign up for any type of account. But I understand that this is a business, and I’m happy they offer paid options.

Logseq was my first experience of the power of linked and unlinked references, also known as backlinks. I had been drawn into the concept by Roam Research , but wanted a note-taking app that allowed me to control my data as files on disk.

Logseq is an open source alternative to Roam Research. It’s built on web tech as a local app in Electron. It has more of a minimalist interface than Obsidian, but the block editor and UX design for linked references can make it feel messy. It’s also open source.

I like how it is focused on the daily journal style of note-taking (you can also create independent pages), which links into how it does todo-list management. You can add a note, set it as a TODO, then mention a date in the future, and it’ll surface an appropriate in-UI reminder as you get closer to the date. This works really nicely.

I also like the native Zotero integration. This connects to the Zotero API to provide in-app search of your reference library, which it can then import as a new note. It attaches the PDF to the note and has a built-in reader which can export highlights directly into the note . Zotero 6 has a similar feature , but importing into the notes app is really useful. No other app integrates as well.

I really like Logseq and if you don’t need Kindle Highlight Sync (or other plugins) – Obsidian’s killer feature – then it is difficult to pick between them.

Although not originally designed for note taking, back in 2018 iA Writer added support for #hashtags which makes it much more suitable as a notes app. The subsequent addition of wiki-style backlinks in the release of iA Writer 6 suggests they’re thinking more about how it can be used as a note taking or knowledge management app.

Like Craft, I really like the UI on macOS because it fits in perfectly with the system design guidelines. It is very lightweight, simple to use and fits all my criteria for editing files on disk with Markdown. It is minimalist with few settings, forcing you to focus on the task at hand. There are apps for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android.

iA Writer does not support attachments and the embedded image support is limited, which forces you to store those files on disk. Naming becomes important for binary files like images so they can be properly searched.

Notes are stored on disk so you can use any sync service you like, but there is official support for services like iCloud Drive and OneDrive. They are plain text Markdown so I can edit them in any app.

I would like to see the ability to nest tags and helpers for Markdown formatting e.g. improved image support. This is where iA Writer reveals itself as a tool for writing, not for note-taking, compared to Craft which has significantly more advanced features. It’s still a hack to use it for notes. This is fine if you’re coming from Apple Notes which also has no concept of backlinks, but once you have tried tools like Obsidian and Logseq it’s difficult to go back.

Other note taking apps I tried

Vs code + markdown extensions.

VS Code supports markdown out of the box , including live preview, however it is a code editor and not designed for note-taking. There are two approaches you can take to adapt it to be better for the task.

The first is to use Dendron , an extension specifically designed to add notes functionality. It supports graph views, daily journals, backlinks, tags and enhanced Markdown editing. If you want everything out of the box, this is the extension to go with.

Alternatively, you can install several independent plugins:

• Markdown All in One
• markdownlint
• Nested Tags

The final plugin is crucial because it allows organising notes by tag. Of course, VS Code’s command bar is excellent at search so I could just navigate files by name (or text search), but it is sometimes useful to be able to see and view all associated notes in a list.

Unfortunately, the tag format supported by iA Writer – #hashtags – is not part of the Markdown format. Instead you will need to use the Markdown metadata format by including tags in a YAML block at the start of each file. The advantage of using this format is that it is generally supported by other Markdown parsers , so if I wanted to switch to something new in the future there is a greater chance of it being supported with no changes.

VS Code does use Electron behind the scenes. However, unlike many Electron apps, VS Code ties into the native UX of the OS it is running on and has acceptable performance. This is a rare example of a well-built Electron app, most of which are slow and buggy.

Ultimately I decided I wanted a separate app that was designed specifically for the use case, and kept my code editor just for coding. But this could be a good option if you like living in VS Code!

Years ago this was the first notes app I ever used, however it was notoriously buggy and I gave up. The company has been through some challenging times . It still uses a proprietary note format and database which rules it out. I didn’t bother to try it because of the history of poor quality software.

Included with my Office365 subscription, OneNote has been improving rapidly and now has a much simpler UI and fast sync. One of the great features is character recognition in images , allowing them to be searched as if they were in plain text.

Notes can only be in a single section or Notebook (like Apple Notes) whereas I feel that tags are more flexible approach to organising things. OneNote supports tags but they are hard coded to specific types, which suggests there’s still a lot of legacy cruft still behind the scenes.

OneNote on the web looks good with the new simplified UI and the Mac app also works nicely, particularly with dark mode. However, compared to all the other notes apps it is always slow to launch. I find this lag exists with all Microsoft apps on Mac – they are very heavyweight.

Using it with Office365 creates the Notebook file in your OneDrive but this is just a URL file that opens the web UI when you load it. There’s no actual content in the file which means that OneNote is using a proprietary database behind the scenes.

Although OneNote is a regularly updated application that works cross-platform (and has a decent app for iOS as well), the lack of open file format means I can’t back up the files and extract my data whenever I want. Like Apple Notes, there is no export functionality. I don’t want to move from Apple’s proprietary format to Microsoft’s, so this rules it out.

Worth a mention

• Bear was originally my #1 note taking app before I realised the importance of editing the data files on disk. Bear has a great native experience on macOS and includes apps for all the important Apple platforms. It has a great editor that works in Markdown but is also a live preview, so you can use the markup if you want but let it get out the way. My main issue is that it uses a proprietary database for storing everything, even if you can export to a range of formats, and exporting everything is more of a pain than Craft. It also supports the TextBundle format. But if you don’t care about that, Bear is a great product.
• Typora was promising because it is a good Markdown editor with cross-platform apps that manages files on disk. I particularly liked how it managed attachments for notes, creating a .assets folder with the same name as the parent note. However, it doesn’t have very advanced file management features for the library/list of notes and there’s no support for tags or backlinks. It looks good just for Markdown, but then I might as well use iA Writer.
• Inkdrop is an app I’ve heard about because of the blogging of its main (Japan-based) developer. It fits most of my requirements and the UI looks great, but uses a proprietary format rather than files on disk. The format is JSON and you can set up your own CouchDB server to run the sync services , but that isn’t something I’m interested in doing.
• nvALT hits all of my requirements except tag support, but is quite an old app (and looks it). The UI is why I excluded it, but I am keeping an eye on nvUltra which is the replacement in beta. Unfortunately, it’s been in beta for years, so I’m not sure where development is going.
• Scrivener might be great for complex writing projects but it is far too sophisticated for a notes app.
• Simplenote is worth a look because they have well maintained apps and Markdown editing available for free. I excluded it because of the proprietary database format but generally like what Automattic do, however the apps don’t seem to be actively developed as they have not received any major updates for a long time.
• Standard Notes looks interesting because it pledges privacy and longevity with how it manages your notes files. It has options to store attachments in Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive as well as automated backups there, but ultimately stores notes in a proprietary format ( even if that format is open and you can run your own server because the code is open source ). The desktop apps are Electron and I found them to be very slow and inconsistently designed. A potential option for power users but not what I’m looking for.

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The 6 best note-taking apps in 2024

These evernote alternatives are the best out there..

But first, the big caveat. You can write notes anywhere: on the back of a napkin, envelope, important bill, or even in a notebook. It's kind of similar with apps: you can stick notes into pretty much any old app, even if it's not really designed for them. Example: Google Docs isn't a great notes app, but I have notes about this article you're reading now in the Google Doc I'm working from.

So for this list, I didn't look at every app that could be used to take notes, every app I've personally used to take notes, or even every business collaboration tool that claimed it was a notes app—I was only interested in apps that were explicitly designed to be notes apps. I also only really considered general-purpose personal note-taking apps.

Even with all these criteria in place, I still tested over 45 different note apps for taking notes online. Here are the best note-taking apps I could find.

The best note-taking apps

What makes the best note-taking app, how we evaluate and test apps.

With so many apps to consider—and so many apps claiming to be notes apps—I had some pretty strict criteria for what made an app worthy of this list.

First, the best note-taking software has to be good at what it claims to do . This sounds like an easy bar to clear, but you'd be surprised at how many apps fell short. Not every note-taking app needs to have features like image-to-text conversion or stylus support, but if it boasted about them on its marketing page, they had better be well-executed and nice to use. 

Second, all the note-taking apps had to be quick and easy to use as intended . The real competition when you're looking for somewhere to write a note isn't other note-taking apps, but a pen and scrap of paper. If it wasn't almost as convenient to open the notes app and create a quick note as it was to reach across my desk for a Moleskine and a pen, it didn't make the cut. This rule also extended to other features: editing and sorting notes had to feel seamless and natural, rather than require a battle with a horrible user interface. 

Similarly, the biggest reason to have a notes app instead of a physical notebook is that you can access it from anywhere on any device at any time , whether you're at your desk at work, chilling on your couch at home, or flying coast-to-coast. At a minimum, I required each notepad app to be available on one desktop and one mobile platform (and sync between them), and to have some kind of offline functionality. You can't be locked out of your notebook because you don't have Wi-Fi. 

Finally, we had the value for money test. I love a good free app, but with things as permanent as digital notes, that has to be balanced against the likelihood of the service surviving the next few years and being able to offer server-based features like syncing. While you will find free note-taking apps on this list, some of the best apps not operated by large technology companies charge a reasonable subscription price, and as long as it was warranted by the features offered, that was no barrier to inclusion.

As you can imagine, these criteria exclude a lot of apps that people love.

If you live at your desk, then an online-only web-based note-taking app might not be a problem for you, but it's just not suitable for anyone who wants to check their grocery list when they're at the store. 

There are some great super-niche notes apps designed for fiction writers or developers, but they aren't fit for most people, so they weren't in consideration for a place on this list.

Similarly, there are lots of powerful business collaboration tools that claim to be notes apps but just aren't suitable for one person to keep track of their grocery list or draft a thank-you note. (As a rule, if an app supports video calls out of the box, it's not a notes app.)

Over the course of a few days, instead of using my notebook or notes app of choice, I wrote my thoughts, lists, and other notes to remember down in one of the apps I was putting through its paces. For any that looked like they might make the list, I dug a bit deeper and tested the other features like sync, sorting, and the like. Here are my favorites.

The best note-taking apps at a glance

Best free note-taking app

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OneNote pros:

A great free plan that's widely available on every platform 

Completely freeform note-taking, so you can jot down whatever you want wherever you want to on the canvas 

OneNote cons:

It's still a Microsoft app, so it can feel a bit corporate for a note-taking app

Microsoft OneNote is the best free note-taking app and in serious contention to be the best note-taking app overall. Unless you know you want a specific set of features that it doesn't offer, it's the first app that most people should try.

OneNote is incredibly freeform when it comes to taking notes, which allows it to adapt to whatever your specific needs are. Each Notebook is modeled off a ringbinder, so it's divided into sections with subsections called pages. And each page is basically a canvas where you can add any kind of note you like, anywhere you want. You can throw in some images, click anywhere to add text notes, and if your computer supports a stylus, scribble a mustache on everyone in the photo. (Otherwise you can draw one on with your trackpad, but it'll be less stylish.) It feels like a solution purpose-built for students and anyone else who has to take long, discursive notes about something or doodle a few diagrams, rather than people looking for a digital notebook to collect short snippets and random ideas.

I'd struggle to call any of Microsoft's apps intuitive, but OneNote is familiar . If you've used any version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in the last decade, you'll be right at home. It's certainly better for sitting down and taking notes during a class or meeting than scrawling reminders at a grocery store, but it can do both. 

Create OneNote notes from new or moved Trello cards

Copy new Evernote notes to your OneNote notebook

Add notes on OneNote for upcoming Google Calendar events

OneNote price : Free for up to 5GB of notes; $1.99/month for 100GB.

Best note-taking app for Apple users

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Apple Notes pros:

Free and integrates seamlessly between your Apple devices 

Consistently improving; it used to be incredibly basic, but now it's a competent notes app 

Apple Notes cons:

Getting it to play nice with Android or Windows is a fool's errand

There are actually lots of incredible note-taking apps available on Macs, iPads, and iPhones. I could legitimately have filled this spot with picks like Bear and Craft (both of which I love), but Apple Notes takes it because it is free and built in. Plus, it's as convenient, easy to use, and as useful for most people as any of the premium picks. And it keeps getting better. Over the past few years, Apple has added features like tags, sharing, and a powerful search. You can add text to your notes, attach images, scan documents, draw or handwrite, and basically format them as you need. It even integrates with Siri. 

If you've got an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, Apple Notes is the first app to try. Everything syncs easily and, in that classic Apple way, just works. It isn't the most feature-filled app, but for most occasional note takers, it does more than enough.

Best note app for Google power users

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Google Keep pros:

Integrates nicely with other Google services like Gmail and Google Docs 

Free as part of a regular Google account 

Google Keep cons:

On its own, it's very basic

Most notes aren't supposed to stand alone—they serve a purpose. They're meant  to remind you to email a friend, help you outline your new book, or one of a million other things. Often, these other things require you to use some other app or service. You can't send an email from your notes app, and while you might be able to outline a book, it's probably not the best place to write it. This is what makes Google Keep such a great option for Google power users.

Google Keep is a little odd. As a notes app, it's fine—though very barebones. There are reasonable web, iOS, and Android versions, and a handy Chrome extension for saving quick notes and links. But it's how it integrates with Google's other services that makes it so useful. 

If you use Google Keep, when you open Gmail in your browser, there's a little lightbulb icon in the right sidebar. Click it, and you have quick access to all your Google Keep notes. You can see any notes related to the thing you're working on, your most recent notes, search for something from a while ago, or create a new one. But here's the thing: that same sidebar is there in all of your Google Docs, in your Google Calendar, and even in your Google Drive. About the only Google app it isn't in is YouTube.

And Keep integrates with the rest of Google in other ways. Click on a note and then Copy to Google Docs to convert it into a new document (you can also drag and drop a note from the sidebar if you have Google Docs open); set a reminder by clicking the little bell icon, and the note appears in your Google Calendar; and if you create an audio note on your smartphone, Google automatically transcribes it.

Really, if you live your work life in Google's ecosystem, you should be using Keep—even if you also use another note-taking solution for your personal life. It comes as part of your Google account and is perfect for any notes you need in the other Google apps.

Best note-taking website for collaboration

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Notion pros:

Best-in-class collaboration and team note-taking features

Packs in lots of features, like task management, databases, and pretty much anything else you care to think of 

Notion cons:

If you're looking for a personal note-taking app, it can be a bit over the top

Each new document or note is called a page, and everything in Notion is referred to as a block. Blocks include basic elements like text, checklists, and headings, as well as media types like images, web bookmarks, video, audio, code snippets, and files. You can use as many blocks as you want, in whatever combination, on every page. The sidebar is split into two sections: Teamspaces , which groups all the pages you share with the rest of your team, and Private , where you can have your own notes. While collaboration is a big part of Notion, it's not forced on you.

One thing to note: Notion bills itself as an Evernote competitor for personal users. It can be—but it's too much for most people, and its offline functionality isn't the best. If you love the idea of Notion, go right ahead and try the free Personal Plan, but for me, it's really best as a team notes app or an AI-powered notes app. Something like Obsidian (which we'll look at in a moment) or Craft have a lot of Notion's best features, but they're tailored for individuals.

Create GitHub issues from new items in Notion databases

Generate Jira issues with new Notion database items

Best notes app for power note-takers

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Obsidian pros:

A new way of approaching note-taking that allows you to create an interlinked digital database

Incredibly extensible and customizable

Obsidian cons:

There's a serious learning curve

With Obsidian, you can sort your notes into folders and subfolders using the sidebar like you would with a normal notes app, but more interestingly, you can link between them using internal hyperlinks. Typing [[ brings up a dialog box that lets you select any other note to link to. This means you can easily reference notes you've previously created; for example, you can create a list of all the books you've read in the last year and link to the notes where you review them. And in the sidebar for every note, you can see all the notes linking to the current note and all the notes it links out to. There's also a Graph view that visualizes all these links too. It's this connection-focused approach that makes Obsidian so fascinating—but also so inscrutable. Either you love the idea, or it's a needlessly complicated way to make grocery lists; there's very little middle ground.

On top of that, you can basically customize anything you want. You have total control over the interface and can have as many notes as you want open in the same window. There are even community plugins, which add features—like a Kanban board—that take it far beyond simple text files. My colleague Justin Pot told me, "Obsidian has literally changed my life," and I don't think recommendations come much stronger than that. 

Obsidian price : Free for personal use; $50/user/year for commercial use. Premium add-ons offer services like Sync and Publish from $10/month.

Best Evernote alternative

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Joplin pros:

The closest direct competitor to Evernote on this list 

Free and open source (though syncing through Joplin Cloud is extra)

Joplin cons:

Less polished than the competition 

The interface is what you'd expect from an Evernote-like note-taking app. Notebooks go on the left, notes are in a second column, and you view and write your notes in a third. Because Joplin fully supports Markdown (and gets a million bonus points for doing so), there's also a fourth preview column that shows you what your notes look like in rich text. Of course, this is only by default—you can turn off the preview, write in rich text, and switch things up however else you like.

As an open source app, there are a few rough edges. The user interface isn't always consistent, so you'll catch things like menu items using different cases (you've got File > New sub-notebook and File > Close Window right next to each other, for example). But really, this is me just nitpicking. A small amount of UI weirdness doesn't take away from the functionality of the app.

While Joplin is totally free to use, you will need some kind of sync service to get your notes across all your devices. You can use a file sharing service like Dropbox or OneDrive, but there is also the official Joplin Cloud that allows you to publish your notes to the internet and collaborate with other people. Whatever option you go with, your notes are end-to-end encrypted for security. 

Joplin price: Free, though Joplin Cloud starts at €2.99/month and adds syncing and 2GB of storage.

Why not Evernote?

Evernote often tops lists of best notes apps, but it isn't on this list for a few reasons:

Evernote is expensive. Its free plan doesn't offer its best features, and at $15/month for a subscription, there are better options out there for most people.

Evernote is old—and feels it. Despite attempts to modernize, it isn't as sleek or fast as apps like Obsidian or Joplin. 

With all that said, if Evernote sticks around, it will continue to be reconsidered for inclusion on this list—especially if it properly starts supporting Markdown. Until then, I'd recommend you try one of the alternatives to Evernote that I included above.

Which note-taking software should you choose?

Digital note taking is just as personal as the doodles on your high school notebook. Good note-taking apps will account for this kind of personalization, so you can do your online note taking the way that suits you.

That means the best app for notes will be the one that feels the most comfortable for you . Give a few of them a try, and see what approach you like best.

Related reading:

This post was originally published in October 2015 and previously had contributions from Emily Esposito and Jimmy Daly. The most recent update was in November 2023.

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Harry Guinness

Harry Guinness is a writer and photographer from Dublin, Ireland. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Lifehacker, the Irish Examiner, and How-To Geek. His photos have been published on hundreds of sites—mostly without his permission.

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The best note taking apps for Mac

Level-up your note-taking with these amazing apps

What is the best note taking app for Mac? The answer is a little complicated, because there are eight fantastic options for jotting down and collating any information you need on a day-to-day basis.

Note-taking is a mundane part of life; it can be easy to take-for-granted all the tools that make the task less painful. However, if the tools are chosen incorrectly, note-taking can be an aggravating experience. In order to eliminate any unnecessary headaches, it is crucial to choose an efficient note-taking app that provides you with everything you need to be successful.

What makes a note-taking app great?

Why you can trust Laptop Mag Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

Before diving into the best note-taking apps available, it is important to discuss what features can make an app great. First, the app must be simple and easy to use. Some developers attempt to add as many “bells and whistles” to their apps as possible. Unfortunately, these apps tend to become overly complicated and difficult to navigate.

Even with excellent features, quality always rules over quantity. An app’s features must serve a purpose and should be effortless to understand. When choosing an app, users should be sure to focus on the functions they need. After all, a single practical feature can be worth a hundred unnecessary ones. 

Another obvious factor in choosing a note-taking app is the price; there is a wide range of pricing for note-taking apps, all of which offer something a little different. Only the user can decide whether the price of an app is worth its features. Before downloading a pricey app, make sure it is worth your while by checking reviews from people who have purchased it in the past.

The 8 best note taking apps for Mac

Macos notes.

What better way to take notes on a Mac than using its own note-taking app? Mac allows users to access the Notes app while still running other apps and websites in the background, making it extremely useful for research or multitasking. 

Previously, the Notes app was a rather basic free alternative amongst the sea of other premium offerings. While this is still true to an extent, Apple has worked hard on key features that improves its effectiveness, such as seamless syncing across all your devices, shared collaborative notes, hashtag note categorizing, to-do list creation, and an implementation across all of macOS that means you can highlight any text and save it to a note.

Pricing: Free 

Notes occupies the middle ground between more robust options like Evernote and OneNote, and simplistic ones like Bear. Unfortunately, there isn't quite the same flexibility that you get from paid options, but without spending a penny, this is the best option to go for.

Notion is an innovative note-taking app that saves notes online and allows for collaborative work with others. It also includes features such as a hybrid editor to customize text, and it allows users to create tables to take their notes to the next level. 

In addition, users can embed images and other media to keep their notes precise and aesthetically pleasing. Its hierarchical organization features ensure that note-takers can easily return to their notes and understand what was written. To save time, Notion also allows users to create templates of their favorite note-taking arrangements. 

Notion is more than a note-taking app, though it offers everything we’d look for in the space. It’s really as much or as little as you’d want it to be, which is why we’d recommend this for those looking for a work or school-first note-taking space.

Pricing: Free

For personal use, Notion doesn’t cost anything. You’ll get unlimited pages and blocks, access for five guests, the ability to sync across devices and API access without ever paying a dime. If you’re looking to add additional file upload space, unlimited guests or collaborative workspaces, upgrades to the $4 Personal Pro plan or $8 Team plan are always an option.

Evernote is currently one of the most popular note-taking apps in the world. In 2017 alone, the software app acquired 255 million users worldwide. One of the biggest perks of Evernote is that it can read various file types, making it easy to migrate notes or important information from different applications. Evernote also lets users take and insert clips from websites, making it easy to copy-paste long texts.

Evernote isn’t a basic note-taking application, though it’s an ideal solution for those looking to add (and organize) more than just text: whiteboard snaps, voice notes, video, links, and just about anything else you’d need to centralize into a single note, or grouping of notes.

Evernote’s most basic plan offers everything most of us would need in a note-taking app. If you’re a power user, you could definitely consider the more robust Personal ($8/mo) or Professional ($10/mo) plans. The Professional plan, however, is really best used in a work or collaborative environment, as the main benefits are in the 20 GB of monthly uploads and the integrations with Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams and other platforms.

Created by the one and only Microsoft, OneNote was designed to give users the same impression as a high-quality physical notebook. OneNote has tabs that can switch between pages easily. These tabs can even be color-coded to keep everything neat and tidy. Arguably one of the most exciting parts of OneNote is that it is 100% free. There are no pay-walls blocking users from the premium features; everything is at the note-takers fingertips.

OneNote is perhaps the closest match to Evernote, but built for those that don’t really like Evernote. It too offers the ability to upload just about anything, organize it however you’d like for later use, and share it with others. The main difference in Evernote and OneNote would be in the options the latter offers to present the information. 

With OneNote you can turn your notes into something resembling a magazine, presenting it in a style that’s more of a visual presentation than a simple notebook you’d dump information in.

Pricing: $70/yr or $7/mo

OneNote is included in any Microsoft 365 plan. So if you have Word, Excel , and Powerpoint already, chances are you’ll just need to download OneNote, free. If not, monthly subscriptions start at just $7.

Bear offers a clean and simple interface for users, allowing them to organize their notes with tags and group them together. In addition, Bear includes an archive feature. This lets users remove notes from their main collection without having to delete them entirely. The ability to group multiple notes together with a simple hashtag placed anywhere within the document makes for simple organization – no more dragging and dropping between notes or folders – and a system that really requires nothing more than a keyword for grouping.

But what sets Bear apart from other note-taking apps is the ability to format notes using Markdown. For those familiar with this type of text markup, notes are a breeze, and allows you to format entire documents – or notes, in this case – without ever lifting your hands from the keyboard.

While Bear does allow you to drop links or embed images, like others in this list, it’s not the best option for those looking to archive a lot of media or to format it in a visually-appealing way. it’s perhaps the closest thing to a pure note-taking app that remains on the market today, and for some, that’s exactly what they’re looking for.

Pricing: $1.50/mo or $15/yr

Bear doesn’t offer a free option, but they do have a one week or one month trial depending on which subscription option you choose. If you’re looking for a simple note-taking app that’s not-at-all basic, Bear has you covered.

Standard Notes

Among all the other apps listed in this article, Standard Notes leads in its security features. Standard Notes encrypts users’ notes as they type. Rest assured, only the note-taker can access and read these notes. By default, all notes use end-to-end encryption, allowing you to keep them free from prying eyes both for you, and any collaborators.

Standard Notes also includes helpful organization and retrieval features; users can tag notes and group them together as well as use the search tool to find any keywords from previously written notes.

For securit-focused individuals, this is a great option. It resides closer to the Bear side of the feature spectrum, with an almost email-like interface, and for those looking for simple note-taking options with cross-platform compatibility and a highly secure storage and delivery system, Standard Notes checks all the boxes.

Every Standard Notes plan offers end-to-end encryption, multi-device support and unlimited notes. Jumping up to the Core Plan ($29/yr) offers additional theme styling, Markdown support, and two-factor authentication. The Plus Plan ($79/yr) includes all of this plus an encrypted file system, email backups, and custom domain support.

For nearly all users, the free or Core Plan should offer plenty.

Slite offers an extremely intuitive text-to-HTML conversion tool, and allows users to easily embed images, videos, voice memos, and more into their notes. While it does come with a premium price, Slite offers a discount to students in need of their services. Slite also provides a table of contents feature, which is especially helpful for users who are taking lengthy notes.

Slite resides in the Notion category of note-taking apps, meaning it’s really as simple or robust as you want it to be. Like Notion, you start with a blank page, though you can easily create checklists, tables, knowledgebases, or even your own Kanban board.

Where Slite differs from anything on this list is in its ability to work collaboratively. While others offer collaboration options, Slite closely resembles a task management suite like Asana and integrates with other popular platforms like the Google Suite, Slack, and Loom.

While Slite does offer a free option, and it’s fine for working solo, the true power of the platform starts to shine in the Standard ($6.67/mo) and Premium ($12.50/mo) plans. With the Standard Plan you get unlimited docs, usage dashboards, and a the ability to create read-only docs. In Premium you get all of this, plus advanced document permissions, and OpenID SSO for those using Okta, Azure, or other identity or enterprise work platforms.

Last but not least is the Ulysses note-taking app. Ulysses is an Apple-exclusive note-taking app that allows users to write long-form notes in a format that is not crowded or confusing. For those who are easily distracted while taking notes, the app includes a focus mode that eliminates any pop-ups, notifications, and more while the user is note-taking. Finally, Ulysses allows users to publish their work directly to WordPress to store or share.

Ulysses is perhaps the best note-taking platform for writers. It’s a minimal interface built for distraction-free writing. And while it’s quite similar to Bear, the thing that sets Ulysses apart is its organization options. Inside Ulysses you can organize documents and files in a number of ways, as well as creating notebooks and folders for everything from your personal diary, to that manuscript you’re working on, and even your notes from school, work, or home. 

Pricing: $6/mo or $50/yr

There’s no free option, but Ulysses does offer reduced pricing for students. To get the discount you’ll need to apply, which is really as simple as sending your student ID from the link in the settings menu.

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16 Best Note-Taking App For Academics

Say goodbye to cluttered & chaotic notes! Discover the best note-taking apps for academics and elevate your academic game

Look no further, because we’ve got the ultimate guide to finding the best note-taking app for academics. Say hello to streamlined, organized, and efficient note-taking, and goodbye to cluttered and chaotic notes. It’s time to take control of your academic journey and level up your note-taking game!

Table of Contents

Key Types of Note-taking Apps 

3 best all-in-one note-taking apps, evernote – organize your notes.

Evernote is a user-friendly note-taking app that allows users to easily create, organize, and access notes, lists, and documents. It offers flexibility in note creation, and has a range of organizational tools, such as notebooks and tags. 

OneNote – Organize Your Thoughts, Discoveries, And Ideas

OneNote is a digital notebook application developed by Microsoft. It allows users to create and organize notes, drawings, audio notes, and files in a digital notebook. 

Availability: Available for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, and can also be accessed via a web browser. 

Zoho – Note Taking App – Add Text, Images, Audio, Checklist

Zoho is a suite of business and productivity apps that aims to provide a seamless user experience. The apps within the Zoho suite are designed to work together and share data, allowing users to easily move between them. 

3 Top Digital Notebook Apps For Students

Notability – unleash your ideas, your way.

Availability: Available for iPad, Mac, and iPhone.

GoodNotes – Access Your Digital Notes Wherever You Work

GoodNotes is an app that provides a seamless and intuitive user experience for taking notes and annotating PDFs. It offers a variety of tools for typing, handwriting, highlighting, and drawing, as well as support for audio recording and playback. The app’s user interface is clean and easy to navigate, with options for organizing and searching notes through the use of folders and tags. 

Google Keep – Free Note Taking App For Personal Use

3 simplistic note-taking apps for academics,  bear – private markdown editor for iphone, ipad and mac, simplenote – simplest way to keep notes.

Availability: Available on Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and MacOS devices.

Joplin – Capture Your Thoughts And Securely Access Them

Joplin also supports markdown formatting and includes a built-in web clipper for saving web pages as notes. Overall, Joplin aims to provide a streamlined and efficient note-taking experience for its users.

4 Apps that Turn Audio to Notes

Soundnote – take notes on your ipad and mac.

SoundNote is a note-taking app that allows users to take notes while recording audio. The app syncs the notes with the audio recording, so users can go back and listen to the recording while reviewing their notes. The user interface is intuitive and easy to use, making it a great tool for students or professionals who want to take notes during lectures or meetings. 

GoTranscript – Best Human-Centric Transcription Services 

Otter – voice meeting notes & real-time transcription.

Reference: See our review on Otter.ai, along with other transcription tools .

Rev – Best-known Transcription Brand

3 best conceptual note-taking apps for students, mindnode – mind map & brainstorm ideas.

The app also includes features such as the ability to add images, notes, and links, as well as the ability to export and share maps with others. Overall, MindNode is designed to help users effectively brainstorm and organize their thoughts and ideas.

XMind – Your Favorite Mind Mapping Tool

XMind is a mind mapping and brainstorming software that allows users to visually organize their ideas and information in a hierarchical structure. It features a user-friendly interface and a variety of tools for creating diagrams, flowcharts, and concept maps. 

SimpleMind – Organize Your Thoughts

Note-taking app features to look for, benefits of note-taking apps , final thoughts.

Whether you’re looking for an all-in-one app with a variety of tools, a digital notebook experience, a simple and minimalistic approach, voice to note features, or a way to visually organize complex concepts, there is an app on this list that will meet your needs. 

3 thoughts on “16 Best Note-Taking App For Academics”

Your article was excellent, and I appreciate you providing it. I gained a lot of knowledge from it. Write more about this subject, please. Thankyou

Thank you for the kind words.

Where does Liquidtext and MarginNote3 fit in your matrix? They are both sophisticated apps and worth evaluating.

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The 6 Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac

Mac notes apps for a better note-taking experience.

Note-taking is a personal experience. Ergo, the feature-set one needs to look for in a notes app is largely dependent on their preferences and requirements. Although the built-in notes app on Mac, Apple Notes, does offer some useful features, it’s far from perfect and leaves you wanting more. Hence, the need for third-party notes apps.

However, with an array of Mac notes apps to choose from on the App Store (or otherwise), finding the right notes app can be a challenging task.

To simplify this, we’ve curated a list of the best note-taking apps for Mac down below.

Table of Contents

Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac You Should Check

When recommending the best note taking app for Mac, we take into account the essential note-taking features—ones that are a must for everyone irrespective of their use case—cross-platform support, security and privacy measures for notes, and most importantly, ease of use.

1. Simplenote: Best Mac Notes App for Minimalists

Simplenote is one of the simplest note-taking apps for Mac. It’s lightweight and makes noting down your thoughts and ideas a quick and smooth experience. You can even use it to create checklists or write your notes in the markdown format if that’s what you prefer.

Simplenote syncs your notes across all your devices automatically, and since it’s a cross-platform notes app, you can use it on even non-Apple devices. In addition, you can also access Simplenote on the web, should there ever be a need to do so.

One of the best features of Simplenote is note history. As its name suggests, this feature keeps a record of all the different versions of a note and lets you restore a version at any time. Similarly, sharing your note with others to collaborate on it is another useful feature and comes in handy when you want to share your idea with others or brainstorm with them on one.

When it comes to organizing and finding notes, Simplenote offers tags, which let you tag similar notes so that it’s easier to find them in your notes list. And it even has a built-in search that makes finding your notes or looking for a particular keyword among all your notes fairly easy.

Free Download: Simplenote

2. Bear: Best Apple Notes Alternative

Bear is undoubtedly among the most beautifully-designed Mac notes apps. Moreover, it’s Apple-device specific, so you can think of it as an alternative to Apple Notes: one that offers support for markdown, better notes organization, and a highly customizable and advanced text editor.

If you’re a fan of typography, you can choose from a wide range of font styles to create your notes in Bear. In addition, there’s also the option to change themes and personalize the appearance of the app to your preference. What we like the most about Bear is the focus mode, which helps you concentrate and focus on your writing by putting your notes in fullscreen view. Thus, eliminating distractions.

Bear also comes with an advanced markup editor with support for over 150 programming languages. So if you need to write code snippets in your notes, you can do that easily without worrying about styling. Being able to add images to your notes is another handy Bear feature, and it helps add life to your otherwise mundane notes.

With Bear, you also get automatic syncing. This means if you also plan on using it on your iPhone or iPad, all your notes will sync across all your devices automatically. Besides, the app provides cross-note linking as well, which lets you reference other notes easily, along with the ability to organize them using hashtags.

Although Bear is free to use, certain features, like the ability to encrypt or lock your notes, are available only with the pro plan.

Free (Offers in-app purchases) Download: Bear

3. Notion: Best App for More Than Just Note-Taking

Notion is more than the average notes app. It’s got pretty much all the essential note-taking features, plus a few extra functionalities on top, which further extend its use case and allow you to use it for journaling, project management, wikis, and databases.

All your interactions in Notion take place on a page. A page is where all the different Notion blocks, i.e., everything from text and images to tables, lists, etc., live. You can arrange these blocks using drag-and-drop as you see fit. Compared to other note-taking apps, this is a really unique feature that offers lots of customization capabilities and changes the way you take notes on a Mac.

Extending Notion’s uniqueness further is its broad scope of use, which lets you use it for more than simple note-taking. So if you’re looking for a notes app that you can use to create checklists, databases, and sheets to collaborate with others, in addition to jotting down casual notes, Notion is the way to go.

Speaking strictly of note-taking features, Notion offers templates : to quickly get you started with a boilerplate for the kind of notes you want to take; integration support: to help you automate actions; a web clipper: to save anything from the internet into your workspace and sharing and collaboration support: to let you work with your peers/teammates.

All that said, though, Notion has some shortcomings too. Not being able to access notes offline is one of the most notable ones, which can even be a deal-breaker for some.

Free (Offers in-app purchases) Download: Notion for Apple M1 | Notion for Intel

4. Microsoft OneNote: Best Note Taking App for Mac Overall

OneNote is Microsoft’s popular note-taking app . It’s free to use and available on all major desktop and mobile operating systems, including Mac, which means you access and create notes on the go.

With OneNote, you essentially get a digital notebook: one where you can write memos, jot down notes, or create sketches on any of your devices from anywhere. So, in addition to creating text-based notes, you can also save pictures, photos, printed documents, or files to your notes for better context or visuals.

Similarly, if you own an iPad/Android tablet, you can create handwritten notes or digital drawings in OneNote—something not many note-taking apps offer. Adding to the feature set further are OneNote’s advanced organizational features that let you use tabs, labels, and color-coding to organize your notes and find them easily. It even includes the option to pin the important pages on top, so you don’t have to scroll through the list to find them.

Lastly, OneNote provides collaboration and sharing features too. This means you can share your ideas or thoughts through notes with your friends or colleagues and, when required, collaborate with them to get their ideas/inputs.

Free (Offers in-app purchases) Download: Microsoft OneNote

5. Ulysses: Best Mac Notes App for Writers

Ulysses is another Apple-exclusive notes app for Mac. Its biggest highlight is its writing-focused feature set that has you covered with the entire writing process, including grammar and style checks. Not just that, Ulysses also lets you set goals for your writing sessions, so you don’t get off track and can write more.

We really like that Ulysses manages to keep its UI clean, minimal, and easy to navigate despite offering plenty of features. This allows you to easily navigate the different menus on the app and instills a sense of immersion in the writing process. Speaking of, if you plan on writing long-form content or a journal in Ulysses, the focused writing mode further cleans up the interface and does away with other visual elements.

As for other options, Ulysses supports markdown, code snippets, and direct publishing to various CMS. It also provides various export options, which makes moving your notes to different apps easy. All the text and notes you capture in Ulysses are saved to Ulysses’ unified library. This library is synced across all your other Apple devices, so you can easily access and work on your notes across different devices.

Unlike most other apps on the list, though, Ulysses requires a paid subscription. So you’ll need to pay for a monthly or annual subscription to get the most out of it on your Mac.

Paid Download: Ulysses

6. Drafts: Easiest Note Taking App for mac

Drafts is the most powerful—yet, basic and easy-to-use—note-taking app for Mac. It’s mainly focused on capturing text, so any idea or thought that gets to your mind goes straight into Drafts, after which you can choose to decide what you need to do with the draft later.

Everything in the Drafts app is situated in the UI such that the focus is totally on your new and existing drafts. Basically, you have an editor—with markdown support—that you use to create a new draft. This draft can be anything from simple text to actionable tasks. Once captured, there are several actions you can perform on this draft.

Using tags and flags to organize your drafts is one of the many features. But, then, there’s the ability to dictate text when your hands aren’t free, as well as the option to check version history and export the draft into different formats.

Lastly, Drafts also provides the option to perform more advanced operations across various categories like editing, markdown, tools, processing, etc. And you can even create your own custom actions or use the power of scripting (combined with APIs for various apps/services) to automate cross-service operations.

Free (Offers in-app purchase) Download: Drafts

Choose the Right Mac Notes App for Your Needs

Although pretty much any note-taking app can help you take quick notes, problems start arising when you want to export them to other services, write them down in markdown formatting, or simply organize them better so that they are easier to find. Advanced text formatting and the ability to access and create notes on any of your devices are a few other options that most traditional notes apps lack.

We hope our list helps you find the right note-taking app for your Mac: one that has you covered on all the essential note-taking fronts and a bunch of other handy features while being simple and easy to use.

FAQs About the Best Mac Note-Taking Apps

Does mac have a notes app.

Yes, Apple's macOS bundles the Apple Notes app on its Mac. It's also available on the iPhone and the iPad and does a decent job at note-taking and syncing up the notes across devices within the Apple ecosystem.

What is a good notes app for Mac?

Choosing a notes app over others is entirely dependent on one's requirements and use case. If you're looking for a basic notes app—just for casual note-taking—Simplenote is a better option after Apple's very own Notes app. However, for those wanting a bit more control over their notes, Bear offers a little more extra features, which can come in handy at times. And similarly, the Drafts app also bundles several useful actions and integrations with other services that let you do more than simple note-taking.

Is OneNote good for Mac?

OneNote is a good notes app for Mac, especially for those who don't want to be overwhelmed by too many advanced features but still want a little more options that the standard notes app. If you also happen to use platforms other than the Mac, then OneNote can prove to be really use to you.

Can I take handwritten notes on Mac?

Yes, you can take handwritten notes on Mac, provided you have a suitable input device. For example, One by Wacom is a tablet which can be connected to your Mac so that you can take handwritten notes on your Macbook/iMac. OneNote for Mac will let you use your mouse or trackpad to draw/sketch/handwrite but that's not really an ideal experience for regular note taking.

Is there a GoodNotes app for Mac?

Yes, considered by many as the best Note taking app on the iPad, GoodNotes is available on Mac as well. While it's good (pun intended), we feel there are better options out there as we have listed in the article especially for Mac. But if you are already invested into GoodNotes on other devices, you can use it on Mac (separate purchase).

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Best note-taking apps for Mac in 2024

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While Apple Notes checks off most boxes, it may not fit everyone’s needs. So, you might need one of these note-taking apps for Mac in your arsenal. No matter which format you like, text, audio, or video, this list has a suitable Note app alternative to match your need. Just keep strolling.

1. Boost Note – Editor’s choice

Boost Note is a versatile, feature-packed markdown editor mainly designed for developers and their teams. Thanks to real-time co-authoring, teams can create and edit documents together. 

Plus, you can completely customize and automate your workflow with 3,000 external tools and apps integration. An IDE-like UX enables rich searchability options complete with smart folder and document property features. 

Remarkably, the software automatically stores all changes in a document, and you can roll back anytime to review version history or revert changes. And most importantly, it offers multi-platform compatibility from macOS, web to mobile apps. 

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Price : Free (Subscription starts at $3*)

2. Evernote – Notes organizer and planner

Despite the cut-throat competition, “Evernote” remains one of the most appreciable note-taking apps both for macOS and iOS. The highlight of this app is the wide range of tools that provide more flexibility.

The option to make notes in several formats like video, audio, web clippings, sketch ensure you are able to give your thoughts the right shape. With an easy-to-format word processor at your disposal, you can write your thoughts elegantly.

You can create an agenda to be discussed in a meeting, write a quick memo and transfer your Evernote notes to Apple Notes.

Often forget to do some important tasks? Make a checklist of all the things you have to do. Besides, you will also create presentations to express your thoughts with the desired impact.

Price: Free

3. Microsoft OneNote – Capture notes, ideas, and memos

“OneNote” is a complete package. The app lets you capture your ideas in a variety of formats and offer you the needed freedom to keep everything in perfect sync.

You can tag your notes to find them quickly. Make a list of to-dos and keep track of them so that you are able to do your tasks in time.

The collaboration features works immaculately, allowing you to work with your colleagues. For more security, you will also add an extra shield to your projects to keep them private.

Better still, OneNote for Mac is compatible with a ton of international languages including French, German, Greek, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish and more. So, a language should never become a roadblock to your note-taking.

4. NotePlan – Calendar, To-do list, and gestures

NotePlan’s UI may remind some other apps you may have come across. When we get past those UI similarities, NotePlan is an app that can be considered a replacement for a calendar and a task manager app since this app has built into it.

If you enter a note that mentions a deadline, NotePlan will auto-detect it and add that to the calendar. That’s not all; you can sync these events with the Apple calendar or Google calendar.   

Other than syncing your calendar data, there’s also the option to backup the information you have stored into NotePlan to the iCloud server. Yes, the data won’t be shared with any third-party servers. A great relief for those privacy-concerned people.   

Since there is the option to store data in the cloud, users can access their data seamlessly across devices.  

Price : $9.99/per month with Setapp subscription or Free (Personal Monthly subscription at $14.99 ) 

5. Notebook – Take notes and sync

Zoho Corporation is well-known for producing powerful apps. And Notebook does have all the qualities to be highly efficient.

While there is a lot to like in this app, I find “Smart Cards” very adorable. What it basically does is automatically format the contents into specific cards like the recipe, video, and link.

The app provides several predefined note covers to let you design your stories elegantly. If you don’t like the readymade options, you can create a custom cover. Moreover, there is also an option to make public notes using shareable links so that anyone can view them.

With the dark-themed night mode, you will enjoy working till late at night. Plus, the reminders won’t let any of your tasks go out of your notice.

6. Bear – Markdown notes

Should you want to have a top-notch writing-cum note-taking app for your Mac, give a close look to Bear. I’ve used this app for a long and always found it pretty neat.

The best thing about it is the simple interface coupled with the easy-to-use tools. Therefore, you can write amazing stories and give your wildest thoughts the ideal shape.

Bear has a good library of more than a dozen themes that make it a lot easier to design stories. Features like tagging, archiving, and adding tasks to notes enable to take control of your stuff. Furthermore, you can export your projects in multiple formats such as HTML, PDF, DOCX, MD, JPG, and EPUB.

Lastly, after a free trial of 14 days, you will have to upgrade to Bear premium’s $2.99 monthly or $29.99 annually plan.

7. SideNote – Task manager and share notes to anyone

SideNote, as its name suggests, SideNote will always be on your side, and that too, without making any distractions for you. The app will only appear when you want to, without affecting what you currently view on your Mac, like an overlay.  

You can change how and where the app should appear according to your preference. You can even assign keyboard shortcuts to call Side Notes. There are multiple options on how the notes are supposed to look, and the one I liked on them was the code-like UI. 

Besides the code-like UI, you also get plain text and standard (markdown) options for UI. You can also use specific colors for them. Alongside the rich customization options, you also get a task manager within the app where you can add or make changes to your tasks. 

You may have liked the sharing feature in Apple Notes . Well, guess what? SideNotes also gives you the option to share notes with anyone you want.  

Price : 9.99 with Setapp monthly subscription / $19.99 on App Store

8. Agenda – Date-focused note-taking app

If you want to streamline all of your projects and get them ready before the deadline, pick out “Agenda.” One of the notable features of this app is the advanced text editor.

Depending on the specific theme, you can give a befitting look to your notes. It allows you to convert your text into multiple formats like Markdown and HTML. Segregate your files into different categories so that will access them instantly.

The app lets you connect your sticky notes to the events in your personal calendar. As a result, you can plan your meeting perfectly.

Better still, you don’t have to pay any bucks to use all the features of Agenda.

9. Notion – The all-in-one workspace

Notion is a comprehensive notes and productivity app for Mac that can help you get things done. It boasts 200 app integrations to streamline multiple aspects of your life, whether you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, student, etc.

I especially love it for the clean and intuitive user interface that works like a charm across multiple devices. You can also add its extensions to Chrome and Firefox to sync your work in real-time. Use it not just for notes but to organize almost anything you can think of!

Price: Free ($4.99 per month for Personal Pro plan)

10. Simplenote – Easiest way to keep notes

There are very few note-taking apps for Mac that look as familiar as Simplenote. Its user interface is pretty clean, and you hardly have to spend any time to master the tools.

One of my favorite feature of this app is focus mode. Times when you want to write with maximum concentration, this feature comes into play really well.

You can use pins and tags to organize your notes. And with Markdown, you will ideally format your projects. To ensure your eyes don’t burn while working in the night, the app comes with the dark mode.

11. GoodNotes – Write outside the lines

I have picked out GoodNotes for a couple of main reasons. First, it makes annotating docs really fun. And if you are fond of giving your docs a creative look, this one can be your thing.

You can highlight or strikeout the text in your PDF documents. Easily move, scale and ideally customize the object color. There is also an option to add the bookmarks to your docs.

Courtesy of the fast iCloud sync, you will find your notes on all of your devices. You can share your notes with others and also print them. The compatibility with a number of languages like English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and more make it an evergreen tool.

Price: Free (In-App Purchases start at $0.99)

12. Quip – Chat, docs, slides, and spreadsheets in one app

“Quip” is a lot more than just a simple note app for macOS. To be more precise, this is what you should use to collaborate with your teammates. Thanks to the chat and messaging integration, it helps you work with your colleagues in a fun way.

You can use the app to note down your thoughts faster, create to-do lists, and edit your docs. It also lets you make comprehensive spreadsheets.

Another notable feature of this app is that it allows you to import your address book from several services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Microsoft Outlook, Google, and iCloud.

You will create insightful charts by using the data from spreadsheets and Salesforce records. The smart slides would not just make your presentation more impressive but also save your time.

13. Unclutter – Instant access to your data

“Unclutter” is really smart! It’s designed to be a multitasker and lets you organize your clipboard data, files, and notes. If you aren’t able to take control of them, give it a chance to sort out the mess.

You can keep an eye on your clipboard history and manage it with ease. Store all of your files at once place and access them quickly. And yes, make sticky notes to never forget to do essential things.

The easy editing tools allow you to make changes conveniently. Due mainly to the quick search feature, you will instantly find a list. Besides, the app can be set up with Dropbox to sync data across the devices.

Price: $19.99

That’s pretty much it! So, this sums up our roundup of the best note apps for Mac.

What’s your favorite?

Now that you have known our favorite note apps, tell us about the ones that can walk into your personal roundup. We’d really appreciate your collection and the valuable feedback.

Take a glance at the following posts as well:

• Task management apps for Mac
• Best Calendar apps for Mac
• Best iTunes Alternatives for Mac

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The best note-taking apps for collecting your thoughts and data

We look at evernote, onenote, notion, and a variety of other note-taking apps, from simple to complex..

By Barbara Krasnoff , a reviews editor who manages how-tos. She’s worked as an editor and writer for almost 40 years. Previously, she was a senior reviews editor for Computerworld.

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These days, we are all dealing with huge amounts of information, from meeting notes to social media, to photos and videos, to whatever else we’ve collected — and we are all trying to find some way to store it, organize it, and find it when we need it.

If you want to get really basic, you can use a spreadsheet or create a simple set of word-processing documents. Otherwise, you can try what is somewhat inaccurately described as a note-taking app. These apps, at their simplest, store your notes and other thoughts and, at their more complex, are capable of manipulating any and all content you want to drop into them.

One of the most well-known has been Evernote, which has gone through quite a few changes over the years, both financially and in its feature set. I’ve been using it for my personal notes for years, and while I feel that it’s become way too overblown (and too expensive), I haven’t been able to motivate myself to pull my decade of data out of there. At this point, though, I’m not sure I’d recommend it to a new user — especially now that it’s limiting the features of its free version even more than it used to.

However, there are a lot of others out there now with a wide range of options, from just plain notes to applications that can do almost anything as long as you have the time and an inclination to learn. I’ve looked at a bunch, and these are some that looked most promising, from the most simple to the most complex.

In the end, though, the app you use will largely depend on your personal needs. Here are more details on our top picks in this category.

Google Keep started out as a fairly simple note-taking app, and while it has added a few features since it began, it’s still a good, straightforward way to record your thoughts. Because it is so interconnected with other Google apps (for example, you can access it directly from Google Calendar, and you can convert a Keep note to a Google Doc), it works especially well if you’re invested in the Google ecosystem. 

Keep isn’t quite as sparse as it used to be: you can create new notes with instant lists, drawings, or images; you can also add collaborators and a variety of backgrounds. In addition, there have been some interesting upgrades recently that have been promised, such as text formatting (although, as of this writing, they were only available for Android). Meanwhile, being Google, the search ain’t bad.

Cost: Free.

Bear Markdown Notes

Bear Markdown Notes is an app for macOS and iOS devices with an excellent interface and selection of features that could make me regret my faithfulness to Android. Even the free version offers a number of tweaks — for example, the header can either be the first sentence of the note or the date and time (or you can leave it empty and put in anything you want). You have a wide choice of fonts and various formatting options. 

The app uses tags in order to organize its notes; you create a tag for a note by starting your chosen word with a pound sign (or surrounding a phrase with them). The word / phrase will then appear in the left-hand column, where you can click on it to find all the tagged notes.

Besides the column on the left, you have a second column that shows all the notes in the highlighted section, while the main window shows what is in the chosen note itself. It’s a UI that is used by several apps, including Evernote.

You can format your notes in a variety of ways by clicking a BIU (bold / italics / underline) icon at the top right of each note; you can also create subheads, bulleted and to-do lists, tables, links, and add attachments. Another icon lets you see the statistics for the note — number of words, characters, and when it was modified. You can also see an outline of your various heads, subheads, and any backlinks. In other words, even in the free version, there are plenty of ways you can play with Bear Notes. 

On the other hand, if you want to sync your notes across devices, you’ll have to upgrade to the Pro version. With that, you also get password protection, the ability to search inside attachments, more formats, and the ability to export notes as PDFs, ePub, and other formats (the free version lets you export in Markdown, TextBundle, txt, and rtf).

Cost: Free version available. Pro version costs $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year with a 7-day free trial.

Bending Spoons

Evernote started out in 2008 as an innovative and well-regarded note-taking app. Over the years, however, its reputation has suffered as it worked through privacy missteps , increased fees , and an interface that can feel bloated and feature-heavy. It is now owned by app developer Bending Spoons and has moved its operations to Europe ( laying off most of its US employees in the process). And as of December 2023, it is limiting its free version to 50 notes and a single notebook , making it essentially unusable for most users except as a trial version.

That being said, the paid version of Evernote still does what it does well, especially if you’re one of those users who has stuck with it for a while. The basic look and feel of the web app hasn’t changed much, although the homepage now shows recent notes, a scratch pad, and recently captured websites. (The homepage can be personalized with other widgets if you have a paid account.) There are several ways to organize your notes: they can be tagged and / or assigned to folders, and folders can be grouped into named “stacks.” You can create to-do notes. You can search within all your notes, clip webpages in a variety of ways, and sync up to two devices. You can upload up to 60MB of data a month with a maximum note size of 25MB. And Evernote has been adding AI features such as AI Note Cleanup , currently in beta, which uses AI to “tidy up” your notes.

In other words, Evernote has become a fairly complex product, although, as mentioned before, you’ll want to look at the paid versions to use it properly. The Personal plan lets you sync an unlimited number of devices, upload up to 10GB of data a month with a maximum note size of 200MB, connect a Gmail account, and more; the Professional plan adds additional app integration and a variety of other features. 

Cost: Limited free version available. Personal plan costs $14.99 a month or $129.99 a year. Professional plan costs $17.99 a month or $169.99 a year.

The Venn diagram of Evernote users and OneNote users seldom overlaps. This despite all they have in common: both have wide ranges of useful features, and each seems to add new functionality every couple of months or so. But the feel of each is different.

In OneNote, each entry is a page, and each page can contain a variety of different media, including text, audio, images, video, tables, and drawings, among others. Pages are organized into sections and sections into notebooks. 

There are a lot of ways you can tweak your data, how it is organized, and how it looks. You can create to-do lists and reminders, mark text as important, and change the look of the text. You can highlight and make a variety of drawings in a variety of colors. If you use other Microsoft apps such as Outlook, you can sync your OneNote entries with them — for example, to keep track of Outlook meetings. You can change the page color and style or switch from dark to light.  

In fact, like Evernote, OneNote has had so many different abilities added that it can become a bit overwhelming. For example, when I wanted to find out whether I could extract text from a photo, I went to OneNote’s “Tell me” icon, which, if it can’t find an immediate answer to your question, offers a smart lookup link. When “extract text” didn’t come up with anything, I clicked it and was offered (via a side column) a Wikipedia definition of a text file and links to several third-party apps. (A simple “we don’t do that” would have been nice.)

One thing about OneNote that gives it an advantage over Evernote: it is still completely free. So if you’re looking for alternatives, it’s worth giving OneNote a try.

Laurent Cozic

Joplin is an open-source app that, on first glance, looks like a somewhat simpler version of Evernote. It has the list of folders (also known as notebooks) on the far left, a column listing the contents of the folder to the right of that, and then a space to show the contents of the highlighted entry. 

A major difference, though, is that Joplin produces straightforward Markdown files (as opposed to Evernote’s proprietary .enex format), and there is actually a toggle that lets you see each file in markdown or, if you prefer, rich text. Which is handy, especially if you like to look at code; my only problem is that links are not live in the rich text format — although there is probably a way to tweak that.

And that is a second interesting thing about Joplin: if you want to be able to personalize your app, you can. There are a variety of plugins, and you can even create your own scripts and plugins using the Extension API. If, on the other hand, you’re not comfortable with coding and APIs, Joplin’s existing extensions should provide you with plenty to work with. You just may need to consult its lively user forum.

In order to synchronize Joplin among your devices, you need to set it up with one of several existing cloud services (such as Dropbox or OneDrive). You can also use Joplin Cloud , which is available in Joplin’s paid plans: Basic, which includes 2GB storage space and 10MB per note or attachment, and Pro, which offers 30GB storage space, 200MB per note or attachment, and other features. 

Cost: Free version available. Joplin Basic costs €2.99 ($3.27) a month or €28.69 ($31.36) a year; Joplin Pro costs €6.69 ($7.32) a month or €80.28 ($87.89) a year.

UpNote is a good-looking, relatively simple to master app that looks to be an attractive alternative to Evernote. It has approximately the same look, with notebooks listed on the left, the notes in a highlighted notebook listed next to it, and then a main window showing the contents of each note. It offers the ability to create checklists, insert images and tables, nest notebooks, and (if you have the Premium version) lock specific notebooks. And it imports a variety of formats — including Evernote.

There are apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, and there is a web clipper (a feature that is one of my “musts”) that works with the major browsers, although the clipper’s abilities are not as extensive as Evernote’s.

In fact, if you do plan to use UpNote extensively, you will have to move off the free plan, which only allows up to 50 notes. After that, the Premium plan — which is, admittedly, a lot cheaper than Evernote’s — would be the way to go, offering unlimited notes, the ability to add attachments (up to 20MB) and tables, more ways to design the interface, and the ability to export to a number of formats.

Cost: Free version available, limited to 50 notes. Pro version costs 99 cents a month or $29.99 for a lifetime subscription.

Notion Labs

If there’s one way to describe Notion, it would be ambitious. You can start with several different types of formats — a table, a board, a timeline, a calendar, a list, a created template, or just an empty page. If you’re an individual, you can create an unlimited number of pages, share your data with a number of apps, including Slack and GitHub, and share your content with up to 10 “guests” for free. In fact, for most people, free will be quite sufficient. There are some limitations — for example, file uploads are limited to 5MB — but not enough to really count. A Plus version adds unlimited uploads and some additional group features.

Like Evernote and other higher-end apps, Notion organizes its notes into folders — except in this case, each note can act as a folder and can contain other notes, which can contain other notes. Notion also seems to be constantly adding new features, such as AI writing capabilities and new types of sharing options.

In fact, its lack of limitations may be a problem for some users. If you like to really get into the workings of a complex app and screw around with it until it does everything you want it to do — and then some — then you may want to check out Notion and play a bit with its features. (For example, I currently use Notion to track my various workflows and upcoming tasks.) However, if all you want to do is write down your thoughts with maybe a few extra options, you might want to go with something a bit simpler.

Cost: Free version available. Plus version costs $10 a month or $96 a year.

Some apps are popular, some are very popular — and some actually have what amounts to fan clubs . Obsidian is one of the latter.

This app is the kind of thing that, if you’re into it, will have you exploring its various ins, outs, and add-ons for days and weeks on end. Obsidian uses the Markdown format for its notes (which means they can be used on a variety of other apps). Your notes and other media are kept locally in a Vault (in other words, a main folder). There are ways to sync between devices for free — depending on which devices you want to sync . Or you can use one of Obsidian’s paid plans : Standard, which lets you use Obsidian’s service to sync the data in one vault and store up to 1GB of data, and Plus, which lets you sync up to 10 vaults and store up to 10GB of data. There is a charge as well if you want to publish your notes to the web.

As you can imagine, something this flexible is hard to describe.

Even at the beginning, there are several interesting formats that you don’t get in most other note-taking software. When you first open it after installation, you get several choices on the left side of the page: a graph view, a canvas view (which lets you create a flow chart, pinboard, or other arrangement), and one of my current favorites, a daily note (which is simply a dated note but is a nice idea if you want to keep a journal). You can also create templates. And none of this takes into account the various plug-ins that have been created by its community — there were 1,233 when I last checked.

Of course, this means that if you want to really take advantage of Obsidian, you have to invest some time and effort. But for those into tweaking their apps to suit them completely, it will probably be worth it.

Cost: Free. Obsidian Standard costs $48 a year, while Obsidian Plus and Obsidian Publish cost $96 a piece.

Other apps to try

There are a lot of note-taking apps out there, and while not all made our “best of” list, there are others that might suit your needs, so I thought I’d mention them here.

• Notes is Apple’s version of Google Keep (or Keep is Google’s version of Apple Notes). It’s a free, built-in, simple way to take notes, save photos, scan documents, and make sketches, provided you are using an Apple device.
• Simplenote is a text-only app that offers straightforward note-taking for anyone who just wants to, well, take notes.
• Workflowy is an online app that uses an outline format and is actually more flexible than it looks at first.
• Anytype , which is still in beta, is an interesting and complex app that, like Obsidian, can be fun for those who really like to investigate how to personalize their applications.
• Zoho Notebook is a free app that organizes your notes by dividing them into separate notebooks; each notebook can also contain audio files, photos, or other attachments.

Correction, November 16th, 2023, 4:25PM ET:  I originally stated that Obsidian is open-source software. It is not. I regret the error.

Update March 20th, 2024, 2:30PM ET: This article was originally published on November 16th, 2023, and has been updated since to add UpNote, summarize several apps at the bottom of the article, and update the pricing, including Obsidian’s new plans.

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Best note-taking app of 2024

Notes on the go

Best overall

Best dedicated, best for ios, best simple, best interface, best for collaboration, best for microsoft 365, best for features, best comprehensive, how we test.

The best note-taking apps make it simple and easy to take and manage notes wherever you are, in the office, the home, or on the go.

1. Best overall 2. Best dedicated 3. Best for iOS 4. Best simple 5. Best interface 6. Best for collaboration 7. Best basic 8. Best for Microsoft 365 9. Best for features 10. Best paid 11. Best comprehensive 12. FAQs 13. How we test

Note-taking apps have become increasingly popular, not least with the wide availability of mobile devices, especially business smartphones . This means mobile apps for taking notes now allow you to write wherever you are, whether in the office or on the go, and there are a large range of apps available.

However, while there are basic software apps for taking notes, sometimes bundled as free software with mobile devices, these can be quite limited and offer little more than text notes. These days much more feature-packed note-taking apps are now available, allowing you to not just take notes with text, but also use multimedia.

These more advanced apps can work in multiple forms, from trying to replicate the word processing experience, to imitating blank notepads in digital form and so allow for handwriting and sketching.

Additionally, some note apps also include the ability to add images, audio, even video, to your notes, and even share these directly with colleagues and working teams.

Below we've listed what we think are the best note-taking apps currently available.

We've also listed the best note-taking apps for Android and the best iPad Pro note-taking apps .

The best note-taking app of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Miro is one of those online tools that aims to bridge the gap between traditional office working and the modern hybrid routine that many of us are familiar with. It is best described as a multipurpose online collaboration tool, and its list of features is pretty extensive stretching beyond the typical realms of similar software.

The majority of the work you’ll end up doing in Miro will revolve around what it calls boards, which start off as entirely blank spaces. Setting one up from scratch can be daunting and time-consuming, which is why the company has designed templates that you can pick from the get-go.

Some of its most commonly accessed templates include mind maps, Kanban boards, flowcharts, product roadmaps, and timelines. Many of these will serve well as project management tools, and anybody familiar with other project management software like Airtable or Trello will already be familiar with how they work.

Overall, we think Miro is hard to beat. Its long list of features should cover all parts of a typical business process from research and design to presentation, and its collaboration abilities are second to none. Furthermore, its transparency around security and reasonable pricing make it hard for us not to recommend it. The only thing we could wish for is better support channels.

Read our full Miro review .

• ^ Back to the top

2. Evernote

No list of best note-taking apps is complete without Evernote, which is one of the oldest and most fully-featured. Evernote lets you create both simple and complex workflows using a combination of notebooks, notes and tags to keep everything organized.

One of its best features for gathering research is the Web Clipper extension (supported in Chrome, Firefox and Safari ), which lets you save entire webpages - including text, images and PDFs - with a single click. Notes can be accessed on laptops, mobile devices and the web, so you're rarely left with a situation where you can't retrieve what you've saved. Other features include the ability to set reminders, present notes PowerPoint-style, and merge them together.

Recent additions include new tables and a Siri integration for those using the iOS edition. 

While there's a free plan with some limited features, there are also two paid plans, the Evernote Premium plan for individual users, and the Evernote Business plan for business. 

The Evernote Premium plan allows for integrations with Slack, Outlook, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce , as well as provides an AI for content suggestions such as similar content in other notes you've made, as well as content info from media sites. 

The Evernote Business plan includes the above but also comes with collaborative options and team administrative features.

Read our full Evernote review .

Ulysses has been around for a while now, and it's one of the most polished note-taking apps on Apple 's computing platform. (One that's perfectly equipped for long-form writing, too.) Notes are written and stored in the app's proprietary Markdown style, which allows for inventive (and colorful) use of headings. 

Added to that, images can be embedded in the form of links within documents; rather than displaying them in the body text, you can double click the links to preview image thumbnails. Ulysses also positions images in a sidebar that can also display a word count, mini notes and other information at a glance.

Ulysses uses iCloud to save and sync your documents, and these can be exported to a number of other formats, including PDF. Word .doc, ebooks, and HTML. All these extra features come a price tag, with monthly or annual subscriptions available.

Read our full Ulysses review .

4. Simplenote

Simplenote’s selling point is its clear, simple user interface, making it easy to keep track of notes. It is available for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux, with data synced automatically. There is also a web app if a client can’t be downloaded.

Tagging and search tools ensure users can find what they are looking for and notes can be shared or published to others working in the same team or on a project. Simplenote backs up previous versions of documents so it’s always possible to revert to an earlier one.

Simplenote does not have many advanced features, but is an ideal candidate for simple note taking. It offers decent syncing and collaboration, but best of all, it’s free. If you want extreme simplicity and a bare-bones app, then this will be apt for you. 

Read our full Simplenote review .

A relative newcomer to the note-taking app scene, Bear lies somewhere in-between Evernote and Ulysses, allowing you to create notes and sync them across various Apple devices using iCloud.

Using a Slack-like three-pane interface, you can arrange notes by applying hashtags, which allows a subfolder style system. Bear uses rich Markdown for editing, so you can insert links into documents without having to display the full URLs in a similar manner to Ulysses. However, Bear, which is pretty easy on the eye, and one of the few polished Markdown apps that allow you to insert images directly into notes, which could make it a far more valuable app overall if images are a big part of your workflow.

Latest features include Tag autocomplete, light and dark themes, annotation of PDFs, encryption and app lock.

Most of Bear’s features are free to use on any iOS device, but there is a paid-for pro-version with additional themes, export options, which are available with a small monthly or annual subscription.

Read our full Bear review .

6. Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper launched in August 2016  and works across the cloud platform’s mobile suite for Windows, iOS, and Android. What separates Paper apart is its focus on collaboration, allowing teams to share their ideas, images, and videos for projects.

The app offers integrations with productivity apps such as Google Calendar and Slack as well as some more surprising tools like Spotify.

Recent additions include new organization tools such as the ability to create mobile folders on the go as well as improved delete and archive features. Dropbox also redesigned the Paper homepage which brings users Paper docs and Dropbox files together.

Its enterprise features make it an ideal note taking app for businesses, but it goes without saying that you will get the most out of it only if you are already a Dropbox customer.

Read our full Dropbox Paper review .

7. Google Keep

Google Keep is the simplest note-taking app on our list, both visually and how it operates. Think of Keep as your place for storing digital post-it notes, with each note dotted around the interface as if they were laid on a table in front of you.

Notes can be given labels, pinned to the top, given a color, paired with reminders and collaborated on in real time. Additionally it also offers speech-to-text functionality so you can dictate notes on the go rather than have to write. There's also the ability to set up check boxes for lists to work through.

Overall, though, Google Keep is more minimal than other writing apps, which either works for or against it depending on your viewpoint. If you want to break away from your operating system 's notes app, but don't want all of the features that come with other apps on our list, Google Keep is an, ahem, keeper.

Read our full Google Keep review .

OneNote is an app that can help you keep and organize your notes with ease. It has a user-friendly interface and there’s a free version anyone can use.

There’s a free version of the OneNote app that anyone can use. But, this version provides only 5GB of storage and lacks specific features, such as stickers and the math assistant. There's also a free version for verified educational users that provides 1TB of storage.

You need a paid Microsoft 365 account to access additional storage and unlock all the features of the OneNote app.

You can access OneNote through the web-based interface or download the app on your device. You should pick the latter option if you want to make the best of the note-taking tool, as the web-based version lacks some features available on the native app. 

OneNote is an excellent note-taking app. It has ample features that let you keep notes, organize them, and access them from any device. We liked its support for real-time collaboration and the extensive third-party integration.

The app has its drawbacks, such as limited text formatting and the small amount of storage (5GB) assigned to free users. 

Read our full OneNote review .

Joplin app is free to use. But, you’ll have to pay for the Joplin Cloud service to enable note syncing and sharing, customer support, and to access the app through a web-based interface. You can choose one out of three plans; Basic, Pro, and Teams. 

You can take advantage of the 14-day free trial period to test the Joplin Cloud service before making your final decision. We advise every user to do this because the platform doesn’t offer refunds to customers.  

The core feature of Joplin is the digital notebook, which is akin to a hard copy notebook, but with virtual unlimited features. You can create a new notebook at any time and type content into it.

If you want a free, user-friendly app to help you keep notes effectively, then go for Joplin. The comprehensive feature set it offers for free is valuable, and the additional paid features make it more worthwhile.

The main drawback we observed with the app is its limited customer support. 

Read our full Joplin review .

Quip is an excellent note-taking tool in addition to having many other uses. The app has a collaborative bent, making it best to use within corporate settings.

The Quip app has one of the best interfaces we’ve encountered in a note-taking tool. The interface is minimal and uncluttered, making the app enjoyable. We also liked the step-by-step tutorials the app provided to help guide us through it.  

Unlike most note-taking apps, Quip is a strictly paid tool. There’s no free version, and the paid plans are pretty costly. If your company already has a  Salesforce CRM (opens in new tab) subscription, you can create a free Quip account for personal use, but sharing files within your company has limits unless they pay for a separate workplace subscription.  

We enjoyed using Quip all around. The app has a tidy interface that makes it easy to navigate. We also liked its comprehensive feature set, as it lets you format the content of your notes extensively and share them with other users alongside having an intuitive tool for creating spreadsheets. 

The main drawback with the Quip app is its relatively high price. 

Read our full Quip review .

11. Obsidian

Obsidian offers sophisticated features for a note-taking app. It also has a stellar user interface that makes using it enjoyable.

The app makes it easy to create notes and access them at any time. It has some noteworthy features that make it aesthetically pleasing. For example, you can use Graph View, which resembles an interactive map.

The only concern we have in this criterion is that there’s no web-based version of the app. Many rival note-taking apps offer web-based interfaces that make them easier to access, but not Obsidian. 

The Obsidian app makes note-taking delightful, including for free users. It has a comprehensive feature set that you’ll likely enjoy and a pretty tidy interface that’s easy to navigate. However, we observed a few drawbacks, including limited (email-only) customer support and having no web version.  

Read our full Obsidian review .

We've also listed the best free alternatives to Evernote .

What is a note-taking app?

A note-taking app is a lightweight tool that allows you to digitally record information on your device instead of writing it on paper. The best note-taking apps make it simple and easy to organize essential information and store it for quick access. 

How to choose the best note-taking apps for you?

When deciding which of the note-taking apps to use, consider how demanding your needs are. Do you only need to make simple notes, or do you need to be able to add different types of media, including video? Do you also need a wide range of features or to connect your notes with other apps? Free and simple apps will deliver a simple experience, but for more complex feature needs you should probably look to an app with a paid for subscription.

There are now a plethora of note-taking tools available to users - whether they need to keep track of important work tasks or simply need to jot down their shopping list. With smartphones now ubiquitous, individuals expect to have access to a note-taking app that is suitable for their needs. 

With that in mind, we’ve assessed several apps for ease of use, features, aesthetics, team collaboration, cloud functionality, and a number of other factors. We also looked at how simple the app setup was, the interface simplicity, cross-platform support, and overall performance. 

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .  

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Brian has over 30 years publishing experience as a writer and editor across a range of computing, technology, and marketing titles. He has been interviewed multiple times for the BBC and been a speaker at international conferences. His specialty on techradar is Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, covering everything from office suites to IT service tools. He is also a science fiction and fantasy author, published as Brian G Turner.

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14 Best Note-Taking Apps for Students for 2024

19th Aug, 2024

Take better notes in class or bring ideas together in one base. These note-taking applications are perfect for students that need an all-round notes day-to-day.

A studio for your mind | A place to make sense of the world and create amazing things.

It's free. No credit card required.

Looking to be more productive in class with note-taking?

Students collect class notes, PDFs, presentations, ideas, research titles, and millions of links across a typical study day. That's enough to make your head explode if you're not using some app or system to bring that all into one location.

Many students have apps like Apple Notes, Google Keep , or maybe even notebooks, which are good but might not be able to provide the large-scale function our curated list of best student-focused note-taking apps can help with.

Leveling up your notes app in university or college is probably one of the best investments you can make during your studies. Let's explore the best apps for it!

What makes a good student note-taking app?

The best student note-taking apps are low-cost & tailored for study .

When we picked these tools, we ensured these attributes were reflected in the recommended note-taking apps. But why? Low-cost apps keep the bills down for students eager to invest in their future and on a student budget.

Tailored for study is essential, as many of the tools selected are chosen for their student-focused features, allowing you to study, manage flashcards, and maximize your time at college .

How we evaluate and test apps

Our team carefully vet all the apps and tools featured on this website, providing valuable insights into the best resources for your needs.

As you might expect, our site contains countless applications, but our team’s role is to find, categorize, and present the critical information you need to choose the right one for you and your team. Helping you match with the best resource is essential to us, and that’s why it’s a core principle of everything we do at Tool Finder .

For more information about our affiliate & how we make money, explore here .

Recommendation

RemNote is an advanced note-taking app popular with students for creating flashcards.

What is RemNote?

RemNote is a note-taking application popular with students who want to revise and study for exams. Its features include flashcards, PDF annotation, and bidirectional linking, which are standard in PKM apps .

RemNote is popular with students for their note-taking abilities and ability to create flashcards for deeper learning, but is it your next note-taking application? Let's see.

Why is RemNote a good note app for students?

RemNote is one of the best student note apps because it is, at the core, designed for students with flashcards, unlimited notes, and an app on all devices. Inside RemNote, you can instantly create a note and turn it into a flashcard.

RemNote also packs powerful PDF annotation (Pro feature) and connection to notes, meaning you can connect to any presentation or PDF your lecturer sends. This makes for an easy experience, but you can also annotate it to add more value. You get 3 PDF note annotations as part of your free plan on RemNote.

RemNote is best for more intense student note-takers and is excellent for structured note management. A little education is required, but this is the best of our list for all-around student note-taking management .

RemNote Pros

• Unlimited flashcards
• Easy-to-use features
• Can extend to PKM use for post-college
• Analytics for flashcards insights
• Way to add daily notes for journaling

RemNote Cons

• It can be expensive for a premium
• Many people might find it overwhelming

Tips for Being Productive in College

Here are some healthy and productive tips for college & university study:

• Establish goals in your personal, academic, and professional life
• Identify your most productive times for studying
• Maintain a healthy balance between work, study, and personal life
• Use calendar apps to block out specific study times
• Create a visual schedule that balances study time with daily activities

A beautifully-designed note-taking tool that was originally developed for students.

What is Supernotes App?

Supernotes is a note-taking app that allows you to easily create, share, and manage notes with your team. It is popular with students and the PKM note-taking community and has recently been featured in free AI note-taking apps .

Supernotes wants to be your base for notes by providing a new approach to note-taking with notecards, no more folders, and a better way to collaborate on notes on the go.

Why is the Supernote app a good student notes app?

Supernotes provide us with a firm base for your notes. It has grown on many people using things beyond student note-taking thanks to the clean, minimal nature of the app and the focus on notecards instead of constant folder organization. This makes it easier to connect notes using backlinks and to share notes with other students.

Collaborative notes are one of the gem features of Supernotes. Students can take notes and share them with other students using Supernotes, too. This makes life so much easier when missing a lecture (intentionally or not) and sharing those notes after it happens.

Supernotes are a great note-taking tool for students as they provide a collaborative environment in which to work on their notes. Productivity tools like this are super necessary for students to embrace. They are easy to use and allow easy sharing and note access. They also allow for easy editing of notes, making it easy for students to keep their notes organized and up to date.

Supernotes Pros

• Security-focused
• Offline and fast loading notes
• Comes with all apps (including Linux)
• Independently developed tool
• Premium pricing isn't crazy

Supernotes Cons

• The free plan limits you to 100 notes.

Evernote is a note-taking application with tasks, calendar and AI features inside.

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a note-taking application that was first built in 2000. It is available on iOS, Android, macOS, web, and Windows. Professionals and individuals use it to take notes, add tasks & manage calendar notes in one. It is famous for note-taking and comes in a traditional format for collecting and organizing notes.

Bending Spoons acquired Evernote, and they are the developers & owners.

Why is Evernote still one of the best note apps for students?

Powerful search, powerful PDF management , and powerful extended abilities with tasks and calendar management. This is more of a notes app for students, but beyond that, think of Evernote as a notes app for life, allowing you to store work project notes, meeting notes, and lightweight tasks, too.

Evernote used to be the hottest app for student note-taking purely because of the ability to add attachments to notes. However, one feature that still appears to student note-takers is the ability to capture notes into notebooks with the Evernote Web Clipper. It remains a brilliant notes app clipper for capturing links or snippets from pieces you're researching, searching for links and references three times as easily.

Advice : Evernote is much more extensive if you go over the limitations. The more powerful features like tasks, search, offline, and large uploads are locked under premium. So, while the free plan is good, it will only take you so far (yes, that is a line from Oppenheimer).

Video Tutorial: Evernote Review

Here's everything you need to know about Evernote

Evernote Pros

• Easy to use
• Bring all your tasks, notes & calendar in one
• Comes on iOS, Android & all desktop
• Comes with popular Web Clipper on browser
• Bending Spoons has been actively developing

Evernote Cons

• Much pricier than before

Microsoft OneNote

Note-taking and organising app perfect for students, academics and general notes.

Quick Facts

• Pricing : Free
• Features : Sketching notes, tabs for organization
• Popular with : Education and academic settings

What is Microsoft Onenote?

Microsoft OneNote is a digital note-taking app that allows users to create and organize notes flexibly and intuitively. This is part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Why is OneNote one of the best free note apps for students?

If budget is your concern, look no further than Microsoft OneNote . It offers the best free notes app for students, hands down. The notes experience allows you to take notes in a tab format, giving your notes app almost a ring-binder feel. It also has a solid iPad and Microsoft Surface apps, meaning you can make notes and sketches all in one.

We always recommend Microsoft OneNote when managing your notes with a Microsoft account. Suppose your school, university, or college offers a Microsoft for Education plan tied into your email. In that case, you are highly likely to have OneNote with free access and storage, so we recommend taking advantage of that.

Advice : Microsoft OneNote is practical and offers an excellent free experience. It isn't for everyone. Some people don't like their notes being in the Microsoft ecosystem, but for many, it'll hit the nail on the head for an upgraded, more focused Microsoft Word-like notes application that meets the bill.

Goodnotes is a iPad focused note-taking application with AI and handwriting tools.

What is GoodNotes?

GoodNotes is a digital note-taking app that allows you to handwrite or type notes on a virtual paper using the Apple Pencil on iPads or other iOS devices. It offers an intuitive and distraction-free environment for taking organized notes for work, study, or personal use. GoodNotes uses styluses to help make you more productive on the go.

GoodNotes wants to manage your notes visually with handwriting notes. It is popular amongst Apple users with Apple Pencils and iPads, but it now comes on web, Android, and Windows devices, too.

Why is Goodnotes one of the best note apps for students?

Goodnotes has had a big facelift in the last year and is much more focused on AI note-taking, meaning better handwriting support, typed notes, and beyond. Goodnotes works wonders for taking sketch notes and recording lectures or audio files to revisit essential notes you've made.

Goodnotes offers good levels of customization for notebooks, including stickers, templates, and even a big store (locked under premium). This level of customization appeals to many students wanting a BuJo-style notes app with sketch abilities.

Advice : If you don't have an iPad, there's no point in looking at Goodnotes, but if you do, this will be one of the best investments at the low cost of $9.99 for a year.

Goodnotes Pros

• Ideal for those who use iPads
• Works well with styluses to make sketch notes
• The reasonable $9.99 per year pricing
• Popular for students

Goodnotes Cons

• It might not be for everyone

Bear Notes is a minimal, markdown note-taking application perfect for iOS and Mac.

• Pricing : Free, $2.99 per month or $29.99 yearly
• Features: Hashtags, editor abilities & offline modes

What is Bear Notes?

Bear Notes is a note-taking application that uses markdown. It is available on iOS and macOS and is built natively for easy use. Users store ideas, capture quick notes, and organize them using Bear's unique hashtag folders.

Students commonly use Bear to organize their notes, and those who like simple, minimal note-taking apps use markdown . Apple has praised Bear Notes for their build quality.

Why is Bear Notes a good student note-taking app?

Bear Notes is a solid iOS and macOS app for handling notes. Many people like Bear for its markdown abilities, and for students looking for something more than Apple Notes, Bear Notes is an excellent option.

Bear Notes allows you to organize your notes by focusing on hashtags and note regular notebooks, meaning you can create nested hashtags perfect for multiple spanning notes. This means that a note with a revision for an exam that spans numerous classes could be connected to various places. You can use the sketch abilities on the iOS app to better handle ideas and thoughts you're bringing together.

Bear Notes has one of the best note-taking experiences for macOS users . It is lightweight and provides one of the better Mac experiences, and it was the winner of the Apple Design Award in 2017 for just this.

Video Tutorial: Bear Notes Explained?

Bear Notes Pros

• Comes with a markdown editor
• Easy to use for all types of note-takers
• Well-developer and respected developer

Bear Notes Cons

• It might be too basic for some
• Limited to iOS and macOS devices

More Student Note Apps

These are some more recommended tools thsat could work well in university and college for planning notes and building a research library.

Anytype is a privacy-focused, open-source, note-taking application for notes & PKM.

Notion is an all-in-one workspaces for notes, projects, tasks, documents & calendar.

Lunatask is an encrypted to-do list app for habits, notes & journal entries.

Capacities is a note-taking application with no folders and a focus on objects.

Craft is a personal and team documents application that creates beautiful docs.

Simplenote is an efficient light note-taking application and a Bear alternative.

Obsidian is a locally stored note-taking application with millions of PKM fans.

Advice from Francesco D'Alessio (ex-student)

Why should students take notes.

As a former university student, one of the critical lessons I learned was that I cannot store everything in my brain. This was paramount from concepts in books I'd read, like Getting Things Done by David Allen and Tiago Forte's newly formed concept, Second Brain .

"Your brain should be a thinking tool, not a storage tool" is a quote from David Allen's book, and this quote has always stuck with me as an effective way to think about how your brain uses knowledge and information.

So, students think of it this way: the more you store in a notes app, the better—the more your brain can be freed up for thinking through a problem or concept, and the more insightful results you'll have in the long term. This changed how I felt about notes and can activate authentic learning for many people trapped in "your brain needs to store all this."

Personalized Picks

What is the best note-taking app for my student life.

We've narrowed down these tools to specific student situations that we'd recommend against; they range from being a PhD student to looking for a cheap note app.

What is the best student note-taking for iPad?

Goodnotes is the best tool for iPad users at college and university. It maximizes the use of the Apple Pencil, which can be used to make notes, sketches, and more on the iPad.

What is the best note-taking for PhD students?

We recommend RemNote as the best note-taking app for students taking courses longer than three years or pursuing a PhD. Its combination of power features for study, revision, and interconnected notes best suits the needs of researchers and students.

What is the best free student note-taking app?

Want to save a buck? Well, in this case, Microsoft OneNote might be your best option. It works wonders for managing your digital filing cabinet, and with Sketch, you can make notes more interactive if you have an iPad or tablet device.

What is the best Mac notes app for students?

The build quality of Bear Notes presents a great experience for students looking for a better way to take notes on their new Macbooks as they start university. The low fee of $29.99 makes it a light yet approachable way to take notes that can be shared and exported to other people for use later on.

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Our 10 Favorite Note Taking Apps of 2024

Stay organized and productive across your devices with these pen-and-paper alternatives

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Note-taking apps are more useful than you might think. Taking notes with pen and paper works just fine for some, but if you have a smartphone or tablet, using an app designed for note-taking can truly change the way you get things done.

Whether your note-taking style demands minimal design and slick gesture-based functions, or advanced organization and cataloging of various media, chances are there's a notes app that's right for you.

Here are 10 of the best to consider, whether you're using a Windows or Mac computer, an Android device, iOS, Chrome OS, or another operating system.

If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

Organize All Your Notes Into Categorized Notebooks: Evernote

Available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

Use on the web; browser extensions available.

Excellent search function for notes.

Free basic plan is limited in features.

Monthly cost for premium plan is pricey.

Practically anyone who has ever looked into note-taking apps has come across Evernote—which tops the list. This powerful tool lets you organize notes into notebooks, which can be synced across as many as two devices. All free accounts also get 60MB of space for uploading files to the cloud .

A few compelling features of Evernote include the ability to clip web pages and images, search for text inside images, and share and work on notes with other users. Plus and Premium subscriptions get you more storage, the opportunity to use more than two devices, and access to more advanced features.

Compatibility:

Creative Note-Taking for the Apple Fan: Notability

Good text-formatting options.

Text wrapping with images.

Works well with Apple Pencil.

Only for iOS/iPadOS devices.

Free version has limited features.

If you like to write by hand, draw, sketch, or doodle, Notability is a must-have. Its suite of advanced note-taking tools lets you combine your handwritten or drawn work with typed text, photos, and videos, and zoom in when you need a closer look.

Notability also lets you do some amazing things with PDF files ; you can annotate them, fill them out, sign them, and send them off. The free version of Notability gets you the basics, but the paid versions give you considerably more, including unlimited edits, iCloud syncing, automatic audio transcriptions.

Use Cards to Make Note-Taking Fun and Colorful: Google Keep

Organize with customizable labels.

Set time and location-based reminders.

Free and well-integrated with Google ecosystem.

No desktop app; notes are available on the web.

Maximum of 50 labels; no hierarchical organization.

Web clipper saves URLs only.

No text formatting.

With a more visual approach, Google Keep's card-based notes are perfect for people who want to see all their ideas, lists, images and audio clips in one place. You can color-code your notes, add other attributes so that they're easy to find, and share your notes with others who need to access and edit them.

Like Evernote and Simplenote, changes made by you or other users with whom you share your notes are automatically synced across all platforms. However, there's no formatting flexibility, and you're limited to 50 labels.

You can set up time- and location-based reminders so that you remember to do something at a specific place or time. When typing is inconvenient, the app's voice memo feature lets you record a message for a quick note in audio format.

• Google Chrome web browser

Build on the Power of Microsoft Apps: OneNote

Works with Chrome, Apple Watch, and browsers.

Syncs well across all your devices.

Lots of options for note formatting and design.

No quick customizable tagging.

Notebook, section, and pages navigation could improve.

Search isn't as slick as Evernote or Google Keep.

Microsoft's OneNote is an app to consider if you regularly use Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; the app is fully integrated with them. Type, write, and draw using the freeform pen, and use powerful organization tools like pinning to easily find what you're looking for later.

There's room for improvement with navigation and search, and tagging's limited, but you can use OneNote to collaborate with others and access the latest versions of your notes from any device. Capture an image of a whiteboard or slideshow with automatic cropping , and make an audio note without having to use an external recording app.

• Apple Watch
• Windows Phone
• Google Chrome Web Browser

Note-Taking for the Minimalist: Simplenote

Design is minimalist and simple.

Syncs to all your devices.

Works with most popular platforms and devices.

May be too simple for some users.

Text notes only; no images or other media.

Evernote is great if you need extra storage and fancy features, but if you're looking for a stripped-down notes app with a clean, minimal interface, Simplenote could be for you. Built for speed and efficiency, it lets you create as many notes as you like and keep them all straight with basic organizational features such as tags and search. 

You can use Simplenote to collaborate with others, and all notes are automatically synced across your account whenever changes are made. A nifty slider feature allows you to go back in time to previous versions of your notes, which are always automatically saved before you make any changes to them.

A Stunningly Visual Note-Taking Experience: Zoho Notebook

Design is bright and appealing.

Text photo, audio, sketch, and file cards.

For Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and web.

Customize notebook covers with your images.

Needs more art for notebook covers.

Not geared toward collaborative note-taking.

If you like the idea of Google Keep's card-like interface, then you might find the Zoho Notebook app useful, too. Create a checklist card for your grocery items, a card for a story you're working on with inline images included, a sketch card for some doodling, or even an audio card of your voice. 

Zoho features smooth, intuitive, gesture-based functions that help you organize, reorder, copy, group, and flick through notes to find what you're looking for. Notebook is free and syncs everything across your account automatically, so you always have your notes no matter which device you're using.

A Collaborative Note-Taking App for Your Whole Team: Dropbox Paper

Strong features for collaboration.

Clean and uncluttered look.

Add a variety of media; not just links.

More complex than a simple note-taking app.

Paper documents are separate from Dropbox folders.

Takes time to get used to.

If you already use Dropbox to store files in the cloud, check out Dropbox Paper. It acts as a flexible workspace built to prevent distraction while helping people work together. This app focuses on collaboration, allowing users to chat with each other in real-time while editing any document.

Don't be fooled by its minimal design: Dropbox Paper has lots of advanced features tucked away that are easy to access and intuitive to use once you're familiar with the app. Create new documents, edit existing ones, see all your team activity in an organized list, post and reply to comments, prioritize documents, and more.

Best App for Taking Digital Handwritten Notes: Squid

Designed for handwritten notes; use your finger or a stylus.

PDF markup is easy.

Not available for macOS, iOS, or Windows devices.

Not easy to sync with other devices.

Squid modernizes the old-fashioned pen and paper with digital features that enhance the note-taking experience. Just use your finger or stylus to handwrite notes just as you would on paper. Similar to Google Keep and Notebook, Squid displays all your most recent notes in a card-like interface for easy access.

Every note has a toolbar at the top that allows you to customize your ink, duplicate what you've written, resize it, erase mistakes, zoom in or out, and more. You can insert PDF files for markup, highlight text, and insert new pages wherever you want.

Most Flexible Note-Taking App: Bear

Import notes from other apps.

Simple, easy-to-use design.

Export to various formats, including PDF and JPEG.

Supports Markdown.

Available only for Mac and iOS devices.

Requires a paid plan to sync devices.

Bear is one of the most flexible, beautifully designed note-taking apps available for Apple devices. Made for both quick notes and in-depth essays with advanced markup and options to insert images, links, and more, the app offers a "focus mode" to help you concentrate.

You can customize the theme and typography to fit your style, use a wide variety of editing tools to optimize your notes, quickly add to-dos to any note, tag any note with a hashtag, and much more. The core version is free, but a pro subscription takes your note-taking to the next level.

Basic, Minimal, and Possibly All You Need: Notes

Handwrite notes and sketch with Apple Pencil.

Organize notes with folders and tags.

Pin notes to the top of the list.

Scan documents using device camera.

Available only for Apple devices.

Basic note-taking features.

Only simple text formatting.

Apple's Notes app is uncomplicated and intuitive, yet it does the job with just the essential features. In macOS Monterey (12.0) and later, you can use tags and smart folders to organize your entries, and you can mention collaborators with the @ sign to grab their attention.

Create a checklist, insert photos, customize formatting, or even add another Notes user so they can view and add information to it. Although it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of many other note-taking apps, Notes stands out for getting the job done in the simplest, quickest way possible.

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r/MacApps is a one stop shop for all things related to macOS apps - featuring app showcases, news, updates, sales, discounts and even freebies.

Best Note Taking apps this year: Alternatives to Evernote since the new 'update'

Since the new evernote update, many of us have become refugees for our external brain, so I wanted to share a couple of the best options.

I should caveat this with: There is no perfect full-featured alternative as yet, but for most use cases we'll be able to find something that suits.

The big question is what is the most future-proofed, and Evernote has lost my trust.

The most important criteria for something to function properly as an external brain:

- Native mac app

- Switcher/command bar (⌘J)

- Can handle thousands of notes

Best options I've come across so far:

- Apple notes: Close enough. The switcher can be done with an Alfred workflow

- Craft.do - this has SO much potential, I'm just hoping they don't lose steam at this stage.

- Notion: Great feature set but laggy as hell

- Nimbus Notes: Most evernote refugees are heading this way, watch this space.

TLDR: Here are my thoughts:

https://youtu.be/cT94X8f0Qe0

For a full comparison, noteapps.info have gone DEEP with this, which could help you make a decision for different use cases.

I'm excited for what the future holds with note apps, but right now we're kind of left in the lurch when Evernote Legacy gives up.

Have you come across anything that is a worthwhile contender?

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SnipNotes Note-Taking App System 2024 REVIEW

SnipNotes provides a seamless note-taking experience across all your Apple devices. It's easy to use and well-worth the investment for the premium version.

• DESIGN 100 %
• EASE OF USE 100 %
• PRICE 100 %
• User Ratings ( 1 Votes) 100 %

Organize your thoughts effortlessly with SnipNotes, the innovative note-taking app designed for busy people on the go.

In a world where information is constantly bombarding our senses from all directions, the need for efficient note-taking has never been more crucial. Imagine being in a meeting, trying to capture every important point while also juggling multiple thoughts racing through your mind. Or perhaps you’re a student who wants to organize lecture notes, research findings, and personal reflections in one seamless platform.

This is where SnipNotes comes into play. I have been using it for quite a while and find it to be a breath of fresh air in the realm of diverse note-taking apps out there. Not only does it provide a great place for me to create notes and set reminders, but it also serves as an advanced clipboard manager.

SnipNotes is a note-taking app designed for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS-powered devices. The app is known for its user-friendly interface, versatile note-capturing capabilities, and seamless synchronization across the Apple device platforms. Users can capture various types of content, including text, images, and links, and organize their notes using a tagging system. The app also offers features such as reminders, to-do lists, and integration with other applications.

The app was created in 2015 by developer Felix Lisczyk. Lisczyk started SnipNotes because he was a fan of clipboard managers and note-taking apps, but thought the existing solutions were lacking features he wanted to see.

Clipboard managers are built as a cache for transferring data between apps and only have basic capabilities for organizing information. Note-taking apps, on the other hand, are focused on capturing thoughts and ideas and don’t provide ways for quickly getting data in and out of the app (e.g. automatically saving the clipboard or adding notes directly from the widget). The idea behind SnipNotes is to combine these concepts: Create a note-taking app that can also serve as a clipboard manager and provide more flexibility than existing, individual solutions.

SnipNotes is built with Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, and App Kit. The notes are stored locally in a Realm database, and CloudKit is used to sync notes between devices. According to the App Store, SnipNotes does not collect data linked to the user. The only data it collects may be linked to purchases or diagnostics. The developer states that SnipNotes only collects error logs and crash reports with the user’s explicit permission. The full Privacy Policy  can be found here .

Main Features

Create Notes

Quick Access to Notes

Organize Notes

Integrations

Customization

Pricing and Availability

SnipNotes is free to download with premium in-app purchase options available. It is designed for use with Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro.

In-App Purchases (as listed in the App Store)

• Subcategories $3.99
• SnipNotes Plus (iOS + macOS) $9.99
• Small Tip $1.99
• SnipNotes Plus (iOS) $7.99
• Theme Colors and Icons $2.99
• SnipNotes Plus (iOS + macOS) $13.99
• SnipNotes Plus (iOS) $5.99
• Large Tip $7.99
• Medium Tip $3.99
• iCloud Synchronization $4.99

User Experience

Setting up SnipNotes for iOS and macOS is a seamless and user-friendly process. You simply install the app on your respective devices and then follow any instructions the app provides. There is very little required of the user and you edit permissions as you go. It’s an intuitive setup that is effortless and allows the user to be up and running within a few minutes. Since the app syncs between devices using iCloud (presuming you are using the paid version), enabling Cloud Synchronization is all you have to select in order for notes to populate across your devices.

SnipNotes’s interface is designed with simplicity in mind, making it easy for users to navigate and grasp the app’s functionalities. When I started using it I created a note similar to the way I use macOS Notes. The bonus with SnipNotes is that it ties in a clipboard manager as well as manual entry notes. I didn’t have any issue with the app syncing between devices and it’s become a great option for collecting my thoughts as I have them using my Apple Watch and then elaborating on the notes when I sit down at my MacBook Air.

As I navigate my daily routine, SnipNotes has become an indispensable companion, seamlessly integrating into my workflow and enhancing my productivity. Its intuitive interface makes it a breeze to capture ideas, URLs, and even snapshots effortlessly. The reminders feature adds even more to the app’s experience because I don’t have to add a reminder in a separate app. It’s all available within SnipNotes.

Whether I’m researching online articles or attending virtual meetings, SnipNotes ensures that I can capture and synchronize important information on the go. As the day unfolds, the app’s to-do lists and reminders keep me on track, ensuring that deadlines are met and tasks are completed. SnipNotes has truly become my go-to solution, providing a seamless and versatile note-taking experience that adapts to the dynamic demands of my daily life.

SnipNotes is a standout note-taking app that strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and functionality. Its intuitive design, versatile note-capture capabilities, seamless synchronization, and productivity features make it a must-have for users seeking a comprehensive and reliable solution. Whether you’re a student, professional, or anyone in between, SnipNotes is a powerful tool that elevates your note-taking experience. Highly recommended.

For more information, visit  snipnotes.de  and  X (Twitter) .

• X (Twitter)

I am an experienced marketing professional and published novelist. I'm also an avid movie fan and Apple enthusiast. To read my novel, follow this link. Shattered [Kindle Edition]

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iOS 18 Notes App: All the New Features

With iOS 18 , the Notes app is set to gain several new features. There aren't many updates to the overall design, but Notes has deeper integrations with other apps that add all kinds of new functionality. There are also a few nifty iPad-only Notes features that involve the Apple Pencil .

Notes integrates with the Calculator app in ‌iOS 18‌ for a new feature called Math Notes. Math Notes is designed to let you solve equations, so you can do things like add up your monthly budget, calculate what people owe for a group trip, or split a restaurant bill.

If you define several variables, you can then use those definitions in your calculations. If you write dinner = $42, movies = $24, and dessert = $18 in the Notes app, you can then type in dinner + movies + dessert and add an equals sign to get the total. Variables can be used in equations and graphs (with a relevant equation) and adjusted later to change the results.

Apple says that Math Notes is able to solve all of the same functions as a scientific calculator.

Math Notes is available for math written using Western Arabic numerals and common mathematical symbols, or typed using Arabic (Eastern & Western) and Devanagari numerals and common mathematical symbols.

Math Notes in iPadOS 18

On the iPad , you can use Math Notes with the ‌Apple Pencil‌. Just write out equations by hand and add an equals sign to have the Notes app solve them.

Audio Recording and Transcription

The Notes app can be used to record any audio, taking advantage of the microphones in the iPhone . To record audio, tap on the paperclip icon in the toolbar and then tap on the "Record Audio" button.

All recordings that you capture with the Notes app are automatically transcribed in real-time so you can read through what was recorded and even search for key phrases.

Audio recording and transcribing is available on the ‌iPhone‌ 12 and later, but the feature only works in English.

Phone App Recording

‌iOS 18‌ supports recording phone calls , and when you initiate a recording of a phone call, that recording is stored in the Notes app. Phone app recordings have all of the same functionality as audio recordings made in the Notes app, with transcriptions provided.

Transcription Summaries (Apple Intelligence)

Apple Intelligence can be used to summarize a transcript of an audio recording or a recorded phone call in the Notes app.

Collapsible Sections

If you have long notes with multiple headings, you can now collapse those headings down to create a more compact note.

Highlight Colors

The Notes app supports colors for typed text for the first time, allowing for highlighting. Apple added five colors, including pink, purple, orange, mint, and blue, with the colors able to be added through the formatting interface. Just tap on the Aa button to get to the color options when a word or phrase is selected.

Attach Files

The toolbar icon that lets you add images or scanned documents to a note has been updated to do more in ‌iOS 18‌. Tapping on it allows you to attach a file from the Files app, which makes it much easier to add documents to a note. You can also use it to record audio, which is another new feature.

The prior Choose Photo or Video, Scan Documents, Take Photo or Video, and Scan Text options remain. To denote the new functionality, the icon for the tool is now a paperclip instead of a camera.

As an alternative to using the toolbar, you can long press on a note to attach a file, an option that wasn't previously available.

Notes Settings

If you tap on the icon that has three dots at the top right of a note, you can get to the Notes settings, where there are a number of new options.

Prior features for searching through the note, moving the note, adding lines and grids, and changing the attachment view are all still available.

Lock Screen Notes

In ‌iOS 18‌, you can add Control Center controls to the Lock Screen. With this feature, you can add the option to open the Notes app into one of the slots that was previously taken up by the Flashlight and Camera, giving you an option for quickly jotting down your thoughts.

Smart Script (iPadOS 18)

On the ‌iPad‌, there's a new feature called Smart Script that's designed to improve your handwriting with the ‌Apple Pencil‌. The feature uses machine learning to recreate your own handwriting style to refine what you've written, making messy writing look neater.

With Smart Script, you can also paste typed text into your own handwriting, correct handwritten spelling, touch and drag words to move them or change the spacing, and scribble out what you've written to erase it.

Writing Tools (Apple Intelligence)

Writing Tools is an Apple Intelligence feature that can improve your writing. It won't generate text from scratch for you, but it can proofread, help you rewrite to match a specific tone, and create summaries.

• Proofread text for spelling and grammar errors, including word choice and sentence structure. You can accept all suggestions with a tap or go through them one by one with explanations.
• Rewrite for cleaning up what you've written and shifting the tone without impacting your content. Options include Friendly, Professional, and Concise.
• Options for selecting text and summarizing it. You can choose to create a paragraph, pull out key points, make a list, or create a table. Summaries are available in Mail, Messages, and more.

To use Writing Tools in the Notes app, all you need to do is write something, select your text, and then tap on the quick access Writing Tools options at the top of the keyboard or select Writing Tools by tapping on your selected text.

Writing Tools won't be available when ‌iOS 18‌ and iPadOS 18 launch, but the feature will be coming in iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1 updates that we expect to see in October.

Image Wand (Apple Intelligence)

The Notes app is designed to integrate with Image Playground, Apple's upcoming AI-powered image generation app. You will be able to have the Notes app create an image that goes along with what you've typed up, and on the ‌iPad‌, you can make a rough sketch of what you want to include and then have Apple Intelligence generate a more polished version.

Additional information on new features that Apple has added in ‌iOS 18‌ can be found in our iOS 18 roundup .

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Top rated comments.

Great... however, you still need to check your math... Passes + Kayaks + Snacks + Gear + Sunscreen + Water = $475 $475 ÷ 5 = $95 each There are SIX items, so... $475 ÷ 6 = $79.17 each Maybe Apple Intelligence will fix it for you?;)

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