The thing with ideas is that they can come to you at any time and any place, be it listening to your favorite song or just doing your night scrolling on Instagram new features. Not all ideas are amazing and out of the box but sometimes you might get a million-dollar idea that you would like to note down at that very moment.
Would you rather frantically search for a pen and paper to write down the idea or make some quick memo notes? Or you can simply open an awesome and effective note taking app on your mobile device. The latter sounds like a great option as our smartphones are something we like to conveniently place near ourselves at all times.
Now that we have talked about the need of the note taking apps and note taking tools, let’s further discuss the things that simplify the process of taking a note easy and making note taking application amazing.
Granted, I haven't used this app with any other stylus. I have used other note taking apps with other styli and I have to say that Apple Pencil is the best ever. So maybe it is the pencil that makes this app so great. I have not yet felt the need to try any other note taking app because Penultimate satisfies most of my needs. Our best apps for Mac are very efficient for note-taking, this simply means if you exclude word processors, text editors, these apps will still do a great job. The note-taking apps that make it to our list for Mac are quite easy to use. We have listed below ⬇️ best ? 14 Note taking apps available on (iOS, Android, Mac, iPad & Windows) to deliver a productive way of taking notes, maintaining lists, and penning down ideas. Best note taking app should have smooth UI, offer excellent user experience, features like syncing, sharing, and backup. SimpleNote ZohoNotebook Boostnote Colornote Notion Milanote GoogleKeep Bear Quip. Best Note taking apps of the year. You will never miss out to complete any work if you have noted all the points in your phone or computer. Now let us see what all note-taking apps are available these days to use in computers and smart phones.
What Makes an Awesome Note Taking App?
MyScript's Nebo is a feature-rich note-taking app built with handwriting and active stylus devices like the Apple Pencil and the Samsung S Pen for the Galaxy Note in mind.
When it comes to finding top-notch mobile apps in a particular category there are some standards that have to be met by the applications. For instance, the app should have a great UI (User Interface), the app should offer the option of multitasking to the user, the app should provide the user with additional tools and much more. In addition to this, factors like price i.e. subscription fee and user experience are equally important.
How to group apps on a dock on mac. Keeping the above-mentioned factors in mind, we have shortlisted a list featuring the best note taking apps for smartphones, including both Android and iOS.
List of 20 Top Note Taking Apps For 2020
Keeping the above-mentioned factors in mind, we have shortlisted a list featuring the best 20 note taking apps for smartphones, including both Android and iOS devices:
1. SimpleNote - Best Note Taking App
As the name suggests, Simplenote is an app that is here to offer its users the ease to take note by being one of the simplest note taking apps on the market. The Simplenote note taking app delivers an easy way to maintain notes, lists, and ideas.
One can also say that its core user experience is all about providing speed and efficiency to the end-user. These features have made this simple notepad application land among the best note taking apps for iPad Pro and iPhones that are free of cost.
Pros of SimpleNote:
Cons of SimpleNote:
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
2. Bear - Best Note Taking App
Bear is a digital note taking application for just iOS and macOS devices. This Apple-only app supports the Markdown formatting instead of displaying an excess of menu options.
In addition to this, Bear also allows its users to work with fully viewable inline images while offering a focus mode that eliminates unnecessary elements from your view. Although Bear is not available for Android, you can find many memo app alternatives for Android on this list.
Pros of Bear:
Cons of Bear:
Download this note taking app for iOS
3. Quip - Best Note Taking App
Check out:Detailed Quip App Review
Even though Quip isn't a typical note taking mobile app, rather it is more like a word processing or spreadsheet application with collaboration tools. This online note taking application lets the users work with others on their best notes, spreadsheets, and other documents while discussing the tasks in the same place.
One can also state that it is similar to Google Docs in many ways, in terms of collaborators' remarks, questions, suggested changes in real-time, etc.
Pros of Quip:
Cons of Quip:
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
4. Microsoft OneNote - Best Note Taking App
Are you looking for a great sticky notes app for your Android devices? Then check out the Microsoft OneNote application, which is basically a fully featured note taking app that can do a lot more in comparison to any other note taking mobile app. Here, the user can create a new note and can click anywhere on the page to add content to that position.
Along with that, users can also choose a background for their sticky notes app to look like textured paper or opt for different types of templates.
The Microsoft OneNote note taking app also offers the classic binder functionality with notebooks, sections, tabs, etc as different options to organize notes. A large percentage of people consider the OneNote application as one of the best note taking apps with stylus support.
Pros of Microsoft OneNote:
Cons of Microsoft OneNote:
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
5. Evernote - Best Note Taking App
Check out:Detailed Evernote App Review
From iOS to Android, Evernote application is one of those note taking apps that have been in the race for quite some time now and are effective at taking notes. It offers highly capable services to its users such as supporting a wide range of note types including text, images, audio memo applications, sketches, scanned documents, checklists, clipped web pages and much more.
Apart from that, the Evernote note taking app also consists of an array of excellent tools for organizing and searching your iPhone/iPad notes as well as other documents on Android devices.
Pros of Evernote:
Cons of Evernote:
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
6. Zoho Notebook - Best Note Taking App
Next in the list of the best note taking apps for students as well as professionals is the Zoho Notebook app, which is a free note taking application that you can easily find on the internet. This app provides its users with a wide range of features and is also available on a majority of platforms.
After creating an account, you can start writing down notes and uploading images right away. The Zoho Notebook app also allows you to lock your notes, add time and set reminders in your documents, making it one of the best notepad apps for Android and iOS devices.
Pros of Zoho Notebook:
Cons of Zoho Notebook:
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
7. Standard Notes - Best Note Taking App
Standard Notes is a free and open-source note taking application where users can write and sync their notes across multiple devices, such as iPhone, Android, iPad, Mac, etc. On this note taking apps, your notes here are end-to-end encrypted, so only the user can read their own notes.
So if you are looking for a top-notch notes app for your iPhone or iPad Pro and pick Standard Notes as it is one of the best notes applications for iOS devices.
Evernote app mac password. Pros of Standard Notes:
Cons of Standard Notes:
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
8. ColorNote - Best Note Taking App
The ColorNote application is a simple yet efficient free notepad app for Android devices including a wide range of tablets and smartphones. With the help of this free Android notes app, users can easily create their own sticky notes, checklists, memo notes, and note reminders while maintaining their online notepad for free.
As the name of this note sharing app, the UI (User Interface) of ColorNote app is designed neatly and allows the app users to create their notes in a variety of different colors.
Pros of ColorNote:
Cons of ColorNote:
Download this note taking app for Android
9. Notion - Best Note Taking App
If you are searching for a not so 'basic' note taking app then Notion might be the one that will suit your preference. This note tasking application gives you the best of both worlds by bringing together advance notability capabilities for Android and iOS platforms with an array of highly productive functionalities.
Some of the main functionalities it includes are a simple text editor, integrated calendar and various other spreadsheet functions.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
10. MyScript - Best Note Taking App
The MyScript Nebo is not a traditional note taking app but rather a digital one, this is mainly because it uses impressive technologies like digital ink and handwriting recognition. Along with this, MyScript app comes packed with multiple features that further allow the end-users to draw sketches and diagrams that are relatively easy.
Another worth-mentioning point about this notes app is that it supports more than 50 languages for handwriting recognition and some of them are French, Spanish and English.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
11. Dropbox Paper - Best Note Taking App
Check out:Detailed Dropbox Paper App Review
Next in the queue is the Dropbox Paper application which is more like a collaboration software that is perfect to use in a workspace or professional setting.
From essential note taking features to high-level task management tools, this app is here to provide its users with everything and that too in real-time. Here, users also have the option to add audio, pictures, and even videos in their notes and other documents.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
12. Ulysses - Best Note Taking App
Also featured in:Best Writing Apps
The Ulysses application is more like a task management app than a note taking app which is only available for iPhone, iPad Pro, and other macOS devices.
Being an effective workspace notes app, Ulysses also includes additional features for its end-users to assist them in personalizing their notes with a style that suits their preferences. Some of its functionalities are keyboard navigation, markup-based text editor, automatic backup, etc.
Download this note taking app for iOS
13. Google Keep - Best Note Taking App
The Google Keep notes application is yet another quite famous note taking app that provides its users with a comprehensive note taking software with an advanced inbuilt array of features.
This notes app also offers other functionalities such as image collection, notes preview option without even completely opening a document or a note, specific location reminders, to-do checklists, transferring documents to Google Docs, pinboard feature, keep notes, audio transcriptions, multi-device sharing, etc.
https://fundrenew247.weebly.com/blog/soundfreaq-app-for-mac. Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
14. Any.do - Best Note Taking App
Any.DO is another all-in-app task management application with a wide range of impressive note-taking features that will help the users in simplifying the maintenance process of their do-to list. In addition to this, Google Keep also provides the users with functionalities like customizable recurring tasks, location-based reminders, unlimited collaboration and so much more.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
15. Notability - Best Note Taking App
Notability is a well-known note taking app from Ginger Labs that is only available on iTunes that means it only provides support for the iPhone and iPad Pro.
Apart from this, the Notability application is highly recognized by Apple as the Best Selling Paid Productivity app for four consecutive years. So go ahead and try out this app to sync written notes with audio recordings and annotating documents.
Download this note taking app for iOS
16. SomNote - Best Note Taking App
SomNote is basically a cloud-based application for taking notes with around 100 MB of free cloud storage provided to each user account. With this app, users can easily draw sketches as well as graphs while utilizing different themes and fonts for their documents.
Along with this, SomNote also lets you sync your notes to any device, create multi-colored folders, use password protection, access view modes, conduct a faster keyword search, and many other options.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
17. GoodNotes - Best Note Taking App
The GoodNotes app may not be the only note taking application for iOS out there, but it surely is a good one. This notes application offers its users the option to search their important notes and also organize their different types of documents.
Although, we have to admit that the UI (User Interface) provided by the app is amazing and takes the user experience to another level. In short, the GoodNotes application is a simple yet classic note taking app, perfect for your iPhone and iPad.
Download this note taking app for iOS
18. Coda - Best Note Taking App
The next we have Coda in the list of the best note taking apps. It can be referred to as a new resource that basically combines the document creation functionality with various interactive tools such as gantt, kanban, tables etc.
Many users also claim that this notes app is a combination of other applications like Dropbox Paper and Evernote. Currently, its user base is constantly growing, making it an efficient place to store notes and documents.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
19. Drafts - Best Note Taking App
Also featured in:Best Writing Apps
With every version update, Drafts has improved itself while perfecting the services it provides to its users. If you compare the latest version with the original version of the app, you will see that the improvement is impressive.
In other words, we can say that Drafts is a note taking application that is mainly designed to be a top-notch digital version of a blank sheet.
Download this note taking app for iOS
20. Diaro - Best Note Taking App
Last but not least, we have Diaro in our list of best notes apps which is one of those precious few note taking apps that conveniently categories all your notes into highly organized daily records. This further makes it super easy to use especially to keep track of daily tasks.
This note taking app also replicates the experience of keeping a journal while giving a modern twist to it.
Download this note taking app for Android and iOS
MAD Recommendation: Our Favorite Note Taking App
Let’s start by getting a quick overview of the list of best note taking apps:
What are the Best Note Taking Apps for Android?
What are the Best Note Taking Apps for iPhone And iPad Pro?
What are the Best Note Taking Apps for Mac?
What are The Best Note Taking Apps For Windows?
Installing sugarsync app on mac. After doing an in-depth review of the pros and cons offered by these top note taking apps for iPhone and Android smartphones, we have to go with the Evernote note taking application. This is because Evernote is not just a note taking app, it is a productivity application that is highly useful for professionals.
However, in a clash of productivity apps like Google Keep and Evernote, the competition is pretty close. But Evernote is a feature-rich application allows the users to customize almost everything and takes the lead in this list of best note taking mobile apps.
Written By
Vikram is an experienced wunderkind, who embraced technology at a very early age, and today he is at the helm of it. Mobile apps are something that excites him the most, and now he is up to give this vertical the best shot. He routinely catches up with the new apps and comes up with the top apps that can excite you to the core.
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The best note taking apps for Mac – markdown, open format, cross platform
Published (updated: ) in Productivity.
With the release of iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 in 2016, Apple introduced a new version of Notes. It added a number of new features for formatting, drawing and sync using iCloud instead of via IMAP. It was lightweight, fast and simple. I started using it shortly afterwards and now have almost 1,000 notes ranging from book highlights to saved web pages to meeting notes to journal articles.
Unfortunately, the iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 releases have been incredibly buggy. I have found that sync is inconsistent across devices (my MacBook, iPad and iPhone each register different numbers of notes) and some notes are not syncing at all. Search also stopped working before fixing itself, and now returns inferior results.
Considering how much information I have stored in Apple Notes, this made me reconsider what I wanted from a note taking app.
Requirements for a note taking appSimplicity
I only require basic formatting, images and tables. I’m not interested in fancy fonts or colours because the system is better at ensuring the formatting works across devices, screen sizes and rendering into the future e.g. if I ever need to increase font sizes. 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
Non-proprietary format
The “new” Apple Notes app moved away from IMAP to an iCloud based format. This made sync work better (until recently) but was necessarily a proprietary database format. I can’t easily see or edit the individual notes on disk to make backups or import to another app. They are contained in a SQL Lite 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.
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 have been keeping a backup of all my Apple Notes to date.
Ideally the app will allow editing of individual files on disk. I can then choose my own sync service and run backup as part of my normal approach using Arq. Any app should at least allow export of content to multiple formats.
Regular updates / actively maintained
The problem with Apple software is that their main revenue is generated by the core OS, not any of the apps. They are there to compliment the OS but there is no competitive incentive to keep them up to date, add new features and 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 directly for it.
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.
Search
My approach to note taking is to save the full text and associated files of things I find interesting or useful so I can search them in the future.
Spotlight Search on macOS is very good (and has some advanced options). Even though I keep my files well organised, I regularly use it to find things because it is quicker and searches inside documents. For some reason, Apple Notes are not searchable from Spotlight though, so I have to search twice – in Spotlight and in Notes.app. I would prefer to have everything searchable from Spotlight, or any other search tool.
Cross-platform
This is not a requirement but rather a “nice to have” if the app I use on macOS also has an iOS equivalent. If all the above requirements are met, I can easily edit open file formats from different apps on different platforms.
My Macbook Air (13″ 2018) is only a year old so I have no plans to replace it soon, although have had to send it in for 1 keyboard replacement already. I don’t mind the feel of this keyboard but the reliability is poor.
Given the state of Apple software quality and the general problems with the Macbook keyboards, I have been following Microsoft’s Surface products with interest. The Surface Laptop 3 is very nice. I’ve been into the London Microsoft store to have a play and I’m eager to see the Surface Pro X when it is released. I’m just unsure about Windows. Over a decade ago it was Windows Vista that forced me to move to Mac due to the poor quality. I’m not quite there with macOS yet but am unhappy with it.
Evaluating note taking apps
All together I have been re-evaluating my choice of key software to ensure that I’m tied to the Apple ecosystem as little as possible. I already use Office365 for my email and calendar but have also started to move my files to OneDrive from iCloud Drive (I’m glad I didn’t try the recent macOS betas!). What’s the difference? I pay Microsoft for these services and they are regularly updated (unlike iCloud for Windows) and maintained, probably because they directly generate $billions of direct revenue.
Ultimately, my goal is to be flexible in which platform I use, selected based on the best core OS and hardware. I don’t want to be restricted by apps and file formats that only work on a single platform. macOS remains the best OS for now (including for privacy) but I don’t want to be locked to it.
My recommended note taking apps
Based on reviewing all the apps below, these are the best notes apps for Mac:
Bear
Bear was my favourite app purely for Apple devices. Good tag support, Markdown rendering, strong search (including Spotlight integration), encrypted notes, embedded images and attachments, and multiple export options. I particularly liked the helper mechanism when linking between notes, which maintains the link even if you rename a note.
It is fully supported and actively developed for the Apple ecosystem. The entire company is based around the product and has a subscription business model, suggesting they are likely to be able to keep things going. The iOS and iPad apps work well and sync across from my Mac was always reliable. It actually uses iCloud behind the scenes which makes Apple Notes failure to sync more unusual.
Bear would be my recommendation for someone who was happy with staying on Mac/iOS. If needed, you can export to various different formats. I used it for a whole month (which is the length of the free trial – sync is not available in the free version) and it worked well.
The main reason I decided not to continue using it is that Bear uses a proprietary data format so it can sync with iCloud. This makes sense because their time is better spent on the app functionality rather than making cloud sync work, but I ultimately decided that I valued having open, plain text files more than the extra functionality. If I do eventually move to Windows then I would be unable to move my notes easily. Having an open format was the key to selecting iA Writer instead.
iA Writer
Although not designed for note taking, last year iA Writer added support for #hashtags (but only on Mac, not Windows) which makes it much more suitable as a notes app.
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 very minimalist with few settings, forcing you to focus on the task at hand. There are also apps for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android.
iA Writer does not support attachments and the embedded image support is limited, but that actually forces you to store those files on disk (so files like PDFs can be searched by Spotlight and edited directly e.g. for highlighting, which doesn’t work if you open PDFs from within a Bear note). Naming becomes important for binary files like images so they can be properly searched.
If you use iA Writer on iOS with iCloud then deals with sync for you but there is a limitation with using external file sources such as OneDrive – you have to manually find and add files into the app to edit them, which is a hassle. Otherwise, files are stored on disk and so I can sync them with OneDrive and run my normal backups. Since they are plain text Markdown, I can edit them in any app.
I would like to see the ability to nest tags and add emoji to them, plus helpers for Markdown formatting e.g. linking to other notes and improved image support. However, those limitations are minor enough to overlook and pick iA Writer as my Apple Notes replacement.
VS Code + Markdown extensions
VS Code supports markdown out of the box, including with a live preview, however there are several extensions which add extra functionality.
The final plugin is the crucial one because it allows me to take advantage of organising my 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.
Other note taking apps I triedEvernote
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 but 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.
Notable
Notable is still very early in development, and the rough edges show e.g. when copy/pasting it would paste text 3 times. It also uses Electron and has many weird UI elements showing through the cross-platform layer, for example the popover menus for attachments don’t have the same behaviour as menus should on macOS.
The management of attachments was not as good as Typora – it would copy them to an ‘attachments’ directory but the management of those files was very basic. Removing the attachment from the note did not delete it on disk.
This app is too early to take over such an important use case and has no clear business model yet (donations and a pending application to Y Combinator).
Best Note Taking App For StylusObsidian
Obsidian fits all the requirements – simple, works with Markdown and cross-platform.
It supports #hashtags, but they are shown in order of number of items rather than alphabetically and strangely there is no way to change the order.
It has some good functionality around linking to other notes and backlinks so you can see which notes reference each other. This makes it more like an organiser than a simple Markdown editor.
Android Note Taking App Stylus
The app is nicely designed, but uses Electron so is slow to launch and doesn’t fit into the native OS design as nicely as Bear or iA Writer. When you are using an app regularly, performance and UI consistency matters.
OneNote
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.
Typora
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.
It also uses Electron and I really hate Electron based apps. They remind me of Java apps that almost get the native OS style right, but not quite. They feel brittle, tend to have poor performance and I found that Typora was buggy (the macOS version is in beta). I understand why developers use Electron because it allows you to build cross-platform apps using web technologies, but I’ve had bad experiences with them e.g. the poor performance of Slack.
Worth a mention
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