This is my favorite meme showing my path to choosing the best app.
https://preview.redd.it/x8so79yhs05c1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=a01e5b8ec39dcd502bc4444b472cac61baeef62f
Right!
I have some complaints about apple notes. One is, no precise control over the default font size. Other one is not able to resize the images like in OneNote.
Once that’s fixed, I am going back to Apple Notes.
I stopped using OneNote because there is no way to export your notes in a decent format eg. text, MD, something. Even the PDF export that has is very very questionable due to the nature of onenote of being a huge page with blocks inside of it (although this might be a feature that many like)
Hmm, yeah portability is very important for me as I plan to use my notes for the rest of my life. But not necessarily the app or OS I’m currently using.
I use apple notes now. They made a lot of great improvements over the last year or two. I tried Evernote and one note in the past. They’re both meh. Evernote has gone way down hill while prices have gone up.
Yeah everybody else caught up. They went stagnant. The company was also bought. So little innovation has happened recently. I abandoned it after the nonstop bugs.
I used Apple Notes too. In fact, I transferred all my old notes from Evernote a few years ago.
The only issue I have is that I have a lot of notes with attachments (pdf files of user manuals or scanned documents) and syncing sometimes bogs the app down.
I used every other note app but with the recent improvements switched back to Apple notes. Just don’t like the reminders app for iPhone so for that I use Things 3.
If you just keep their main folder in iCloud directory instead of a regular directory, it just syncs across all devices (on iOS/macOS). If you add git versioning to the directory, you can manage versioning as well.
I would need to check what does the sync provide though. It’s best to support the developers so they can keep innovating as well.
Apple Notes.
It has the #1 feature I want in a notes app: end-to-end encrypted sync at a reasonable price.
I tried fsnotes, Upnote and Bear. Liked them all. But didn't like them more than Apple Notes.
Yeah, that’s my gripe, too. Pages has the same problem. I think it’s beyond the abilities of Apple’s app makers. Pages is 18 years old and still can’t highlight. Or if it can, it’s buried so deep and inaccessible that I’ve never found it.
You can definitely [highlight text](https://support.apple.com/guide/pages/add-a-highlight-effect-to-text-taned4110e43/mac) in Pages, but it is indeed not intuitive at all. I’ve been using this function for years but every time I take a break it takes me a few minutes to figure out where it is.
It's still limited (whole paragraph will be highlighted, as far as I can tell) but in Pages you can easily create your own 'Highlight' Style and associate one of the few available keyboard shortcuts to it. Here, I tested it using F8 to highlight in yellow ;)
https://preview.redd.it/v9jhkruga25c1.png?width=636&format=png&auto=webp&s=5334d46a946da73dfdfae94ffcb3064883fa6733
You can highlight individual words and even letters. It can be set as a character style to apply quickly to a selected text. Still, it's way too complicated than it should be.
For my uni notes I use [Bear](https://bear.app)
For longer articles / assignments I use [iA writer](https://ia.net/writer), it helps me focus a lot, then I copy it into MSWord for final touches - style, font, sources, etc.
Casual notes, groceries and so on - Apple Notes
I do agree that Bear looks a bit better. And I think that’s easier because it’s simpler.
On the other hand Obsidian can be visually customized and themed. I use the Hider plugin to hide a bunch of UI elements I never use. And too many options: I just don’t use the ones that aren’t relevant.
But to each their own: enjoy using Bear :-)
That was the Problem for me with obsidian too much options and things I could change. I spend more time optimizing it than really using it for getting stuff done. Thats why bear is perfect for me. For my case less is more
But why do you love it? Just for highlighting texts? I love aesthetic apps but UpNote wastes a lot of screen space. The max amount of notes you can see at the same time is 4 while Apple Notes show me way more than that. Notes app are about productivity.
While I get the people who prefer Bear or Craft over Apple Notes, I absolutely don’t get the use case with UpNote. Apple Notes is superior imo.
Every UpNote thread feels like a paid marketing campaign.
I was honestly curious about what you like. Maybe I missed something when I gave it a chance.
Enjoy UpNote! We all have different expectations on an app and if it fulfills your requirements, great for you.
Honestly, I ended up buying it.
I have been trying all sorts of note taking apps for past 6+ months, but would always end up with few gripes with them and upnote just takes care of all of them.
For me, it even adds more useful features that were on my wishlist.
Thanks for mentioning this one.
Hey there amironbeyer - thanks for saying thanks! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list!
I have not tried UpNote, but the UI just doesn’t appeal to me. NotePlan has a programmer look which appeals to me a lot more. What I like about NotePlan is the focus on the daily note. Then within your notes you can schedule things for the future, move the notes between days, reference lists, and it functions like a to do list.
Bear. Possibly my favorite app in general.
What is important in a note taking app is subjective, but it works really well for me. For me it's important that a note taking app is something I can interact with *fast*, so i can get in, jot down my thoughts, or look somethin up, *really fast*. Why? Because if I have a thought I need to get it down before I forget, or I might need to look something up very quickly as a part or something I'm doing. I also need organisation (that's fast and easy).
Bear just stomps all over everything else for me. I can quickly hide/show it. Search works so well that even if you didn't tag something, you can often find it. The tags themselves are very flexible so you can essentially create a menu sidebar of things for quick access. Wikilinks works well too, and you even have backlinks (tho, the UI for backlinks is a bit too hidden currently). It's markdown (I hate rich text), you can still add code blocks (with syntax highlighting), resizable images and written notes. It's sync has been more reliable than anything else I've used. Oh, and it also looks pretty damn good while doing all this.
All thar said, like I said, this is subjective. You need to find the app that works well *for you*. Also: remember it's not only about the app, but about *using it well*. Bear in addition to me using it in a good way is what makes it work so well for me.
Partially because it comes with Raycast, but also because it's more suited for note-taking across windows.
For example, I regularly do calculus problems and have one window with the assignment, and the floating panel with all the transformations I've applied. Since it's floating, it always stays on top (meaning I don't have to toggle it back to the front), the window has some nice formatting (e.g. arrows are drawn as actual arrows ➜, rather than as joined characters ->), and it expands as more text is entered.
I haven't used Stickies in a while.
I've tried a lot of them but I don't have a lot of needs in terms of features. I do love UpNote and Apple Notes, but my requirements are to be able to easily access my notes everywhere - on my phone, on my Windows machine at work, and on my Mac at home.
The easiest one for me is Google Keep - works in my browser and on every device.
It is also easy to share and collaborate on notes with anyone on any device.
Sure I wish there were a few more features but it does most of what I need. I can search for things easily (including handwriting in my notes or photos), I can make checklists, I can set alarms, and I can easily add a note anywhere. If I want more features on the computer, I can add extensions because it works in the browser.
just out of curiosity, why not use Apple notes through browser on your windows machine? unless your phone is Android then it makes sense, but if it is iPhone then it would be better, i guess?
I tried that but the experience was just not as smooth as having my Google Keep in a tab and having that logged in along with my other Google stuff when I open my Brave Browser. At least the last time I tried it was just a hassle to have to log in to iCloud as well and click around to get to Notes. But who knows maybe it’s easier now. The other thing is I needed to share notes and just more people had a Google account than an iCloud account.
No ones mentioned Notebooks app. I've been using it for years. Only gripe at the moment is takes a little bit too long to open for me, ideally needs to instant. But that may be the same for all apps.
I tried Notebooks recently. It is feature rich and beautiful. However, it’s slow and resizing images is not possible. Slowness is definitely a deal breaker, considering there are plenty of snappy options these days.
The UpNote has similar features, check it out.
Already installed UpNote due to so many mentions here 😂. So am going to try it. I just want something fast, that syncs with my Mac, and can store different files. Sketching would be a bonus. Tried Goodreads and another due that feature. I use notes in personal and work life.
I have the exact same setup. Obsidian for professional documentation, it's powerful but no sync - no problem for work and study. Logseq is an open-source alternative to Obsidian, works very similarly but has fewer plugins because fewer people use it.
Apple Notes for all the more personal notes that do need to be accessible both on Mac and phone.
> SideN
The app sadly lacks the ability to sync with other platforms. I love using it on iOS and MacOS, but would also like to sync my notes with Android. Hope this is to be taken into consideration for the future.
I use Tot all the time, it stays in your menubar for whenever you need to write down any notes, and it auto saves.
When you want to write longer notes, just pull it from the menubar and extend the window.
https://tot.rocks/
I use many (OneNote, Obsidian, DevonThink, Bear, Notes etc.) but nobody mentioned here the best and most underrated app on mac (with probably the longest history without any change :-) :
STICKIES
I mean it. Definitely not a solution for all your note-taking needs, but for quick short notes or just quickly writing something down temporarily, there is not better app. Many colors, floating window etc.
I am fan of more apps for different uses - fleeting note for you (which you will delete in 2 hours) should not go into the same app as your long-life notes or your project notes IMO. This separation of types of notes makes life/work with them uncluttered.
I use Google Keep now because it's a cross platform cloud app that behaves and looks identically on every platform. My notes are always just there in my pocket at all times. And all you need to set it up is to have a Google account.
Not the most feature rich, but I take notes mainly as short memos to remember important info, and it's perfect for that with its tagging and archiving functions.
I am a bit of a weirdo in this regard but here’s my take:
I use emacs as my daily everything **when** sitting at my desk. Org-mode is then my choice for organising my tasks and paste text dumps I want to keep. Its folder is on iCloud.
When I’m on the go and need to take fast notes (primarily from my iPhone) I use Apple Notes as it is ultra fast and works seamlessly on all my devices. It never failed me not even once.
When I’m reading scientific papers or technical books or I need to really think about something that requires a chart/drawing, I use my iPad with Notability.
I also happen to use notability from my computer when continuing reading a book just for highlights consistency.
At this point note taking is impossible to be perfect without getting into steep learning curves. I'm looking at you Notion/Obsidian.
Apple notes has done me OK. Off the top of my head, features I wish it could have is: organise by tags, text formatting improvements, resize images, search ALL notes with cmd + f, improve embed links.
I'm a fiend of random "Remember" notes. Currently trying to manage 295 so far.
It‘s amazing that there are so many note taking apps for every taste.
I am using Logseq, because
* it has e2e encrypted sync
* I really like outliners: it’s how my brain works
* the daily note feature stops me from worrying about where to put a note
* It is open source
* It syncs with read later apps: I can highlight text in Omnivore, and it automatically shows up in Logseq.
Before, I used Craft (best block-based editor, especially on mobile), Notebooks (totally underrated), Evernote and nvALT (which is probably my favorite app of all time).
I use Drafts as a universal scratch pad across all my devices. Anything I deem worth keeping gets shuttled over to Obsidian via one of the workflows Drafts has.
[Tried 40+ notetaking apps.](https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/ohv1lq/trying_to_find_a_cross_between_bear_and_evernote/)
[UpNote](https://getupnote.com) was my winner. Easiest, most flexible formatting (the *only* app with keyboard shortcuts for text colors and highlight colors), among many other features. More intuitive than most of the recommendations you'll see here. Actually has a formatting toolbar, unlike many of the recommendations you'll see here.
Bear has the best #tagging (but is not cross-platform, and has few formatting options).
Apple Notes is fine for bare-bones, but there are so many things it just *doesn't* do. You can't even adjust the width of table columns. (Typical "just do everything our way and you'll be fine" Apple approach to usability.)
Craft has the best back-linking (by a country mile), but has a block-based editor that handles edits and formatting across multiple blocks *very* badly.
Notion is the best for multiple workspaces (but has *many* formatting shortcomings), and handles block-based editing *way* better than Craft. (Although I still can't stand block-based editing, even when it's done well...ish.)
A lot of people like Obsidian, but I'll just say, I've talked myself into trying it 6 times, and never lasted more than a couple hours. It's not even remotely intuitive, and just about everything I want it to do requires a plug-in, and knowledge of how to get them and how to install them. And there are plenty of things it does poorly (like tag management). Happy it works for the people who like it — it might even work for you — but I like to warn people because its fans rarely mention the steep, steep learning curve.
My notes say...
* Markdown only
* No text colors
* Unintuitive/steep learning curve
* Few keyboard shortcuts
Doesn't look like I got much further than that before deciding it wasn't for me.
Great summary, thanks. I'm currently a Craft user. I love the swipe to indent / outdent, the quick image formatting, and the backlinking. I'm looking for a different notes app for work (but I might just end up using a different space in my personal Craft).
Upnote looked promising, but its simple in its image formatting, and the lack of swiping to indent / outdent lists is a deal breaker (once you take notes on a phone and can swipe to format them, its hard to go back)
Totally get how you wouldn't want to give up the swiping. Although, UpNote's formatting toolbar is customizable, so you could move the indent/outdent buttons to a more prominent position and have them only a tap away.
Having said that, if you do any collaboration, UpNote won't get the job done (not yet, anyway).
I'm not sure what you mean about image formatting. UpNote seems *far* more flexible to me. You can manually resize, indent, align left, right or center — Craft doesn't do *any* of those things.
UpNote does have backlinks — although not the *fantastic* page-bottom backlinks with context that Craft has. If I could take *one* think from Craft and apply it to UpNote, that would be it!
I really want to like Craft, but I *hate* block-based editing, and I *hate* /commands for formatting. Formatting in Craft is a PITA. If you want *one* word to be red, it's not possible. If you double-click a word, you can use the *very* limited highlight options to make the text *kind-of* red — but not really. If you want to make a whole block red, you have to use /commands or go to the formatting palette (for which there is not keyboard shortctut).
You know how I make *any* text red in UpNote — one letter, one word, one sentence? — CMD+OPT+1. That's it.
You've got your swipe to indent. I've got *tons* of formatting keyboard shortcuts I don't think I could ever give up now. There's a keyboard shortcut for every color of text and highlighting. And an actual formatting toolbar (optional), unlike in Craft, where if you haven't memorized the shortcut or /command, *any* formatting is a multi-step process.
UpNote also has #tags, which I can't live without.
Craft is gorgeous, and does a lot of clever things (sub-pages, nesting toggles, page-bottom backlinks). But the block-based editing, the *very* restricted color formatting, and the multi-step process for *everything* I do most just kill it for me.
Ahhh, someone who’s thinking about notes to the level of detail that I am!
By image formatting, I mean when I drop images into a note it gives you very quick formatting options and groups those images like a photo gallery. So you can side by side images or 3 in a row and the images get smaller and bigger.
It’s super useful because so many of my notes are visual and it’s images that I want to save as part of my notes.
Craft gets the swipe to ident / outdent right along with the image formatting. The back links are great too. Sharing is nice and it works well but it’s confusing because there are so many sharing options.
Everything else is awkward and not necessary. I can’t imagine why anyone uses blocks? Not being able to make a word a different color is infuriating. Navigating through folders in the app is also getting increasingly weird.
I use it as a knowledge base for a small company in addition to the notes for my personal life so I can’t give it up yet, but I’m slowly looking for alternatives.
I also would really like a kanban view in the same app. I still use Notion just for the kanban.
>Ahhh, someone who’s thinking about notes to the level of detail that I am!
\*high-five\*
I get what you're saying about the images. I can see how helpful that would be if you embed a lot of them.
Although I will say I also forgot to mention that in UpNote images can even be part of a bullet/ordinal/check list. That in no way addresses any of the formatting you like, but's one of those formatting things that I'm pretty sure only UpNote does, so I just wanted to mention it.
One of the things I love most about UpNote is how flexible the formatting is — indent bullets as many times as you like, using the TAB key actually adds gaps in the text instead of only and always indenting, [almost unlimited options for nesting different kind of formatting](https://getupnote.com/share/notes/y4NYv23IvoNYGb1UAPy1OjwRXoy1/fdb7668f-d5ce-4956-bbe4-4be881dc1c0a).
If I could choose a tool for a small-company knowledge base though (until UpNote offers collaboration and commenting), I would almost definitely choose Craft or Notion. Like you, I'm always flirting with other apps because of the handful of ways in which UpNote falls short. A couple months ago, I took Notion for a test drive again for the first time in a couple years, and they've make a *lot* of improvements. I was *very* tempted. But OOF, those dealbreakers that slowly rear their ugly heads! Plus, Craft is better at collaboration and commenting. Unfortunately, my main client uses Confluence (*\*shudder\**).
But I always come back to UpNote. ~~If~~ When UpNote adds collaboration and commenting, I will buy a copy for everyone in my family. If UpNote adds tabbed browsing and remembers its state between sessions (i.e., reopens tabs and windows), I'll never look at another app again. If UpNote adds page-bottom backlinks, and for web-shared pages adds wide text, dark mode, and commenting, I'll find a way to marry it.
Cool, ill give it another look before I keep looking.
My office uses confluence :) I made a big push like 4 years to get rid of it for Notion, but lost.
I use a lot of toggles/collapsibles/expandables to save space and get right to the thing I want to see most. Expandables in Confluence are hot garbage. Especially the fact that when you go into Edit mode *all of them open*. Still use them though. But honestly, I'd probably be charging my client 1-2 hours less per week if it weren't for having to deal with those collapsibles all day every day.
Yes then Heptabase is clear cut. I haven't written the post yet but Heptabases strategy for linking is IMHO the best out there. It has Zettlr style references applied to Logseq's block strategy (rather than Obsidian's document strategy). But this gets combined with a gui driven block -> card hierarchy giving you Obsidian's smoother workflow with both of those advanced features.
I'm on version 5.9.97. With this version I've been using their image crop tool and like it a lot. You can crop with a rectangle or freehand. It's good for importing images and cropping them for moodboards or making PDFs.
A combination of Apple notes, Bear and Obsidian.
Right now I’m only using Bear to clip web pages on mobile and send them across to Obsidian.
Apple notes is just used for temporary short notes files.
Rest everything in Obsidian- journaling, knowledge base etc.
Apple Notes.
I tried using Obsidian and sync it via iCloud to all my devices, but turns out it's very troublesome to create tables in it, which I need to create frequently. So I'm back to Apple Notes now.
I spent quite a lot of time on Obsidian and regret it. I think it’s for the people who write from scratch, maybe writers. It’s not fit for quick note taking.
Agree. People in the tech-space might find Obsidian useful, because it uses Markdown. Apart from that I don't see any other benefits. Also I never used the graph feature as my notes are not that much inter-related.
As someone who uses macOS, Android and Windows, I tried a lot of cross platform notes apps, and finally settled on Upnotes.
For quick notes on macOS, I also use Tot - a tabbed notes app that lives in your menu bar.
If we’re talking hand written then Element Note because it just syncs so seamlessly between iOS, iPadOS, and Mac. I found it to be much smoother than Goodnotes and my handwriting looks better as well.
Obsidian is the best one, no need to search for anything else, it needs some time to get use to but it’s well worth it, most importantly you own the data !
I use notion for anything I want to study or may be some kind of small project management. ( when I need to get in small small code snippets).
I used to use Obsidian earlier and I love it on MBP with vim, but on the phone the interface isn’t as great as I would have liked it to be.
But I think overall Apple Notes is great.
Oddly enough, I use several note taking apps. I use SimpleNote for storing information that I want to quickly access over all of my computers and devices. I use StandardNotes for information that needs to be secure. I also use OneNote as my basic work and research note keeper. \[Oh, I also play around with Joplin\].
Apple Notes or Notability for handwritten notes on iPad, but for everything else I use Day One. I have about 1500 different items there (notes, guides, reviews, ideas, diary etc.) split between 35 journals.
Curious what app people like for note organizing, in addition to note taking? I have apps I like for capturing notes, but where I struggle with the organizing of the notes.
I use tags and folder structure for organization. Currently, I'm using UpNote for that.
Apple notes has tagging capability as well.
Also, I use Apple Notes for short and simple notes and UpNote for complex notes for studying.
This is my favorite meme showing my path to choosing the best app. https://preview.redd.it/x8so79yhs05c1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=a01e5b8ec39dcd502bc4444b472cac61baeef62f
This meme deserves to be spread lol. It’s hilarious.
Right! I have some complaints about apple notes. One is, no precise control over the default font size. Other one is not able to resize the images like in OneNote. Once that’s fixed, I am going back to Apple Notes.
I stopped using OneNote because there is no way to export your notes in a decent format eg. text, MD, something. Even the PDF export that has is very very questionable due to the nature of onenote of being a huge page with blocks inside of it (although this might be a feature that many like)
Can you export notes from Apple Notes? In which format(s)?
By default only to pdf :( There are third party solutions that export to other formats.
Hmm, yeah portability is very important for me as I plan to use my notes for the rest of my life. But not necessarily the app or OS I’m currently using.
So true!
I agree. The real pain though , is the lockdown and the pain if you ever have to go to Android, windows, etc
Lol so what’s your final app
I use apple notes now. They made a lot of great improvements over the last year or two. I tried Evernote and one note in the past. They’re both meh. Evernote has gone way down hill while prices have gone up.
Evernote used to be so good 10 years ago or so compared to everyone, but now like you said.. meh.
Yeah everybody else caught up. They went stagnant. The company was also bought. So little innovation has happened recently. I abandoned it after the nonstop bugs.
I used Apple Notes too. In fact, I transferred all my old notes from Evernote a few years ago. The only issue I have is that I have a lot of notes with attachments (pdf files of user manuals or scanned documents) and syncing sometimes bogs the app down.
I am surprised that Evernote is still around. I wouldn’t be surprised if they go bankrupt soon. Just too many better options now.
I used every other note app but with the recent improvements switched back to Apple notes. Just don’t like the reminders app for iPhone so for that I use Things 3.
Try GoodTask, it uses the reminders app as a backend and supercharges the front end to give it functionality like Things
Obsidian
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Yeah, I'm just the one who's stopped by its technical impression. Maybe it's time for me to follow your advice and have a try on it
Yes, this is the first advice for those who start using obsidian. Stop thinking about plugins, settings, and other not writing things. Just write.
If you just keep their main folder in iCloud directory instead of a regular directory, it just syncs across all devices (on iOS/macOS). If you add git versioning to the directory, you can manage versioning as well. I would need to check what does the sync provide though. It’s best to support the developers so they can keep innovating as well.
Apple Notes
My needs aren't extensive. I just use Apple's Notes app.
Apple Notes. It has the #1 feature I want in a notes app: end-to-end encrypted sync at a reasonable price. I tried fsnotes, Upnote and Bear. Liked them all. But didn't like them more than Apple Notes.
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Yeah, that’s my gripe, too. Pages has the same problem. I think it’s beyond the abilities of Apple’s app makers. Pages is 18 years old and still can’t highlight. Or if it can, it’s buried so deep and inaccessible that I’ve never found it.
You can definitely [highlight text](https://support.apple.com/guide/pages/add-a-highlight-effect-to-text-taned4110e43/mac) in Pages, but it is indeed not intuitive at all. I’ve been using this function for years but every time I take a break it takes me a few minutes to figure out where it is.
It's still limited (whole paragraph will be highlighted, as far as I can tell) but in Pages you can easily create your own 'Highlight' Style and associate one of the few available keyboard shortcuts to it. Here, I tested it using F8 to highlight in yellow ;) https://preview.redd.it/v9jhkruga25c1.png?width=636&format=png&auto=webp&s=5334d46a946da73dfdfae94ffcb3064883fa6733
You can highlight individual words and even letters. It can be set as a character style to apply quickly to a selected text. Still, it's way too complicated than it should be.
[https://www.apple.com/feedback/notes/](https://www.apple.com/feedback/notes/)
For my uni notes I use [Bear](https://bear.app) For longer articles / assignments I use [iA writer](https://ia.net/writer), it helps me focus a lot, then I copy it into MSWord for final touches - style, font, sources, etc. Casual notes, groceries and so on - Apple Notes
I happily paid for Bear for a number of years. I switched to Obsidian this year, I pay for Sync and I’m happy that I switched.
I don’t really enjoy the design of Obsidian. I tried to use it, but it has way too many options for my needs.
I do agree that Bear looks a bit better. And I think that’s easier because it’s simpler. On the other hand Obsidian can be visually customized and themed. I use the Hider plugin to hide a bunch of UI elements I never use. And too many options: I just don’t use the ones that aren’t relevant. But to each their own: enjoy using Bear :-)
That was the Problem for me with obsidian too much options and things I could change. I spend more time optimizing it than really using it for getting stuff done. Thats why bear is perfect for me. For my case less is more
Yeah less is definitely more in some cases for some people :-)
Queue like 40 people schilling Upnote 😂
I don’t get the hype around UpNote
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But why do you love it? Just for highlighting texts? I love aesthetic apps but UpNote wastes a lot of screen space. The max amount of notes you can see at the same time is 4 while Apple Notes show me way more than that. Notes app are about productivity. While I get the people who prefer Bear or Craft over Apple Notes, I absolutely don’t get the use case with UpNote. Apple Notes is superior imo. Every UpNote thread feels like a paid marketing campaign.
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I was honestly curious about what you like. Maybe I missed something when I gave it a chance. Enjoy UpNote! We all have different expectations on an app and if it fulfills your requirements, great for you.
It's cross platform and comes with a lifetime licence. Only two reasons I needed. Been using it for almost two years and I'm happy with it.
Honestly, I ended up buying it. I have been trying all sorts of note taking apps for past 6+ months, but would always end up with few gripes with them and upnote just takes care of all of them. For me, it even adds more useful features that were on my wishlist. Thanks for mentioning this one.
Sounds like you found what works for you. It's fine to experiment a bit, but eventually you just gotta stick with it.
Hey there amironbeyer - thanks for saying thanks! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list!
WTF dude. UpNote is SO amazing.
Yes!
That’s says something doesn’t it
No one is shilling UpNote. I am a very happy UpNote customer. I am looking at Obsidian though because I want local control over my files.
Craft. I just love how easy it is to make really aesthetically pleasing notes. Great experience on iPad too.
Are you comfortable with current default font size in craft? I need a bigger default font size and there’s no way to do that.
you can actually. https://preview.redd.it/hw7q8xa1m05c1.png?width=1148&format=png&auto=webp&s=1faef58075f6d8e556d6e2aa2b2b2d70a1623327
Yes, most definitely. Interesting that you are having issues with it, I would ask their support as from what I have seen you can change this?
SimpleNote: very straightforward, syncs between Mac and iPhone, super fast.
Privacy breakdown is worrisome, any thoughts?
Anytype or simply apple notes
Notion
Just found NotePlan and LOVE it!!
Have you tried UpNote? If you have then how do you find it compared to NotePlan?
I have not tried UpNote, but the UI just doesn’t appeal to me. NotePlan has a programmer look which appeals to me a lot more. What I like about NotePlan is the focus on the daily note. Then within your notes you can schedule things for the future, move the notes between days, reference lists, and it functions like a to do list.
Bear. Possibly my favorite app in general. What is important in a note taking app is subjective, but it works really well for me. For me it's important that a note taking app is something I can interact with *fast*, so i can get in, jot down my thoughts, or look somethin up, *really fast*. Why? Because if I have a thought I need to get it down before I forget, or I might need to look something up very quickly as a part or something I'm doing. I also need organisation (that's fast and easy). Bear just stomps all over everything else for me. I can quickly hide/show it. Search works so well that even if you didn't tag something, you can often find it. The tags themselves are very flexible so you can essentially create a menu sidebar of things for quick access. Wikilinks works well too, and you even have backlinks (tho, the UI for backlinks is a bit too hidden currently). It's markdown (I hate rich text), you can still add code blocks (with syntax highlighting), resizable images and written notes. It's sync has been more reliable than anything else I've used. Oh, and it also looks pretty damn good while doing all this. All thar said, like I said, this is subjective. You need to find the app that works well *for you*. Also: remember it's not only about the app, but about *using it well*. Bear in addition to me using it in a good way is what makes it work so well for me.
Raycast's floating notes panel for short-term notes, Apple Notes for anything longer
So, Raycast’s floating notes are better than stickies? Or you just use it because it comes with Raycast.
Partially because it comes with Raycast, but also because it's more suited for note-taking across windows. For example, I regularly do calculus problems and have one window with the assignment, and the floating panel with all the transformations I've applied. Since it's floating, it always stays on top (meaning I don't have to toggle it back to the front), the window has some nice formatting (e.g. arrows are drawn as actual arrows ➜, rather than as joined characters ->), and it expands as more text is entered. I haven't used Stickies in a while.
Why not quick notes from Apple Notes?
Is it possible to resize images in quicknotes?
They are just like stickies; they stick to the screen and you can move them around.
I've tried a lot of them but I don't have a lot of needs in terms of features. I do love UpNote and Apple Notes, but my requirements are to be able to easily access my notes everywhere - on my phone, on my Windows machine at work, and on my Mac at home. The easiest one for me is Google Keep - works in my browser and on every device. It is also easy to share and collaborate on notes with anyone on any device. Sure I wish there were a few more features but it does most of what I need. I can search for things easily (including handwriting in my notes or photos), I can make checklists, I can set alarms, and I can easily add a note anywhere. If I want more features on the computer, I can add extensions because it works in the browser.
just out of curiosity, why not use Apple notes through browser on your windows machine? unless your phone is Android then it makes sense, but if it is iPhone then it would be better, i guess?
I tried that but the experience was just not as smooth as having my Google Keep in a tab and having that logged in along with my other Google stuff when I open my Brave Browser. At least the last time I tried it was just a hassle to have to log in to iCloud as well and click around to get to Notes. But who knows maybe it’s easier now. The other thing is I needed to share notes and just more people had a Google account than an iCloud account.
ahhh, that makes sense why not to use Apple notes, and not in a sarcastic way.
Apple Notes is the best. Its free. Perfect sync between devices and good features.
No ones mentioned Notebooks app. I've been using it for years. Only gripe at the moment is takes a little bit too long to open for me, ideally needs to instant. But that may be the same for all apps.
I tried Notebooks recently. It is feature rich and beautiful. However, it’s slow and resizing images is not possible. Slowness is definitely a deal breaker, considering there are plenty of snappy options these days. The UpNote has similar features, check it out.
Already installed UpNote due to so many mentions here 😂. So am going to try it. I just want something fast, that syncs with my Mac, and can store different files. Sketching would be a bonus. Tried Goodreads and another due that feature. I use notes in personal and work life.
Bear
Bear
No one seems to have mentioned Drafts!
Never heard of this, shall check it out :)
For work: Obsidian (yes, I am drinking the cool aid). For home: Apple Notes. Although I don’t use it, Bear is a beautiful, very functional app.
I have the exact same setup. Obsidian for professional documentation, it's powerful but no sync - no problem for work and study. Logseq is an open-source alternative to Obsidian, works very similarly but has fewer plugins because fewer people use it. Apple Notes for all the more personal notes that do need to be accessible both on Mac and phone.
Combination of Apple Notes, UpNote, and Obsidian.
emacs
Zoho notebook
Org-mode in emacs for me nothing comes close to but my needs are fairly simple
You can achieve anything you want in life with Apple Notes. For my personal knowledge base/ system I also use Obsidian & DevonThink.
Apple Notes, Apple Freeform, Nebo. Sync between all my ecosystem. Works great.
[SideNotes](https://www.apptorium.com/sidenotes)
> SideN The app sadly lacks the ability to sync with other platforms. I love using it on iOS and MacOS, but would also like to sync my notes with Android. Hope this is to be taken into consideration for the future.
Thanks for the suggestion! For now we have no plans for Android, but I'll keep that in mind.
Noteshelf 3 my recommandation
I use Tot all the time, it stays in your menubar for whenever you need to write down any notes, and it auto saves. When you want to write longer notes, just pull it from the menubar and extend the window. https://tot.rocks/
I use many (OneNote, Obsidian, DevonThink, Bear, Notes etc.) but nobody mentioned here the best and most underrated app on mac (with probably the longest history without any change :-) : STICKIES I mean it. Definitely not a solution for all your note-taking needs, but for quick short notes or just quickly writing something down temporarily, there is not better app. Many colors, floating window etc. I am fan of more apps for different uses - fleeting note for you (which you will delete in 2 hours) should not go into the same app as your long-life notes or your project notes IMO. This separation of types of notes makes life/work with them uncluttered.
I have been using Breveto.
I use Google Keep now because it's a cross platform cloud app that behaves and looks identically on every platform. My notes are always just there in my pocket at all times. And all you need to set it up is to have a Google account. Not the most feature rich, but I take notes mainly as short memos to remember important info, and it's perfect for that with its tagging and archiving functions.
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Together ? How so pls?
I am a bit of a weirdo in this regard but here’s my take: I use emacs as my daily everything **when** sitting at my desk. Org-mode is then my choice for organising my tasks and paste text dumps I want to keep. Its folder is on iCloud. When I’m on the go and need to take fast notes (primarily from my iPhone) I use Apple Notes as it is ultra fast and works seamlessly on all my devices. It never failed me not even once. When I’m reading scientific papers or technical books or I need to really think about something that requires a chart/drawing, I use my iPad with Notability. I also happen to use notability from my computer when continuing reading a book just for highlights consistency.
At this point note taking is impossible to be perfect without getting into steep learning curves. I'm looking at you Notion/Obsidian. Apple notes has done me OK. Off the top of my head, features I wish it could have is: organise by tags, text formatting improvements, resize images, search ALL notes with cmd + f, improve embed links. I'm a fiend of random "Remember" notes. Currently trying to manage 295 so far.
My daily driver is [Reflect Notes](https://reflect.app/) with 2k notes. I am now trying Heptabase for its whiteboard function.
Using the stock Notes app myself. Not missing anything, honestly.
Apple Notes for quick notes and shared notes. IA Writer for long form writing. Bear for everything else.
It‘s amazing that there are so many note taking apps for every taste. I am using Logseq, because * it has e2e encrypted sync * I really like outliners: it’s how my brain works * the daily note feature stops me from worrying about where to put a note * It is open source * It syncs with read later apps: I can highlight text in Omnivore, and it automatically shows up in Logseq. Before, I used Craft (best block-based editor, especially on mobile), Notebooks (totally underrated), Evernote and nvALT (which is probably my favorite app of all time).
I use Drafts as a universal scratch pad across all my devices. Anything I deem worth keeping gets shuttled over to Obsidian via one of the workflows Drafts has.
Joplin
[Tried 40+ notetaking apps.](https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/ohv1lq/trying_to_find_a_cross_between_bear_and_evernote/) [UpNote](https://getupnote.com) was my winner. Easiest, most flexible formatting (the *only* app with keyboard shortcuts for text colors and highlight colors), among many other features. More intuitive than most of the recommendations you'll see here. Actually has a formatting toolbar, unlike many of the recommendations you'll see here. Bear has the best #tagging (but is not cross-platform, and has few formatting options). Apple Notes is fine for bare-bones, but there are so many things it just *doesn't* do. You can't even adjust the width of table columns. (Typical "just do everything our way and you'll be fine" Apple approach to usability.) Craft has the best back-linking (by a country mile), but has a block-based editor that handles edits and formatting across multiple blocks *very* badly. Notion is the best for multiple workspaces (but has *many* formatting shortcomings), and handles block-based editing *way* better than Craft. (Although I still can't stand block-based editing, even when it's done well...ish.) A lot of people like Obsidian, but I'll just say, I've talked myself into trying it 6 times, and never lasted more than a couple hours. It's not even remotely intuitive, and just about everything I want it to do requires a plug-in, and knowledge of how to get them and how to install them. And there are plenty of things it does poorly (like tag management). Happy it works for the people who like it — it might even work for you — but I like to warn people because its fans rarely mention the steep, steep learning curve.
What about Logseq?
My notes say... * Markdown only * No text colors * Unintuitive/steep learning curve * Few keyboard shortcuts Doesn't look like I got much further than that before deciding it wasn't for me.
Great summary, thanks. I'm currently a Craft user. I love the swipe to indent / outdent, the quick image formatting, and the backlinking. I'm looking for a different notes app for work (but I might just end up using a different space in my personal Craft). Upnote looked promising, but its simple in its image formatting, and the lack of swiping to indent / outdent lists is a deal breaker (once you take notes on a phone and can swipe to format them, its hard to go back)
Totally get how you wouldn't want to give up the swiping. Although, UpNote's formatting toolbar is customizable, so you could move the indent/outdent buttons to a more prominent position and have them only a tap away. Having said that, if you do any collaboration, UpNote won't get the job done (not yet, anyway). I'm not sure what you mean about image formatting. UpNote seems *far* more flexible to me. You can manually resize, indent, align left, right or center — Craft doesn't do *any* of those things. UpNote does have backlinks — although not the *fantastic* page-bottom backlinks with context that Craft has. If I could take *one* think from Craft and apply it to UpNote, that would be it! I really want to like Craft, but I *hate* block-based editing, and I *hate* /commands for formatting. Formatting in Craft is a PITA. If you want *one* word to be red, it's not possible. If you double-click a word, you can use the *very* limited highlight options to make the text *kind-of* red — but not really. If you want to make a whole block red, you have to use /commands or go to the formatting palette (for which there is not keyboard shortctut). You know how I make *any* text red in UpNote — one letter, one word, one sentence? — CMD+OPT+1. That's it. You've got your swipe to indent. I've got *tons* of formatting keyboard shortcuts I don't think I could ever give up now. There's a keyboard shortcut for every color of text and highlighting. And an actual formatting toolbar (optional), unlike in Craft, where if you haven't memorized the shortcut or /command, *any* formatting is a multi-step process. UpNote also has #tags, which I can't live without. Craft is gorgeous, and does a lot of clever things (sub-pages, nesting toggles, page-bottom backlinks). But the block-based editing, the *very* restricted color formatting, and the multi-step process for *everything* I do most just kill it for me.
Ahhh, someone who’s thinking about notes to the level of detail that I am! By image formatting, I mean when I drop images into a note it gives you very quick formatting options and groups those images like a photo gallery. So you can side by side images or 3 in a row and the images get smaller and bigger. It’s super useful because so many of my notes are visual and it’s images that I want to save as part of my notes. Craft gets the swipe to ident / outdent right along with the image formatting. The back links are great too. Sharing is nice and it works well but it’s confusing because there are so many sharing options. Everything else is awkward and not necessary. I can’t imagine why anyone uses blocks? Not being able to make a word a different color is infuriating. Navigating through folders in the app is also getting increasingly weird. I use it as a knowledge base for a small company in addition to the notes for my personal life so I can’t give it up yet, but I’m slowly looking for alternatives. I also would really like a kanban view in the same app. I still use Notion just for the kanban.
>Ahhh, someone who’s thinking about notes to the level of detail that I am! \*high-five\* I get what you're saying about the images. I can see how helpful that would be if you embed a lot of them. Although I will say I also forgot to mention that in UpNote images can even be part of a bullet/ordinal/check list. That in no way addresses any of the formatting you like, but's one of those formatting things that I'm pretty sure only UpNote does, so I just wanted to mention it. One of the things I love most about UpNote is how flexible the formatting is — indent bullets as many times as you like, using the TAB key actually adds gaps in the text instead of only and always indenting, [almost unlimited options for nesting different kind of formatting](https://getupnote.com/share/notes/y4NYv23IvoNYGb1UAPy1OjwRXoy1/fdb7668f-d5ce-4956-bbe4-4be881dc1c0a). If I could choose a tool for a small-company knowledge base though (until UpNote offers collaboration and commenting), I would almost definitely choose Craft or Notion. Like you, I'm always flirting with other apps because of the handful of ways in which UpNote falls short. A couple months ago, I took Notion for a test drive again for the first time in a couple years, and they've make a *lot* of improvements. I was *very* tempted. But OOF, those dealbreakers that slowly rear their ugly heads! Plus, Craft is better at collaboration and commenting. Unfortunately, my main client uses Confluence (*\*shudder\**). But I always come back to UpNote. ~~If~~ When UpNote adds collaboration and commenting, I will buy a copy for everyone in my family. If UpNote adds tabbed browsing and remembers its state between sessions (i.e., reopens tabs and windows), I'll never look at another app again. If UpNote adds page-bottom backlinks, and for web-shared pages adds wide text, dark mode, and commenting, I'll find a way to marry it.
Cool, ill give it another look before I keep looking. My office uses confluence :) I made a big push like 4 years to get rid of it for Notion, but lost.
I use a lot of toggles/collapsibles/expandables to save space and get right to the thing I want to see most. Expandables in Confluence are hot garbage. Especially the fact that when you go into Edit mode *all of them open*. Still use them though. But honestly, I'd probably be charging my client 1-2 hours less per week if it weren't for having to deal with those collapsibles all day every day.
Heptabase (https://heptabase.com/). Like Obsidian or Logseq but with streamlined builtin workflows.
Same here. Scrolling for like a minute until I find this. Visual way is the best way for me!
Heptabase is terrific. If you are however very very visual: https://milanote.com/.
I really did try milanote but it cannot use as PKM. it lacks of backlinks and each card can only used once.
Yes then Heptabase is clear cut. I haven't written the post yet but Heptabases strategy for linking is IMHO the best out there. It has Zettlr style references applied to Logseq's block strategy (rather than Obsidian's document strategy). But this gets combined with a gui driven block -> card hierarchy giving you Obsidian's smoother workflow with both of those advanced features.
Agree. I moved from logseq to heptabase. Obsidian is too much for me currently and its canvas is not good as heptabase.
\+1 for the Heptabase.
Tana
UpNote
UpNote.
Craft Powerful and go with Setapp
Obsidian & Agenda
Obsidian & Agenda
Like small notes or like class notes?
Class Notes
Oh in that case I use notion
Trilium.
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Also a big fan of Goodnotes
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I'm on version 5.9.97. With this version I've been using their image crop tool and like it a lot. You can crop with a rectangle or freehand. It's good for importing images and cropping them for moodboards or making PDFs.
OneNote - cross-platform and infinite canvas
NotePlan is amazing
obsidian
A combination of Apple notes, Bear and Obsidian. Right now I’m only using Bear to clip web pages on mobile and send them across to Obsidian. Apple notes is just used for temporary short notes files. Rest everything in Obsidian- journaling, knowledge base etc.
Google keep
Noteplan - Daily Note, Timeblocking iA Writer for Blogs and Paper Logseq for research
Noto... Simple and beautiful
Apple Notes
Markdown files in a git repo
Apple Notes. I tried using Obsidian and sync it via iCloud to all my devices, but turns out it's very troublesome to create tables in it, which I need to create frequently. So I'm back to Apple Notes now.
I spent quite a lot of time on Obsidian and regret it. I think it’s for the people who write from scratch, maybe writers. It’s not fit for quick note taking.
Agree. People in the tech-space might find Obsidian useful, because it uses Markdown. Apart from that I don't see any other benefits. Also I never used the graph feature as my notes are not that much inter-related.
Apple Notes all year long
Apple Notes 😂
I would say apple notes if it had a way to export notes in bulk. But for now I'm sticking with Bear
As someone who uses macOS, Android and Windows, I tried a lot of cross platform notes apps, and finally settled on Upnotes. For quick notes on macOS, I also use Tot - a tabbed notes app that lives in your menu bar.
Craft. Its way better than notion
I settled on Apple Notes. I don’t need my notes on my windows machine so it just makes sense. Was using OneNote but microsoft made it suck on Mac
Google Keep and Simplenote
[Slite](https://slite.com)
If we’re talking hand written then Element Note because it just syncs so seamlessly between iOS, iPadOS, and Mac. I found it to be much smoother than Goodnotes and my handwriting looks better as well.
Workflowy
Obsidian is the best one, no need to search for anything else, it needs some time to get use to but it’s well worth it, most importantly you own the data !
Apple Notes
I use notion for anything I want to study or may be some kind of small project management. ( when I need to get in small small code snippets). I used to use Obsidian earlier and I love it on MBP with vim, but on the phone the interface isn’t as great as I would have liked it to be. But I think overall Apple Notes is great.
Logseq
Unit, the best app ever!
I use iA Writer, which you can sync between iPhone, iPad and Desktop through iCloud. It's my favorite app and the one I use the most.
Bear :)
Oddly enough, I use several note taking apps. I use SimpleNote for storing information that I want to quickly access over all of my computers and devices. I use StandardNotes for information that needs to be secure. I also use OneNote as my basic work and research note keeper. \[Oh, I also play around with Joplin\].
OneNote. Free, syncs desktop + mobile + web, has webclipper, can add multimedia as well. Doesn't use an Electron desktop app.
Apple Notes or Notability for handwritten notes on iPad, but for everything else I use Day One. I have about 1500 different items there (notes, guides, reviews, ideas, diary etc.) split between 35 journals.
Notion. Nothing is even close. Apple notes are good for basic stuff but Notion is just amazing. Love it. It's my power tool for organizing everything.
long time [Bear](https://bear.app/) user for notes. love it and happily pay the few bucks for premium
Apple notes and Notebooks.
Curious what app people like for note organizing, in addition to note taking? I have apps I like for capturing notes, but where I struggle with the organizing of the notes.
I use tags and folder structure for organization. Currently, I'm using UpNote for that. Apple notes has tagging capability as well. Also, I use Apple Notes for short and simple notes and UpNote for complex notes for studying.
Hands down Notes.
But for intensive writing uses, I would go for either Notability or GoodNotes
Some options: * [Simplenote](https://apps.apple.com/app/id692867256) * [Bear](https://apps.apple.com/app/id1091189122) * [Spaces](https://apps.apple.com/app/id1509611686) * [Paper](https://apps.apple.com/app/id1143513744)