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Note taking apps: what are you using?
- Thread starter Alvinc
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I hadn't heard of UpNote before. seems a bit like Bear, but (ultimately) cheaper, given that it costs $15 per year to subscribe to Bear Pro.
UpNote is from Vietnam built by two developers. They have a lifetime purchase with cloud provided (stored in Firebase provided by Google).
A few downsides are storage limitation of attachments (20MB per note?) and resize of images, as well as questioning of whether the note service will sustain (because of indie developers and they have to pay for the cloud storage). However, the apps (even though across the platforms with mobile and tablet versions) are very outstanding with full features.
- Apple Notes for general personal notes.
- Bear for notes for a particular project where I want to have a separate group of notes.
- OneNote at work because its integration with outlook and other apps is outstanding. I can send my meetings to OneNote where it creates a structured note with lists of all of the meeting attendees and their status along with the attachments and the meeting description field. It makes meeting notes almost painless.
Apple Notes is all you need really. It does everything better than everything else.
Except make it easy, in the event of disaster, to access the notes on another operating system or even by another AppleID on a Mac. I prefer a note taking app which stores each note as a file readable/usable outside the app. Usually this involves markdown format for the notes.
Many other nice looking apps which use a database suffer from the same limitation. For example, Bear.
For example, if I die tomorrow, my relative who will have to pick up the technology pieces is Windows based.
Another thing (and this what has really turned me off Notes, Bear, Notability, etc.): Searching.
Notes in the Notes database are only searchable from within Notes or via the Command-Space Spotlight interface. There is no way to search across the content of all your files and your Apple Notes notes in a unified way.
Apple Mail suffers from the same search issue.
Apple blocks Finder and 3rd party apps (e.g. HoudahSpot) from using Core-Spotlight indexes (used by Notes, Mail and Photos).
BTW you (or your relative) can access your notes at the iCloud.com website, in an emergency.
I tried to use two or more apps but failed because my personal notes can become projects someday.
I think there are two extremes for the apps: good useful looking but locked in, and just text files without attachments. If you know Typora or Note Plan we don't need to sacrifice.
Now I prioritise my free flow of thoughts first and Apple Notes can achieve that. Export can be done manually on iA Writer because I think not every note is important, or use Exporter third-party app or request a copy from Apple (online and have to wait a day or two) just in case.
100% all in with Apple Notes for many years now. I like that it gets so many features every year. I think it is a great example of what Apple can do with native apps to make them for some power users, and everyday simple needs use. Reminders continues to improve like this, and I wish that Calendar and Mail would be brought on par with this approach to start with. My entire productivity system is native now.
1) Apple Notes for short and medium turn notes. It's convenient on Apple devices. Horrible cross platform.
2) Onenote for long term notes at work. It would have been the best note taking app if Spotlight could search it.
3) I own and use both Goodnotes and Notability for PDF markup and making detailed field notes for work. I could stick with either one.
Unfortunately I never found one note taking app that works great for everything.
2) Onenote for long term notes at work. It would have been the best note taking app if Spotlight could search it.
3) I own and use both Goodnotes and Notability for PDF markup and making detailed field notes for work. I could stick with either one.
Unfortunately I never found one note taking app that works great for everything.
I was using OneNote. But, after searching for notes became problematic, I switched to Apple Notes.
There are a few things I miss about OneNote. Alas, I will continue using Apple Notes, for now
There are a few things I miss about OneNote. Alas, I will continue using Apple Notes, for now
On Windows, MS Powertoys add a Spotlight like search functionality which will search Onenote records.
Unfortunately no such
I was using OneNote. But, after searching for notes became problematic, I switched to Apple Notes.
There are a few things I miss about OneNote. Alas, I will continue using Apple Notes, for now
The biggest advantage of Apple Notes is that you can search it via Spotlight on mobile devices.
Raycast has a plugin that will search in Onenote on Mac.
I stopped using Apple Notes a few years ago because they changed the search function. I have like 1500 notes and when I do a search, I want the newest notes on top. This was possible in Apple Notes but not anymore. Now the ‘most relevant’ notes come on top meaning that I see notes from years ago which are not relevant for me.
I am using UpNote now where you can sort search results the way you like.
But if you don’t have that many notes or are OK with the search function, Apple Notes is a fine app.
I am using UpNote now where you can sort search results the way you like.
But if you don’t have that many notes or are OK with the search function, Apple Notes is a fine app.
But mine is with two top hits with other notes from the latest to oldest. What annoys me is some of the results can't shown up sometimes, say 100 notes with the keyword "Japan" Apple Notes may just show 23 results.
Even Freeform also has the same problem.
I think most other apps like UpNote, Bear and Evernote can perform that basic easily.
I'm using Purelist at the moment and I'm liking the minimalistic looks of the app.
Purelist: Notes & Tasks
According to their Twitter account:
Purelist: Notes & Tasks
According to their Twitter account:
I know many people find Notion difficult and I agree it's a bit tricky for quick notes. But it's awesome for creating organized, detailed notes. I used it a lot in college.
It's convenient to use templates to keep the same structure for all notes and you can set up a dashboard for quick access to folders
It's convenient to use templates to keep the same structure for all notes and you can set up a dashboard for quick access to folders
It's not difficult indeed but can waste a lot of time building up a homepage or dashboard because no one main page can fit lifetime. I remember they don't have traditional recent note list as others do?
Note links, smart folders, drag and drop to order folders (so you don't need to rename every folders from 0, 1, 2...) are sufficient for almost all cases of using for me.
Nice app but lacks images and attachments. But it makes sense if you do just task with providing contexts.
Yes, I agree it may be time-consuming. But depends on what you need. For me, it was worth the time it took to organize my study notes
As for the recent note list, you can use last_edited_time and created_time properties
But I agree with you that there are plenty of great apps that require less time and effort
Notion is indeed excellent. But if one doesn't have the discipline and self-control, endlessly tweaking the system results in a LOSS in productivity. It's such an issue that there are Youtubers who warn about it. 😁Yes, I agree it may be time-consuming. But depends on what you need. For me, it was worth the time it took to organize my study notes
As for the recent note list, you can use last_edited_time and created_time properties
But I agree with you that there are plenty of great apps that require less time and effort