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A Quick Guide to Apple’s Notes App

Do you really need 15 note-taking apps or do you need to learn how to use the one already there?

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Table of contents
Updates
  • Feb 3, 2024: Syncing Apple Notes to Google Keep or Gmail (hereShow information for the linked content)
This post is a work in progress and will be updated sporadically (and often after public beta releases of new OS versions). I’d suggest bookmarking the page rather than saving it to your read-it-later app. This is going to end up being long, and I’ll suggest reading this in parts rather than skimming it over. It isn’t a course (and neither is it paid), but you’d gain much more if you treat it as one.
I have tried to add screenshots/gifs to every point. Click the ▶ to see that image.
Callouts like these will show extra apps that I use in place of or in conjunction with default apple apps, to enhance their functionality. While I no longer use iOS, you can see a list of my suggested apps here Apps That Caught My Attention.
And these callouts consist of notes, thoughts or extra information about a particular point. They may also be used to answer possible questions that might arise with the use of a particular feature mentioned.

Introduction

The notes app that comes with Apple is pretty good. It is very much a slightly watered down, but single app version of Google Docs (you might not know how much it can do, check that here: Google Docs Is Underrated), just locked to Apple devices. But there are a few things that make it special, which we will talk about here. Most of these suggestions will focus on the MacOS app, but I will add some details about the iOS app too.

The official guides for Notes can be found here: MacBook, iPad, iPhone

The Basics

Notes app is inbuilt into the apple ecosystem. Notes in your app are associated with accounts if you enable online sync, and with your device, if you keep it offline (use Enable the On My Mac account). You can have notes contained in different accounts visible in the same application. If you sync them via iCloud, they are available almost everywhere, including, but not exclusive to iPhone, iPad, MacBook. You can also enable Access iCloud Data on the Web, allowing you to read notes on iCloud online.

Content Types

You can have 8 types of content on the notes app: Images, Attachments, Text, Tables, Checklist, Sketch, Tags and App Links. Besides the obvious ones, App Links are deep links to specific components of an app: for example, if you use Spark Email, you can link to a particular email using app links.

Formatting Options

You can format text in Notes app as: Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough from the top toolbar. From the right click context menu though, you can change fonts, make the size bigger or smaller, show as subscript or superscript, and change colors. You can also change indentation, but that is only available from the Format menu up top, rather that right click menu.

You also have multiple options for paragraph styles, all accessible from the toolbar itself, namely, Title, Heading, Subheading, Body, Monostyled (code styling but you cannot highlight syntax), Bulleted List, Dashed List, Numbered List and Block Quote.

You can also add URLs (of websites or internal links of notes) to your note using ⌘+K. You can also think about using Pronotes if you want to use markdown to write your text.

Font and Paragraph Style Options for Apple Notes. The image shows two sub-menus covering various options such as bold, italic, bigger, smaller, baseline for font on the left, and title, heading, subheading etc for paragraph styles on the right.
Font and Paragraph Style Options for Apple Notes. The image shows two sub-menus covering various options such as bold, italic, bigger, smaller, baseline for font on the left, and title, heading, subheading etc for paragraph styles on the right.

Access Options

You can control access to your notes in 2 ways: sharing and locking. Locked notes can be opened using either a password or through touch id. Sharing allows you to share notes through a link or especially invite other people. You can decide whether the invited person can just view or edit (collaborate on) the note, and whether they can invite other people. Access also works on a folder level and we will talk about it in the details part.

You can quickly save content from other apps to Notes without switching apps by using the Share feature - just hit Share on the content, and select Notes to create a new note with the content inserted.

The Details

Attachments

You can change the size of the pdf document to show as much or as little information as you need. You can markup these documents and the best part is, the document is horizontally scrollable and the markup shows up in the previewed embed, making it amazing for quick referencing. The view as option shows up by clicking the arrow near the file name. The markup on pdfs is collaborative and in my opinion, it is the easiest way for a group of people to mark up a pdf.
Showing small, medium and large embeds of a pdf attachment with and without markup.
Showing small, medium and large embeds of a pdf attachment with and without markup.

You can crop a PDF or a scanned document, to zoom in on a specific area. To do this, open Markup view, Control (^)+click a thumbnail, select Crop Page, drag the handles to enclose the area to keep, then click Done to save changes or Cancel to revert. You can rotate a PDF or scanned document to be oriented in landscape or portrait by using Control(^)+click on a thumbnail, then choosing Rotate Left or Right.

Images: For images on the other hand, you can view them only as small or large and add markups to them. But the view as option shows up by selecting the image and opening the right click menu.
Same image added as small and large with markup in Apple Notes
Same image added as small and large with markup in Apple Notes
App Links: You can have App Links on your notes, that can be added using the attachment icon on the top right of the note. App Links are deep links to specific components of an app: for example, if you use Spark Email, you can link to a particular email using app links.
The add app link option in Apple Notes
The add app link option in Apple Notes
Checklist: You can self sort checklist in a group, such that the checked items move to the bottom of the group. This can be enabled using Automatically sort checked items option in the app settings. The good part about this is that you can separate these lists by just some text in between, allowing you to create “grouped” lists.
Completed items move the bottom of each checklist group. A group is defined by any other content that exists between two checkboxes.
Completed items move the bottom of each checklist group. A group is defined by any other content that exists between two checkboxes.
  • Tables: You can crate pretty basic tables in Apple Notes. These behave very similarly to the tables you would have in a word processing software, as in, they are not spreadsheets, they don’t do calculations, you can’t merge cells, all you can do is add or remove a column/row in-between or at the end. You can drag rows or columns to different positions. They are very much like Notion’s simple tables in a sense that you cannot have any other content besides text in any of the cells.
  • Sketch

    Sketch is possibly the main reason I still use Apple Notes besides inline markupShow information for the linked content. You can add a sketch on your iPhone or iPad but not on your MacBook. Sketches that you add through your iPhone or iPad though will appear in the Notes app on MacBook too. You can add all basic markup in a sketch.

    A note doesn’t need to be either sketch or text. You can mix and merge these two things across the complete note vertically but not horizontally, i.e., you can have text below or above a sketch but not beside a sketch. This is similar to how Notes work in general, i.e., they have a linear flow and do not support columns unlike Notion. You can select handwritten notes and paste them as typed text in another area using the Copy as Text option.

For both sketch and text, if you type or write phone numbers, addresses or dates, you get relevant Apple application options, for example, to Facetime a person or add to contacts, or add an event to calendar.
Contextual options such as add to contacts or facetime for a typed phone number
Contextual options such as add to contacts or facetime for a typed phone number
Contextual option to add to calendar for handwritten text. [ Image attribution ]
Contextual option to add to calendar for handwritten text. [Image attribution]

Organization and Search

Honestly, Apple Notes excels in search. That is the jam. Sure, it hangs a bit when you have too many notes, but which app doesn’t (yes, Obsidian does too). And sure the iCloud sync is wonky, but hey, you signed up for it when you entered an all apple ecosystem.

You can view all your notes in a list or a gallery. You get six ways to organize content in Apple Notes: Tags, Folders, Smart Folders, Search, Smart Search, and Pins.

  • Tags are the method to have a note appear in multiple collections. Clicking on the tag on the left sidebar have two options for filtering: any and all, with, each tag have 3 states: included, unselected, and excluded. This is a special part with Apple Notes and I really appreciate that. Tags can be written on the top of the note or anywhere inline and they are automatically associated with the note.
Tags seem to only work with one account (the iCloud account in my case), and that is just unfortunate.
Folders allow you to place notes into specific collections. One note can reside in only one folder. You can share folders with people, sort them or group them. You can have any level of nesting for folders.
Folder options in Apple Notes, namely Rename, Delete, Share, Sort, Group and Convert to Smart Folder
Folder options in Apple Notes, namely Rename, Delete, Share, Sort, Group and Convert to Smart Folder
Smart Folders allow you to collect all notes based of either all or any based on a collection of rules. You can have 1 or no (but not multiple) rule from each category: Tags, Date Created, Date Edited, Shared, Mentions, Checklists, Attachments, Folders, Locked Notes, Pinned Notes and Quick Notes. The 1 or none constraint implies that you cannot do something like: Include notes matching any of the following filters: Attachments: Scans + Attachments: Maps.
The image displays a settings interface for creating a "New Smart Folder" with various filter options.
The image displays a settings interface for creating a "New Smart Folder" with various filter options.
  • Basic search works using keywords, finding information inside attachments AND handwritten content. You can search in one account or across your accounts
Smart Search has some of the options from Smart Folders, but you are looking them up on the fly. These namely are searching for shared or locked notes, or, filter notes based on whether they have checklists, tags, drawings, scans, and, attachments. You can only select one of these smart search filters.
Options for smart search in apple notes.
Options for smart search in apple notes.
  • Pinned notes work on an account level, so, you can pin in the All Notes folder.

The Arcana

If you have already read through the basic and the details section, you might find repetitions in this section.
  • You can drag and drop emails from your Mail account to your Notes app. This links them directly to the mail account. It is very similar to adding an app link. The app link method works for other clients too (I use it with Spark), whereas the drag and drop can be a hit or a miss.
  • While you cannot send a checklist item to reminders, you can drag and drop a note from the Notes app to the reminders app to create an internal link (check it out here).
  • If you sync your notes under a gmail account, they show up in Google Keep or in Google Mail. It seems to (? unsure, can change, no official Apple guideline) depends on which account is the default. If you have an iCloud account set as the default, they sync to GMail, otherwise they seem to sync to Google Keep.
  • Notes app indexes all content inside the attachment and in handwritten content, so you can always search for a word in the PDF that you attached or a handwritten lecture you wrote.
You can add a scanned document or a sketch to a Notes app that is open on your MacBook, through your iPhone or iPad.
Scan documents or Add sketch through iPhone or iPad in the Notes app.
Scan documents or Add sketch through iPhone or iPad in the Notes app.
  • The sketch component has many amazing features that are not even prevalent in the most common handwriting apps. I think it is one of the least “known” features in the space, because most videos are either made by productivity gurus who type their notes, or people who use goodnotes or notability instead. The following points combine features of the sketch component (available on both iPhone and iPad) with benefits of Apple Pencil (works only on iPad).
    • You can move the tool palette around on iPad. You can write using apple pencil as text using the A pencil which works in scribble mode rather than drawing mode.
    • When you draw, you can tilt your Apple Pencil to shade a line. You can draw perfect shapes by pausing the tip on screen after drawing a rough shape with a single stroke.
    • To add a space between words, use your Apple Pencil to tap and hold the spot where you want to add it. To add space between handwritten text in Notes, use the hold down on the screen to select the text, then drag the triangle that appears up or down, or use the Insert Space Above option to add a draggable horizontal line for adjustable spacing.
    • You can select handwritten notes and paste them as typed text in another area using the Copy as Text option.
    • For both sketch and text, if you type or write phone numbers, addresses or dates, you get relevant Apple application options, for example, to Facetime a person or add to contacts, or add an event to calendar. (Example hereShow information for the linked content) You can use this trick to associate a note
  • You can create a new note by saying "Hey Siri, start a new note" and then dictating the content, which Siri will transcribe and save for you.
  • You can crop a PDF or a scanned document, to zoom in on a specific area. To do this, open Markup view, Control (^)+click a thumbnail, select Crop Page, drag the handles to enclose the area to keep, then click Done to save changes or Cancel to revert. You can rotate a PDF or scanned document to be oriented in landscape or portrait by using Control(^)+click on a thumbnail, then choosing Rotate Left or Right.
You can add links to other notes using the right click context menu or ⌘ + K. These are not backlinks, but rather internal links, which is often good enough for daily use. You can add the link to a word in a current text or use the connected note title as preview text.
Add link to another note dialog box
Add link to another note dialog box
  • To import text files into Notes as individual notes, go to File > Import and select TXT, RTF, RTFD, HTML, or ENEX formats. To export a note as a PDF, click the note, go to File > Export as PDF, name it, add tags, and click Save. You can also open a note directly in Pages by selecting the note and going to File > Open in Pages.
    If you want to export Apple Notes in a useful format, I’ll suggest installing Obsidian, and using its import plugin to import Apple Notes. You don’t need to use Obsidian once you are done with the install.
  • Quick Notes are one of the most integrated features of the Notes app, basically new notes tagged by a specific type that are meant for one-off or “draft” content.
    • If you enable quick notes, you can tap on a lock screen with apple pencil and open a quick note.
    • In Note app settings, you can decide whether you want to open a new quick note every single time, or resume from the last quick note.
    • You can set hot corners in your Settings app to open quick notes.
    • You can set a new note from iPhone control center, the only app you can use to write something without unlocking your phone. In the control center, if you press and hold the new note button, you can directly open the context menu for new note, photo, scan, checklist as well, to directly jump into a “template” you want.

Extensions

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