Taking notes is severe enterprise, and having the fitting note-taking app to your Android machine could make a world of distinction in your capacity to remain organized. That’s as a result of an excellent note-taking app does not simply enable you take notes; it additionally makes it simple to seek out what you’ve got saved later, no matter the place you might be or what kind of machine you are utilizing at that time.But determining which note-taking app makes probably the most sense for you is not at all times simple. The Google Play Store has an infinite array of similar-seeming choices, and what’s very best for one particular person is probably not optimum for one more.I’ve spent a whole lot of time exploring probably the most distinguished contenders for note-taking on Android, and I’ve recognized the apps that rise to the highest in three core classes: a “best for most people” tier, with a happy-medium steadiness of options and value; a “best fully featured” division, with a give attention to apps that present a extra sturdy set of features for many who want it; and a “best no-frills” class that provides a suggestion for these searching for the utmost in simplicity. I’m additionally together with a bonus class to spotlight a comparatively new up-and-coming app that is not fairly fleshed out sufficient but to earn a full suggestion however that is value testing and protecting in your radar.Here, part by part, are the very best note-taking apps for Android.The greatest Android note-taking app for most individualsGoogle Keep (free)Google’s note-taking app has come a great distance since its awkward 2013 debut. These days, Keep is a well-rounded but exceptionally intuitive providing with many compelling components, significantly for anybody invested within the Google ecosystem (as many Android customers are typically).Simplicity is a key a part of Keep’s enchantment — as a result of the truth is that the majority of us do not want a fancy, multilayered note-taking device with oodles of superfluous options. Most of us simply need a easy and efficient place to jot down ideas, concepts, and lists in a approach that’ll make them easy to entry at a second’s discover.And that is exactly the place Keep excels: Open the app and faucet the round plus icon in its lower-right nook — or arrange Keep’s wonderful Android widget on your own home display screen (by long-pressing any clean space of your own home display screen and deciding on the “Widgets” choice that seems) — and also you’re off to the races. You can kind utilizing your onscreen keyboard, write utilizing your finger or a stylus, converse (after which save each an audio file and a plain-text transcription of your ramblings), or snap a photograph of a doc or anything and let Google pull the textual content out of the image for you.Keep’s major display screen is a delightfully manageable assortment of your most up-to-date notes. Changing a observe’s place is as simple as dragging and dropping it or tapping a pin icon to make sure it stays on the prime. You can color-code notes, if you would like, and provides them labels for subject-specific searching. And, in fact, you should use the search field on the prime to shortly discover notes by key phrases — each these included in your individual textual content and people seen in any connected paperwork or photographs.JR Raphael/IDG
Google Keep is simple to handle — and straightforward on the eyes.
Everything inside Keep syncs routinely, with none configuration or guide motion required. And you will get to your notes from just about wherever, since Google offers near-identical interfaces for Keep on iOS and on the net.As far as ecosystem, Keep integrates intelligently with Google’s cross-platform reminder system — which suggests you may create a reminder on any machine after which have it pop up in your cellphone at a selected date and time and even once you enterprise into a selected geographical location.JR Raphael/IDG
Keep’s time- and location-based reminders ensure you always remember an essential observe.
And Keep works hand in hand with Google Docs as properly: With a pair fast faucets, you may ship any observe from Keep to Docs for extra concerned enhancing. The Docs web site, in the meantime, helps you to pull up your notes in its sidebar and ship content material in both path.Factor in Keep’s multiuser collaboration characteristic, which helps you to share notes with others to allow them to edit them, and this simple-seeming app is definitely chock-full of performance. It might not have all of the bells and whistles different merchandise provide, however so long as it has the whole lot you really want in a note-taking app, its lack of muddle and complication is usually a important productiveness characteristic.The greatest fully-featured Android note-taking appMicrosoft OneNote (free)For some folks, a note-taking app is greater than only a searchable digital notepad; it is a finely organized system with mountains of options and complex choices. Well, should you’re somebody who wants a bit further oomph in your note-taking hub, Microsoft OneNote is the Android note-taking app for you.OneNote does nearly the whole lot Keep can do after which some. In addition to the above-mentioned fundamentals, the app includes a notebook-based system for categorizing and organizing your memos. It helps you to simply export any observe as a PDF or plain textual content file so you may share it with another person with out requiring them to signal into the service. And it makes it simple so as to add each emails and internet pages into your notebooks by way of a novel deal with for forwarding messages and a desktop-based browser Web Clipper extension for capturing content material in your laptop.Speaking of content material, along with offering an account-wide search perform, OneNote lets you search inside particular person notes as you are enhancing them. And in contrast to Keep, it has a bevy of superior text-formatting instruments for making your notes look any approach your structure-loving coronary heart needs. You may even mix common typed-in textual content with finger- or stylus-made writing and markups in virtually any association possible.JR Raphael/IDG
OneNote makes use of an uncommon “canvas” system that permits you to add bits of textual content and different visible components right into a observe after which transfer them throughout in any approach you want.
If you need to swap to one thing easier, OneNote features a separate Sticky Notes part that is nearly like a miniature, scaled-down model of Keep throughout the app. It lets you make fast Post-It-like notes with none frills or problems after which later discover them in that very same part.JR Raphael/IDG
OneNote’s Sticky Notes part is sort of like a miniature, scaled-down model of Google Keep.
OneNote is totally able to working offline, and the whole lot you do within the app routinely syncs with OneNote on the net, on iOS, or within the devoted Windows or Mac apps. And all of these apps, in fact, combine properly with the remainder of the Microsoft ecosystem — a significant plus should you’re already invested in that universe.For all of its positives, the OneNote Android app does have some noteworthy downsides. First, given the service’s complexity, it is simply not as intuitive as Keep. Navigating by way of the app’s layers of menus can get somewhat complicated, and its “canvas” system for formatting notes — which helps you to place textual content and different components in particular person, moveable packing containers all all through the display screen — is usually a little overwhelming to wrap your head round.The cellphone app, somewhat surprisingly, additionally lacks some basic-seeming components — resembling a built-in reminders system, assist for looking out handwritten notes, and maybe most vexing of all, entry to OneNote’s multiuser collaboration system and note-tagging system (each of which can be found in OneNote’s different editions).Still, should you can reside with these compromises and wish the additional bells and whistles Keep does not present, OneNote provides an distinctive set of options and a sophisticated expertise together with a stage of ecosystem integration you will not discover in another totally featured Android note-taking app. Most different severe contenders have much more compromises together with weaker ecosystems and a good quantity of clutter-creating and efficiency-reducing bloat — they usually usually come at a not-insignificant value, too, in comparison with OneNote’s fully free nature.The greatest no-frills Android note-taking appSimplenote (free)The final official suggestion in our listing is for anybody who desires a clear and minimalist house to take notes with none extras or pointless distractions. Simplenote lives as much as its identify and provides a refreshingly pared-down setting for writing and thought assortment.The app, made by Automattic, the identical firm behind WordPress, presents you with a sparse listing of text-based notes and a clean web page for enhancing them — no picture or audio attaching, no formatting, no fuss by any means.JR Raphael/IDG
From viewing notes to enhancing, Simplenote is so simple as it will get.
Simplenote does have a handful of options past absolutely the fundamentals, together with a easy system for tagging notes; an choice for publishing notes to shareable URLs; and a slider for viewing a observe’s historical past and restoring previous variations. And the app retains your knowledge synced and accessible throughout a number of platforms and units, with variations out there for Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and the online.Other than that, although, there’s actually not a lot to say about Simplenote — and that, notably, is kinda the purpose.An up-and-comer value watchingBundled Notes (restricted free model; $2 a month or $18 a yr for a Pro-level plan)This closing app is filled with promise — but it surely is not fairly far sufficient alongside in its growth simply but to earn a proper spot on this listing. It’s referred to as Bundled Notes, and it is a quickly evolving, refreshingly totally different tackle Android note-taking.Bundled Notes is the hassle of a single impartial developer, and it is consequently bettering at a a lot quicker tempo than what you sometimes see with apps made by Google, Microsoft, and different tech titans. The greatest approach to think about it’s like Keep on steroids: The app emulates Keep’s default grid-like view and even brings to thoughts the Keep’s common interface, but it surely injects tons of probably helpful instruments, choices, and areas of customization into that fundamental framework.Instead of simply exhibiting particular person notes on its major display screen, as an example, Bundled Notes shows bundles (get it?!) — that are principally like folders to maintain your notes organized into thematic collections. Within every bundle, you then have a extra conventional particular person observe view.JR Raphael/IDG
Bundled Notes organizes your notes into collection-like bundles that maintain any variety of particular person objects.
Within any observe, you may format textual content, create lists that reside alongside common textual content, and connect any variety of color-customizable tags. You can share any observe as a plain-text or HTML doc with a pair fast faucets. And past that, you may create your individual customized swipe gestures for performing actions on notes; you may pin a observe to your notification panel for simple, ongoing entry; and you’ll set super-customizable reminders for any observe — controlling precisely how and after they seem and even how aggressively they provide you with a warning.Bundled Notes has a number of different fascinating options, together with an optionally available Kanban-style system for organizing bundles into Trello-like boards of lists and oodles of different choices for controlling how your notes are sorted and displayed.Bundled Notes provides an internet interface, too, which is accessible should you pay for the app’s Pro-level subscription. Doing so additionally removes a restrict of six bundles and 300 notes and unlocks the flexibility to set recurring and chronic reminders.Some areas of the app, nevertheless, nonetheless seem to be a piece in progress. Currently, as an example, the app lacks any method to connect photographs or information right into a observe, which looks like one thing that is desk stakes for any extra totally featured note-taking app. It additionally does not provide any type of collaboration inside any of its interfaces. (Its developer says these options and others — together with a stage of end-to-end encryption many of the big-name note-takers nonetheless do not present — are within the works.)For now, Bundled Notes is a powerful early effort that has the potential to blossom right into a scrappy, nimble competitor to the cellular note-taking behemoths. It’s properly value testing and keeping track of — so, y’know, make sure to make your self a observe to recollect.This story was initially revealed in December 2017 and most lately up to date in December 2020.
Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc.