Taking notes is critical industry, and having the best note-taking app in your Android software could make a global of distinction for your talent to stick arranged. That is as a result of a just right note-taking app does not simply mean you can take notes; it additionally makes it simple to in finding what you may have stored later, irrespective of the place you might be or what form of software you are the use of at that time.
However understanding which note-taking app makes essentially the most sense for you is not all the time simple. The Google Play Retailer has an never-ending array of similar-seeming choices, and what is ultimate for one individual might not be optimum for every other.
I have spent numerous time exploring essentially the most outstanding contenders for note-taking on Android, and I have recognized the apps that upward thrust to the highest in 3 core classes: a “easiest for most of the people” tier, with a happy-medium steadiness of options and usefulness; a “easiest completely featured” department, with a focal point on apps that offer a extra powerful set of purposes for individuals who want it; and a “easiest no-frills” elegance that gives a advice for the ones searching for the maximum in simplicity. I am additionally together with an advantage class to spotlight a moderately new up-and-coming app that’s not moderately fleshed out sufficient but to earn a complete advice however that is price trying out and preserving to your radar.
Right here, phase through phase, are the most efficient note-taking apps for Android.
The most productive Android note-taking app for most of the people
Google Stay (loose)
Google’s note-taking app has come a ways since its awkward 2013 debut. This present day, Stay is a well-rounded but exceptionally intuitive providing with many compelling components, specifically for any person invested within the Google ecosystem (as many Android customers have a tendency to be).
Simplicity is a key a part of Stay’s attraction — for the reason that fact is that almost all other people do not want a fancy, multilayered note-taking instrument with oodles of superfluous options. Maximum people simply need a uncomplicated and efficient position to write down ideas, concepts, and lists in some way that’ll lead them to easy to get right of entry to at a second’s understand.
And that’s the reason exactly the place Stay excels: Open the app and faucet the round plus icon in its lower-right nook — or arrange Stay’s very good Android widget on your house display screen (through long-pressing any clean space of your house display screen and settling on the “Widgets” possibility that looks) — and you are off to the races. You’ll be able to sort the use of your onscreen keyboard, write the use of your finger or a stylus, talk (after which save each an audio record and a plain-text transcription of your ramblings), or snap a photograph of a report or anything and let Google pull the textual content out of the image for you.
Stay’s primary display screen is a delightfully manageable choice of your most up-to-date notes. Converting a observe’s place is as simple as dragging and losing it or tapping a pin icon to make sure it remains on the most sensible. You’ll be able to color-code notes, if you need, and provides them labels for subject-specific surfing. And, after all, you’ll use the hunt field on the most sensible to briefly in finding notes through key phrases — each the ones incorporated for your personal textual content and the ones visual in any connected paperwork or pictures.
JR Raphael/IDGGoogle Stay is simple to regulate — and simple at the eyes.
The whole lot inside Stay syncs mechanically, with none configuration or guide motion required. And you’ll get for your notes from just about any place, since Google supplies near-identical interfaces for Stay on iOS and on the internet.
So far as ecosystem, Stay integrates intelligently with Google’s cross-platform reminder gadget — because of this you’ll create a reminder on any software after which have it pop up to your telephone at a particular date and time and even whilst you challenge into a selected geographical location.
JR Raphael/IDGStay’s time- and location-based reminders be sure to by no means omit a very powerful observe.
And Stay works hand in hand with Google Medical doctors as nicely: With a pair fast faucets, you’ll ship any observe from Stay to Medical doctors for extra concerned modifying. The Medical doctors website online, in the meantime, means that you can pull up your notes in its sidebar and ship content material in both path.
Think about Stay’s multiuser collaboration characteristic, which helps you to proportion notes with others so they are able to edit them, and this simple-seeming app is in truth chock-full of capability. It would possibly not have the entire bells and whistles different merchandise be offering, however so long as it has the entirety you in truth want in a note-taking app, its loss of muddle and complication is usually a crucial productiveness characteristic.
The most productive fully-featured Android note-taking app
Microsoft OneNote (loose)
For some other people, a note-taking app is greater than only a searchable digital notepad; it is a finely arranged gadget with mountains of options and complicated choices. Smartly, if you are anyone who wishes a bit further oomph for your note-taking hub, Microsoft OneNote is the Android note-taking app for you.
OneNote does virtually the entirety Stay can do after which some. Along with the above-mentioned fundamentals, the app includes a notebook-based gadget for categorizing and organizing your memos. It means that you can simply export any observe as a PDF or simple textual content record so you’ll proportion it with anyone else with out requiring them to signal into the carrier. And it makes it simple so as to add each emails and internet pages into your notebooks by means of a singular cope with for forwarding messages and a desktop-based browser Internet Clipper extension for taking pictures content material to your laptop.
Talking of content material, along with offering an account-wide seek serve as, OneNote means that you can seek inside particular person notes as you are modifying them. And in contrast to Stay, it has a bevy of complex text-formatting gear for making your notes glance any method your structure-loving middle wants. You’ll be able to even mix common typed-in textual content with finger- or stylus-made writing and markups in nearly any association possible.
JR Raphael/IDGOneNote makes use of an atypical “canvas” gadget that permits you to upload bits of textual content and different visible components right into a observe after which transfer them throughout in any respect you prefer.
If you wish to transfer to one thing more effective, OneNote features a separate Sticky Notes phase that is virtually like a miniature, scaled-down model of Stay inside the app. It means that you can make fast Put up-It-like notes with none frills or headaches after which later in finding them in that very same phase.
JR Raphael/IDGOneNote’s Sticky Notes phase is nearly like a miniature, scaled-down model of Google Stay.
OneNote is completely in a position to operating offline, and the entirety you do within the app mechanically syncs with OneNote on the internet, on iOS, or within the devoted Home windows or Mac apps. And all of the ones apps, after all, combine effectively with the remainder of the Microsoft ecosystem — a significant plus if you are already invested in that universe.
For all of its positives, the OneNote Android app does have some noteworthy downsides. First, given the carrier’s complexity, it is simply now not as intuitive as Stay. Navigating throughout the app’s layers of menus can get relatively complicated, and its “canvas” gadget for formatting notes — which helps you to position textual content and different components in particular person, transportable bins all all over the display screen — is usually a little overwhelming to wrap your head round.
The telephone app, relatively unusually, additionally lacks some basic-seeming components — akin to a integrated reminders gadget, toughen for looking out handwritten notes, and most likely maximum vexing of all, get right of entry to to OneNote’s multiuser collaboration gadget and note-tagging gadget (either one of which are to be had in OneNote’s different editions).
Nonetheless, if you’ll reside with the ones compromises and need the additional bells and whistles Stay does not supply, OneNote gives an outstanding set of options and a sophisticated revel in at the side of a degree of ecosystem integration you will not in finding in another completely featured Android note-taking app. Maximum different critical contenders have much more compromises at the side of weaker ecosystems and a good quantity of clutter-creating and efficiency-reducing bloat — and they ceaselessly come at a not-insignificant value, too, in comparison to OneNote’s totally loose nature.
The most productive no-frills Android note-taking app
Simplenote (loose)
The ultimate legitimate advice in our checklist is for any person who desires a blank and minimalist house to take notes with none extras or needless distractions. Simplenote lives as much as its call and provides a refreshingly pared-down surroundings for writing and concept sequence.
The app, made through Automattic, the similar corporate at the back of WordPress, items you with a sparse checklist of text-based notes and a clean web page for modifying them — no symbol or audio attaching, no formatting, no fuss in any respect.
JR Raphael/IDGFrom viewing notes to modifying, Simplenote is so simple as it will get.
Simplenote does have a handful of options past absolutely the fundamentals, together with a uncomplicated gadget for tagging notes; an possibility for publishing notes to shareable URLs; and a slider for viewing a observe’s historical past and restoring previous variations. And the app assists in keeping your knowledge synced and available throughout more than one platforms and gadgets, with variations to be had for Home windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and the internet.
Rather than that, even though, there may be truly now not a lot to mention about Simplenote — and that, significantly, is kinda the purpose.
An up-and-comer price staring at
Bundled Notes (restricted loose model; $2 a month or $18 a 12 months for a Professional-level plan)
This ultimate app is full of promise — however it’s not moderately some distance sufficient alongside in its construction simply but to earn a proper spot on this checklist. It is known as Bundled Notes, and it is a abruptly evolving, refreshingly other tackle Android note-taking.
Bundled Notes is the hassle of a unmarried unbiased developer, and it is because of this bettering at a miles quicker tempo than what you generally see with apps made through Google, Microsoft, and different tech titans. One of the simplest ways to consider it’s like Stay on steroids: The app emulates Stay’s default grid-like view or even brings to thoughts the Stay’s common interface, however it injects heaps of probably helpful gear, choices, and spaces of customization into that traditional framework.
As a substitute of simply appearing particular person notes on its primary display screen, as an example, Bundled Notes presentations bundles (get it?!) — that are principally like folders to stay your notes arranged into thematic collections. Inside each and every package, then you have a extra conventional particular person observe view.
JR Raphael/IDGBundled Notes organizes your notes into collection-like bundles that hang any selection of particular person pieces.
Inside any observe, you’ll layout textual content, create lists that reside along common textual content, and fasten any selection of color-customizable tags. You’ll be able to proportion any observe as a plain-text or HTML report with a pair fast faucets. And past that, you’ll create your personal customized swipe gestures for appearing movements on notes; you’ll pin a observe for your notification panel for simple, ongoing get right of entry to; and you’ll set super-customizable reminders for any observe — controlling precisely how and after they seem or even how aggressively they warn you.
Bundled Notes has quite a lot of different fascinating options, together with an non-compulsory Kanban-style gadget for organizing bundles into Trello-like forums of lists and oodles of different choices for controlling how your notes are taken care of and displayed.
Bundled Notes gives a internet interface, too, which is on the market if you happen to pay for the app’s Professional-level subscription. Doing so additionally gets rid of a prohibit of six bundles and 300 notes and unlocks the facility to set routine and chronic reminders.
Some spaces of the app, on the other hand, nonetheless look like a piece in growth. Lately, as an example, the app lacks any strategy to connect pictures or recordsdata right into a observe, which turns out like one thing that is desk stakes for to any extent further completely featured note-taking app. It additionally does not be offering any type of collaboration inside any of its interfaces. (Its developer says the ones options and others — together with a degree of end-to-end encryption lots of the big-name note-takers nonetheless do not supply — are within the works.)
For now, Bundled Notes is an excellent early effort that has the prospective to blossom right into a scrappy, nimble competitor to the cell note-taking behemoths. It is nicely price trying out and keeping track of — so, y’know, you should definitely make your self a observe to keep in mind.
This tale was once at the start printed in December 2017 and maximum lately up to date in December 2020.
Copyright © 2020 IDG Communications, Inc.
