Apple Notes (2024) [+]
Jun 30 2025
Apple Notes is a note-taking app on all Apple platforms. Though the macOS app is different than the iOS and iPad OS apps their features and compatibility are kept as synced as possible. I will focus on the macOS version since that's the one I use predominantly.
It has a standard three-pane main window. The left bar are folders (both normal and smart folders) and tags (which you create ad-hoc by writing #tagname in any note). There is a special All iCloud folder to list all notes (you can save notes locally but iCloud is so much more convenient and sync is works 99%+ of the time).
The middle pane shows the list of notes in the folder (or that has the selected tag). For All iCloud and for tags it shows notes by last modification date. For normal folders you can sort ascending or descending by one various attributes. You can also pin notes so they're always listed first.
The middle pane can also show an icon view which I don't find useful.
The right pane shows the current note. This mostly a Rich Text page without being able to set specific fonts (you can set a line as Title, Heading, Subheading, Body, or make words bold, italic, underline, strikethrough but you can't set it to Ariel or Helvetica it's just whatever default font Notes uses and the current iOS notes font looks better than the macOS one).
Besides writing text you can make bulleted/numbered lists, also checkbox lists though after awhile I didn't find it that useful and instead manually check things off with √ (option-v on a Mac keyboard). Apple Reminders app does much better check-off lists.
You can create simple tables but I found them cumbersome unless you're just displaying table data. If you want to keep track of information that changes the Notes table is inconvenient and often the cursor doesn't track well (delete might not delete the character the cursor is on or the cursor jumps somewhere you didn't expect). Apple Numbers app does great tables but that is a spreadsheet app.
You can record audio and attach it to a note. You can add images to a note, or a sketch, or even a document like a PDF which is then synced everywhere (though I'm thinking that's an easy way to fill up your iCloud storage). I only write text in my notes which helps syncing (document based syncing so when you update a note the whole note is uploaded to iCloud and downloaded to other devices).
And really that's the best thing about Apple Notes. I can update a note and immediately go to another device and see the change. If you edit a note in two places you will get a warning and asked which note you want to keep showing edit date but not note contents so maybe you choose wrong.
Besides the daily notes I created for Forever Notes system I have 52 regular notes each a topic where I put information. My pinned notes include:
Syncing is the primary feature why I use Apple Notes. Secondary is just being able to have a lot of notes organized in one place — it's not I could use a Pages or BBEdit document to replicate Notes. This makes Apple Notes my most often used data entry app (with maybe RapidWeaver Classic for this web site being the second-most used).
Things that Apple Notes lacks:
It has a standard three-pane main window. The left bar are folders (both normal and smart folders) and tags (which you create ad-hoc by writing #tagname in any note). There is a special All iCloud folder to list all notes (you can save notes locally but iCloud is so much more convenient and sync is works 99%+ of the time).
The middle pane shows the list of notes in the folder (or that has the selected tag). For All iCloud and for tags it shows notes by last modification date. For normal folders you can sort ascending or descending by one various attributes. You can also pin notes so they're always listed first.
The middle pane can also show an icon view which I don't find useful.
The right pane shows the current note. This mostly a Rich Text page without being able to set specific fonts (you can set a line as Title, Heading, Subheading, Body, or make words bold, italic, underline, strikethrough but you can't set it to Ariel or Helvetica it's just whatever default font Notes uses and the current iOS notes font looks better than the macOS one).
Besides writing text you can make bulleted/numbered lists, also checkbox lists though after awhile I didn't find it that useful and instead manually check things off with √ (option-v on a Mac keyboard). Apple Reminders app does much better check-off lists.
You can create simple tables but I found them cumbersome unless you're just displaying table data. If you want to keep track of information that changes the Notes table is inconvenient and often the cursor doesn't track well (delete might not delete the character the cursor is on or the cursor jumps somewhere you didn't expect). Apple Numbers app does great tables but that is a spreadsheet app.
You can record audio and attach it to a note. You can add images to a note, or a sketch, or even a document like a PDF which is then synced everywhere (though I'm thinking that's an easy way to fill up your iCloud storage). I only write text in my notes which helps syncing (document based syncing so when you update a note the whole note is uploaded to iCloud and downloaded to other devices).
And really that's the best thing about Apple Notes. I can update a note and immediately go to another device and see the change. If you edit a note in two places you will get a warning and asked which note you want to keep showing edit date but not note contents so maybe you choose wrong.
Besides the daily notes I created for Forever Notes system I have 52 regular notes each a topic where I put information. My pinned notes include:
- ✱ Home - Forever Notes home page
- Purchases - stuff I want to buy
- Purchases from Podcasts - RPG stuff from review podcasts
- Reviews - a list of topics to review later plus finished spot reviews ready for my Spot Reviews pages
- TODOs - though mostly keeps track of what I've done today
- Twitch Streams - immediate info and notes as I mod akanemsko streams
- Watching - keeping track of what tv shows I'm watching, mostly to make sure I don't overwatch
Syncing is the primary feature why I use Apple Notes. Secondary is just being able to have a lot of notes organized in one place — it's not I could use a Pages or BBEdit document to replicate Notes. This makes Apple Notes my most often used data entry app (with maybe RapidWeaver Classic for this web site being the second-most used).
Things that Apple Notes lacks:
- No undo once you leave a note and go back to it, or even if you leave the app and switch back to it. Undo with syncing I suppose is problematic but I do miss the way BBEdit has unlimited undos in all open documents as long as the app is running. And many times I want to undo a change but it's too late which just means I have to be more careful when I'm editing a note.
- Gets into a mode where there is a click/select and second click selects range. And then if I'm careless I delete a bunch of stuff and then break undo so I can't get it back.
- Auto capitalize beginning of sentences though I guess this is a macOS thing now.
- Doesn’t keep selection per note, it’s one for all of app. Another feature I like in BBEdit as sometimes I use select to mark my place which I suppose is a bit dangerous but not dangerous at all in BBEdit with it's extensive undo support.