16 Best Note Taking Apps of 2024

The Best Note Taking Apps for You: We currently use apps for everything: taking pictures, reading or writing books, creating documents, waking up in the morning, and listening to music. And it is that in this world in which technology grows by leaps and bounds, there is the Best Note Taking Apps for everything, and the university world is no exception.

Before, we wrote everything in yellow, pink, and all colors post-it. Now with smartphones, it is no longer necessary that we leave small papers throughout the house with notes, the shopping list, and our last great idea for that script that would undoubtedly succeed in Hollywood if someone with a little head decided to invest in it.

The 16 Best Note Taking Apps on Your Mobile

Best Note Taking Apps

One way to have notes always at hand is on your mobile, with Best Note Taking Apps to take notes. Notepad apps for Android there are many, but not all are the same. There are very simple, more suitable for quick notes, and complex when you need to write something down with greater precision or detail. As we did with the task manager apps, today, we test the apps to take notes so you can decide which apps are the best to make notes.

What Do We Ask for a Notes Apps?

The needs of what is required in an app to take notes vary from one person to another. But in our comparison, we will assess the more functions, the better, as well as the ease of use in general. Below you will find a comparative table that includes the following sections to compare in apps for taking notes.

  • Text format: That is, the possibility of adding some format to the text as bold, italic, or underlined. It is not essential for a note application, although it can be useful when the notes are very long, and it is difficult to highlight the most important parts.
  • Images: If the application allows you to add photos to the notes, whether photos taken beforehand, from the gallery, or directly with the mobile camera.
  • Voice clips: Sometimes, there is no time to write, and the best thing you can do is record a voice clip and attach it to a note.
  • Handwritten text/drawings: We will take into account if the application has a “pencil” tool to make scribbles, texts, or indications that are included in the notes.
  • Checkboxes: The possibility that the note includes boxes to indicate whether an item has been completed or not. While this touches the ground of task managers, the creation of shopping lists and other simple lists are still common in the best apps for taking notes.
  • Reminders: Writing the note is the first step. The second is to remember what you have written when you need it. Some apps include reminders to a specific date and time or when arriving at a certain place.
  • Categories: Over time, notebooks begin to fill with small fragments of unconnected text. In this section, we assess the possibilities of organizing the notes by categories, labels, or any other possible way.
  • Colors: Also a category, but simpler: the possibility of choosing the background color of note to organize or highlight some of them.
  • You need a user account: If it is necessary to log in and create a user account before starting to use the application or not.
  • Synchronization in the cloud: We will see here if the application saves your notes in the cloud so that you can recover them on another device, either on another Android mobile with the apps installed or in the web version or for other platforms.
  • Collaborative synchronization: If it is possible to share a note with other people and that they can also edit it. Despite being a bit advanced, it is a very coveted function to do something as simple as a shopping list.

Usually, in the theoretical classes of the university students take notes to listen to the teacher’s explanation. Whether in paper format or on a tablet or computer, students rush to write as much as possible. However, many arrive at their homes and find that their notes are illegible or that they type many words badly for the trouble. Then in the exam instance, they waste time deciphering what they wanted to put in each line.

The Best Apps to Take Notes for You

Many mobiles usually include their own factory apps for this type of work. If we don’t like the one we have, or we simply don’t have any installed, we want to take a look at the most popular Best Note Taking Apps available in the Play Store.

There are guides on how to take notes but, without a doubt, the apps allow you to take notes in a more organized way and without missing any class details.  Some of the best apps to take notes are:

1. Google Keep

We start with the one who is, for many, the champion to beat: Google Keep. He has been with us for about six years now, and although he initially sinned simply, over time, he has been adding functions without haste but without pause until he reaches a point where it is difficult to find fault with him.

Best Note Taking Apps

Best of all, it has managed to remain light and easy to use, adding only what is strictly necessary and without scaring the user with a multitude of buttons or screens on screens. It is not the best application to write documents on Android, but for simple notes, which is what we value like this, it is, without a doubt, the best.

2. Simplenote

This application is available for iOS (iPhone and iPad), Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux. It has a simple and easy to use design, with a format that mimics a notebook.

Best Note Taking Apps

You can divide the notes into labels, categories, and colors. Also, it can be synchronized on several devices to open documents from anywhere.

3. Quickoffice

Best Note Taking Apps

It allows you to create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations, so it not only serves to take notes but also to create presentations.

4. Evernote

This is one of the best-known note-taking apps in the university world since it is very complete. All documents can be synchronized and saved in the cloud to ensure they are not lost. Also, it enables collaboration between several users.

Best Note Taking Apps

It has a lot of functionalities: various types of notes, organizational functions, shared notes, cross-platform support, and more. EverNote is a bit the opposite of Google Keep. It is rather an application to write documents, so it gives you more control over the style and final format of the text. Of course, nothing prevents you from using this app for more mundane things like the shopping list or your favorite list of movies.

However, it is by making these notes simpler that the extra “power” of EverNote is not only not necessary but hinders. Honestly, it is not fast and intuitive enough for the constant and impromptu use expected of note apps. It is rather an app to write more complete documents than simple notes.

However, as of 2016, they began to cover the free version, and it is no longer as palatable as it used to be in the past. Their subscription plans offer a good number of additional features and cloud storage space.

5. Squid

Best Note Taking Apps

Squid allows you to take notes by hand, make drawings and comments anywhere on the screen. Like Simplenote, you have the option to categorize documents.

6. Onenote

OneNote is located halfway between the previous two. Although in the past, it was closer to the EverNote model, with the recent integration of Windows Sticky Notes in the application, it has greatly enhanced its use as an application for taking notes.

Best Note Taking Apps

There may be some confusion here because today you can create two types of notes in OneNote: same as always and Quick Notes. Traditional notes can be quite complex and include images and drawings, while quick notes only include text (formatted, yes).

7. Moleskine Notes

This app is different from the rest because it is a “diary of ideas,” that is, it imitates a diary and allows the user to make notes where and how he wants.

Best Note Taking Apps

It is ideal for visual students since the notes can be made, for example, on a text or pdf.

8. Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper is a bit of an application of notes, documents, and tasks, all in one. It has the advantage that you can assign tasks to specific people, which is useful in some types of notes. However, he lacks other details of greater interest in the field of taking notes, such as the possibility of adding voice clips or making handwritten drawings.

Best Note Taking Apps

Technically you can use it without problems to make notes, and you will enjoy a great collaborative edition with other people. Still, some more mundane and basic features are missing, such as being able to choose a color for the note or be able to classify them with categories or labels.

9. ‎Paper by WeTransfer

Paper is more than an app to take notes. It allows drawing, sketching, tables, tables, and any type of format. When using it, it feels like we are scribbling or drawing on paper.

Best Note Taking Apps

While it’s free, many of the drawing tools have a cost.

10. ColorNote Notepad Notes

If you are someone who thinks that any past tense was better, there are few apps of notes as classic as ColorNote. It has more than 1 hundred million downloads on Google Play and an average score of 4.6, despite being quite basic and having an interface that could well be from the era of Android Kit Kat.

Best Note Taking Apps

His secret is that it simply works. Sometimes you don’t want to format the notes, edit them with other people or add drawings, but a place to add text fragments and it’s over. It’s something like Windows Notepad, but on Android.

11. Noteshelf

Best Note Taking Apps

Similar to Paper but more complex, Noteshelf brings out the best in us. It is one of the most complete in the market and offers amazing tools. You have to have a paid account to use it.

12. Adler Notes

Adler Notes is a notes application that matches most Google Keep features (except for handwritten drawings). The interface, showing the notes in a classic grid, helps to keep them always at hand and well visible.

Best Note Taking Apps

Its use is quite intuitive, although, from the point of view of performance, it shows somewhat slower than the application of notes. It is well loaded with functions. Although you need to polish the edges a bit, for example, when switching between mode with checkboxes or not, all previously written text is deleted.

13. Penultimate

This apps is part of the Evernote group, so both can be synchronized. The best thing about it is that it adapts to your writing style, so writing on it becomes very natural.

Best Note Taking Apps

You can even create your paper type. Like Paper, it is free, but some tools are charged.

14. Notebook

The application of notes of Zoho has more or less everything that is requested for an application of the style. The apps may have a few buttons left over, but in exchange for this visual pollution, you have a faster way to create the type of notes that interest you quickly.

Best Note Taking Apps

The notes themselves have a visual style very similar to Google Keep, although with the advantage that here you can format the text with bold, italic, and others. Technically it is very complete, and the only downside that can be put is that it does not have collaborative editing or that it does not work in landscape mode, which can be frustrating in some circumstances.

15. Notability

Notability is ideal for those who do not have a very readable letter as it has sources that “fix” your writing.

Best Note Taking Apps

In addition, it allows you to include voice memos and photos within the documents. All your creations can be uploaded to the cloud.

16. Good notes

Best Note Taking Apps

Finally, the favorite of iOS users. While it is not free (and not cheap), this apps is spectacular. It has all the features of the other apps and works very well.


What Do You Offer and Which Note taking app to Choose?

We could tell you which of these apps seems best to us, but in the end, this would be nothing more than my personal opinion based on my requirements and preferences. Not everyone needs the same application to take notes, and that is why we present this table by comparing them, so you can choose which one is closest to what you are looking for.

For those looking for something simple and fast, there is nothing like Google Keep, closely followed by Notebook, while the battle for those who need more complex notes is fought between EverNote and OneNote, or Dropbox Paper if your notes involve assigning tasks to other people. Frequently. Finally, let’s not forget those who want notes and nothing else: for them, there will always be ColorNote.

Conclusion

Now that you know what is the best note taking apps are, you no longer have to deal with illegible or incomplete notes. Try these apps and find out which one is best for you.