Taking notes on a Mac is as simple as opening Notes and starting to type. But the best way to take notes actually depends on your own personal habits and workflow.
Some people are better with sticky notes that stay on your screen all the time, or an app that syncs seamlessly with Evernote. If your notes tend to turn into blog posts, an app like MarsEdit can keep them organized until they're ready to publish.
Setapp collection is packed with useful apps that might fit your unique way of note-taking better than a one-size-fits-all solution like Apple's own Notes. With over 150 apps to choose from — and a free trial — you're bound to find the best app for jotting down your thoughts. Here are our favorites.
Jun 20, 2019 In order to collaborate on a note, the people that you invited need to be using a Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Launch Notes from your Dock or the Finder. Click the Add People button in the toolbar (looks like a silhouette with a '+' button). Outline is a powerful, full featured note-taker for iPad and Mac OS X, perfect for students, teachers, physicians, lawyers, executives and everyone who needs to sketch ideas, organize notes, annotate documents, keep any kind of journals.
Control Center for Mac. Instantly access the controls you use most — like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth — and new controls to play music and enable Dark Mode for your display. Designed just for Mac, the new Control Center lets you add controls and drag favorites to the menu bar to customize it just for you. Editor's note: This article was updated on at 4:45 PM PST to highlight Notability's new app for the Mac and to correct a typo. Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in.
Take notes wherever you go When you add your internet accounts to Notes, you can keep your notes with you no matter which device you're using. So, you can save that team roster on your Mac, then have it handy on your iPad when you're on the field. How to add or remove notes accounts.
Best note-taking apps for Mac
Get the most out of your notes - with a huge set of top Mac apps in one pack!
Capture ideas with Unclutter
Unclutter is perfect for capturing the smallest germ of an idea, since it works as both a sticky notes app and a clipboard manager. Because it's always open, you can write down an idea the second you have it. Unclutter's notes are sticky because they never go away, and the interface is even better than default sticky notes on the desktop since Unclutter doesn't clutter up the view when you're working in other apps.
To access Unclutter, you can just mouse to the top of your screen and scroll down (or choose your own key command), and its three-pane layout appears, with sections labeled Clipboard, Files, and Notes.
In Clipboard, you'll see a list of everything you've copied to your Mac's clipboard, ready to re-copy and paste whenever and wherever you need. You can star favorite items to keep them accessible here forever.
Files is a handy place to drop files you need an easy access to, like things you're working on right now.
Unclutter's Notes pane is a text field where you can type out notes and also drag text and links into. You can keep one long-running note to yourself or create multiple notes and view them in a list — the Search field searches the full text of all of your notes, so you can always find what you're looking for. All panes are easy to resize to give yourself more room.
Unclutter is easy to fit into your workflow since it's always there, and the search field helps you find things later. Dropbox integration even syncs your Unclutter files and notes across multiple Macs. When you want to turn your thoughts into something more edited, you can choose another note-taking app from Setapp.
MarsEdit and Strike for blogging
MarsEdit makes it easy to create content, cleverly edit what you write, and integrate with WordPress as well as other blog publishing services right from the app. Besides giving you a place to write in Markdown or Rich and Plain text, MarsEdit lets you build and format robust blog posts, complete with links, images, and other media. You can add tags and schedule your posts to go live anytime.
MarsEdit even makes it easy to gather links and media to blog about. It has a Safari extension that lets you save URLs and start blogging instantly once you find something worth writing about.
If you're looking for a writing tool that allows to collaborate on a doc, you should go with Strike. This effortless text editor lets up to 10 people to work on the same content in real time.
Improve your writing with Ulysses
Ulysses is a writing app with outstanding organizational features, so you can move from notes to an outline to a full manuscript. In fact, Ulysses is a popular app for Mac users participating in NaNoWriMo, a month-long exercise that encourages people to write a novel. It has all kinds of features to get you to write more, from flexible themes to eliminate distractions, to writing goals that count words written.
You can use Ulysses to post to a WordPress blog, export Word documents, or even format an entire ebook. But at the most fundamental level, it's a great note-taking app because you never have to save anything, and your writing can sync between multiple Macs and iOS devices via iCloud or Dropbox. Your notes can contain images, keywords, and PDFs. The search function is incredibly thorough; for example, you can find keywords in notes created before a certain date, in case you want to see how your thoughts about something have evolved over time.
Take study notes with Studies
While other note-taking apps are flexible enough to handle work and personal topics side-by-side, Studies is created especially for those in academic settings. It's designed to take your notes and turn them into study notes, which are basically flashcards on steroids.
Instead of a traditional two-sided flashcard for memorizing terms, the study notes in Studies can have as many 'sides' as you need. They can contain text, images, videos, even audio. This makes them flexible enough that you can create study notes for any subject, from accounting to zoology. You can share study notes with classmates or even download pre-written note sets from Quizlet.
Then, you can use Studies to quiz yourself. The app can set up a schedule for you, based on prepping for an exam or just learning the material as quickly as you can. It chooses notes to study every day, and the cards you got wrong will re-appear more frequently in future sessions, so you can get it right.
Setapp puts all best note-taking apps together
Capture ideas with Unclutter
Unclutter is perfect for capturing the smallest germ of an idea, since it works as both a sticky notes app and a clipboard manager. Because it's always open, you can write down an idea the second you have it. Unclutter's notes are sticky because they never go away, and the interface is even better than default sticky notes on the desktop since Unclutter doesn't clutter up the view when you're working in other apps.
To access Unclutter, you can just mouse to the top of your screen and scroll down (or choose your own key command), and its three-pane layout appears, with sections labeled Clipboard, Files, and Notes.
In Clipboard, you'll see a list of everything you've copied to your Mac's clipboard, ready to re-copy and paste whenever and wherever you need. You can star favorite items to keep them accessible here forever.
Files is a handy place to drop files you need an easy access to, like things you're working on right now.
Unclutter's Notes pane is a text field where you can type out notes and also drag text and links into. You can keep one long-running note to yourself or create multiple notes and view them in a list — the Search field searches the full text of all of your notes, so you can always find what you're looking for. All panes are easy to resize to give yourself more room.
Unclutter is easy to fit into your workflow since it's always there, and the search field helps you find things later. Dropbox integration even syncs your Unclutter files and notes across multiple Macs. When you want to turn your thoughts into something more edited, you can choose another note-taking app from Setapp.
MarsEdit and Strike for blogging
MarsEdit makes it easy to create content, cleverly edit what you write, and integrate with WordPress as well as other blog publishing services right from the app. Besides giving you a place to write in Markdown or Rich and Plain text, MarsEdit lets you build and format robust blog posts, complete with links, images, and other media. You can add tags and schedule your posts to go live anytime.
MarsEdit even makes it easy to gather links and media to blog about. It has a Safari extension that lets you save URLs and start blogging instantly once you find something worth writing about.
If you're looking for a writing tool that allows to collaborate on a doc, you should go with Strike. This effortless text editor lets up to 10 people to work on the same content in real time.
Improve your writing with Ulysses
Ulysses is a writing app with outstanding organizational features, so you can move from notes to an outline to a full manuscript. In fact, Ulysses is a popular app for Mac users participating in NaNoWriMo, a month-long exercise that encourages people to write a novel. It has all kinds of features to get you to write more, from flexible themes to eliminate distractions, to writing goals that count words written.
You can use Ulysses to post to a WordPress blog, export Word documents, or even format an entire ebook. But at the most fundamental level, it's a great note-taking app because you never have to save anything, and your writing can sync between multiple Macs and iOS devices via iCloud or Dropbox. Your notes can contain images, keywords, and PDFs. The search function is incredibly thorough; for example, you can find keywords in notes created before a certain date, in case you want to see how your thoughts about something have evolved over time.
Take study notes with Studies
While other note-taking apps are flexible enough to handle work and personal topics side-by-side, Studies is created especially for those in academic settings. It's designed to take your notes and turn them into study notes, which are basically flashcards on steroids.
Instead of a traditional two-sided flashcard for memorizing terms, the study notes in Studies can have as many 'sides' as you need. They can contain text, images, videos, even audio. This makes them flexible enough that you can create study notes for any subject, from accounting to zoology. You can share study notes with classmates or even download pre-written note sets from Quizlet.
Then, you can use Studies to quiz yourself. The app can set up a schedule for you, based on prepping for an exam or just learning the material as quickly as you can. It chooses notes to study every day, and the cards you got wrong will re-appear more frequently in future sessions, so you can get it right.
Setapp puts all best note-taking apps together
All these note-taking apps are available in Setapp, so you have access to them all for your ideal workflow. You could start an idea as a sticky note in Uncluttered, paste it into Alternote, where you flesh out the idea a little more. That syncs it to Evernote, which you can also connect to Blogo, and turn that note into a full-featured blog post for the world to read.
It's all up to you, and Setapp lets you focus on the work, instead of finding the right apps, buying them, and then buying them again for updates. Just consider subscribing once and then all you have to do is write.
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Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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Notes User Guide
You can attach photos, videos, audio files, and other items to your notes. If you use upgraded iCloud notes or notes stored on your Mac, you can also attach map locations and website previews. (If you haven't upgraded your iCloud notes or are using an account other than iCloud, you can add map or website URLs, but you won't see previews for them.)
If your notes are in an Exchange account, you can't attach any files, map locations, or website previews.
Attach files, website previews, map locations, and more
In the Notes app on your Mac, click a note in the notes list or double-click a note in gallery view.
If you select a locked note, you can't attach a video, audio file, PDF, or document to it.
Do any of the following to add an attachment:
From the desktop: Drag a file into a note.
From your Photos library: Drag a photo directly from your Photos library into a note.
Directly from your iPhone or iPad camera: Click at the beginning of a line, choose File > Insert from iPhone or iPad, then choose Take Photo or Scan Documents to take a picture or scan a document with your iPhone or iPad and insert it in your note. (Requires macOS 10.14 or later and iOS 12 or later or iPadOS 13 or later.) See Insert photos and scans with Continuity Camera on Mac.
Directly from your iPhone or iPad: Click at the beginning of a line, choose File > Insert from iPhone or iPad, then choose Add Sketch to draw a sketch using your finger or Apple Pencil on your iPad and insert it in your note. (Requires macOS 10.15 or later and iOS 13 or iPadOS 13 or later.) See Insert sketches with Continuity Sketch on Mac.
From within another app, like Maps, Safari, Photos, and more: Click the Share button , then choose Notes.
The Share button doesn't appear in all apps.
You can also select some text or images, Control-click your selection, then choose Share > Notes.
To change how large an image, scanned document, or PDF attachment appears in a note, Control-click the attachment, then choose View as Large Images or View as Small Images. You can't change how large drawings appear in notes.
View attachments from all your notes
How To Use Notes On Mac
You can view attachments from your notes in a single window, making it easy to browse the attachments and find just the one you want. You can only view attachments from upgraded iCloud notes or notes stored on your Mac.
In the Notes app on your Mac, choose View > Show Attachments Browser.
Do any of the following:
View attachments: Click the category buttons to view different kinds of attachments. To return to the list of notes, choose View > Hide Attachments Browser.
Note: This view doesn't show drawings or attachments in locked notes, even if you have entered your password to unlock your notes.
Preview an attachment: Select the attachment and press the Space bar.
View the note that an attachment is in: Select the attachment, then choose View > Show in Note (or use the Touch Bar).
Open an attachment in its default app: Double-click the attachment.
Save an attachment: Control-click the attachment, then choose Save Attachment.
You can't used this method to save some attachments, such as maps and website previews.
Rename an attachment: Select the attachment, choose Edit > Rename Attachment, then type a new name.
Share the attachment with another app: Select the attachment, click , then choose an app.
Apple Notes
You can mark up images (including scanned documents) and PDF documents after you attach them to a note.
Mac Notes Online App
