Overall this is a pretty good little app, a lot better than the Apple stickies. Being able to create custom colors is nice but the 2 big features are being able to attach a note to an app and the additional formatting, oh and the snapping helps a lot also. Although, a note to the developer, it doesn't save the table formatting once you close the app.
Note-taking apps are not all created equal. In fact, the deeper you dig into them, the more you realize how different they all are in terms of what they offer in both concept and abilities. While a solid note-taking app is a necessary piece of any suite of productivity apps, figuring out what to do with it in the first place is half the challenge.
- Sticky notes help you to note down such things, and you can check the list later. It is a very good software for an ideal computer user and gamer. Don’t confuse sticky note with note taking apps, besides the main motto of both kind of tools is help you remember things and put-them-together later.
- The Stickies app for macOS gives you Sticky Notes for your desktop, turning your Mac into a virtual bulletin board and letting you jot down short bits of text to remember later. The notes are desktop specific, so you can organize them however you want, and they’ll retain their layout and contents.
- Whether you’re on Windows 7 or Windows 8, Post-its on your desktop or Start Screen can be extremely helpful for remembering small but important amounts of information. Stop cluttering up your desk and go digital with these fantastic sticky note apps.
Getting the right note-taking app is as much about finding one that clicks with you as it is about the nitty-gritty details of the service. In general, however, a reliable note-taking app lets you jot down all the things you want to remember quickly, easily, no matter where you are, and likewise lets you refer to all those notes anytime and anywhere.
The giants in the space, namely Editors' Choice Evernote and runner up Microsoft OneNote, aim to do it all, offering rich features, support for multimedia notes, and tools that blur the lines between apps for personal use and those intended for work.
Evernote caused a ruckus over the past few years among its paying users for hiking the price and slashing the lower tiers of service. While many people are thinking about leaving Evernote, the sad state of affairs at the moment is that nothing lives up to it. If you use the full gamut of Evernote's features and functionality, there simply isn't a good Evernote alternative just yet. OneNote is a close second, but transitioning to it from Evernote is tough. The two services have structural differences that make it difficult to map one set of notes into the other app.
There are alternatives, of course, and hopefully some of them will get better in time. Zoho Notebook is a fine example. It scored low in our testing because it's only available on limited platforms (a Mac app and web clipper only just became available), but the company formerly had a full range of apps for a very similar product by the same name that's been retired. With the rebirth of Zoho Notebook, we should soon see more apps and additional functionality in this rookie service.
Pricing and Plans
A huge part of the reason people got miffed at Evernote was its price hike. It costs more than any other note-taking and syncing app. While it does have a free version, nonpaying Evernote members are limited to syncing their notes among only two devices and the Web app. That's painfully limiting.
Evernote accounts come in four tiers of service: Basic (free), Plus ($34.99 per year or $3.99 per month), Premium ($69.99 per year or $7.99 per month), and Evernote Business. The free tier lets you upload only 60MB of data each month, but the data you use is yours to keep. So technically speaking, the total storage is unlimited because you get more every month ad infinitum. Plus and Premium members can upload more and get a whole host of features that aren't included for free.
Google Keep is free with no upsells or special plans. All it requires is a Google account. The amount of storage space you get in Keep is dependent on your Google Drive storage, which is 15GB by default. You can pay $1.99 per month for 1TB of storage, which will be shared across all Google apps. There is an upload limit for images of 10MB and 25MP.
Microsoft OneNote handles storage similarly to Google Keep, using OneDrive for storage the same way Keep uses Google Drive. OneNote is also free with no special upgrades for extra features. The max file upload size is 100MB. Free users get 5GB of space, whereas Office 365 account holders get 1TB all told, shared among other Office Online apps. An Office 365 Personal account costs $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year.
Simplenote is a free service with no upgrades or in-app purchases. It has a variety of apps for all major platforms, and there is no limit on storage, so long as you don't abuse it, according to the company's terms. Simplenote doesn't support uploads, multimedia, or even formatting—just text. It's worth noting that you'd have a hard time abusing limitless storage with plain text.
Features Worth Having
A few features worth having in a note taking and syncing app are optical character recognition (OCR), a good Web clipper, and organizational tools that work for you.
OCR comes in handy when snapping pictures of text. Google Keep can actually transcribe text that's in an image into typed text that you can then copy and paste or edit at will. Evernote Premium can run OCR on all text in images, including handwriting, when you look for words in a search. Microsoft OneNote can also read OCR text from photos. It also has a useful Digital Ink feature that turns your own handwriting into typed text when you use a tablet. It's handy for students writing equations that are otherwise difficult to type with a keyboard.
A Web clipper is another great feature for your note-taking app if you often find things on the Web that you want to save. For example, I clip a lot of recipes that I find online into my note-taking apps. Evernote and OneNote have Web clippers, and both give you options for saving the entire page or just core elements. Google Keep has a Web clipper, but it only saves the URL and a title, not the actual contents.
In terms of organizational tools, every app is different, but the important thing is you have an interface that makes sense to you and that helps you find what you need when you need it. Evernote uses notes, notebooks, stacks of notebooks, and tags, whereas OneNote has pages, sections, and notebooks. Both Simplenote and Google Keep only use tags, so if you prefer to not think about where you're putting your notes, those tools might be better options.
Take Notes, Sync, and Go
While Evernote remains PCMag's Editors' Choice for note-taking and syncing apps, we did lower its overall rating to reflect its drop in value after the changes in its pricing and services. Hopefully, the uproar caused by Evernote will light a fire under competitors to hurry up and improve their apps. There are a lot of promising apps, but most of them need more time to mature. The read the capsule reviews below, and, if one of them sounds interesting, please be sure to click through to the full review for more details.
Featured Note-Taking App Reviews:
Evernote Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Effortless note-taking and syncing. Incredible search. Great features. Flexible.Cons: Free level of service too restrictive. Expensive Premium plan.Bottom Line: Evernote has long been one of the best productivity apps. Even though rising costs have lessened the value proposition, long-time users will have a hard time finding a better replacement.Read ReviewMicrosoft OneNote (Web) Review
MSRP: $6.99Pros: Rich with features. Reliable. Treats all note content as distinct page elements. Familiar interface for Office users. Office 365 users get 1TB of space.Cons: Slow and clunky. Confusing structural design. Poor search in Web app. Requires OneDrive for some management features. Can only share at the notebook level.Bottom Line: OneNote is a feature-rich note-taking and syncing app, and it gives away a lot for free. But it's still second best to Evernote.Read ReviewQuip Review
MSRP: $12.00Pros: Combines team messaging with collaborative document creation and editing tools. Quick to set up. Easy to use. Free version available. Supported by Zapier.Cons: No team calendar or other apps to add. Interface could be more sophisticated. No rich markup tools. Lacks explicit limits on storage space for free accounts. Limited API.Bottom Line: Quip is a team collaboration tool for both document editing and group communication. It's quick to set up and easy to use, but it may not scale for fast-growing businesses.Read ReviewBear (for Mac) Review
MSRP: $14.99Pros: Supports Markdown. Good options for exporting. Can import notes from Evernote and other services. Inexpensive Pro account.Cons: Extremely light on features. For Mac and iOS users only. No option to selectively sync to iOS devices. Syncing requires paid plan.Bottom Line: Bear is a lightweight among note-taking and syncing apps, although it could meet your needs if you only use macOS and iOS devices and only take simple notes.Read ReviewSimplenote (Web) Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Simple. Apps for a wide variety of devices. Unique sharing options. Reliable search. Supports Markdown on some devices. Free.Cons: Lacks notebooks or folders for organizing. Only supports text notes. No formatting tools. No Web clipper.Bottom Line: For a basic note-taking and syncing experience, Simplenote is a reliable, if stripped-down, choice. If simplicity is what you're after, this free service is worth a try.Read ReviewZoho Notebook (for Mac) Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Great implementation of locked notes feature. Can stack notes. Free.Cons: No Web or Windows apps. Can't upload documents. Limited sorting and organization features.Bottom Line: Zoho Notebook is a free Mac app that makes note-taking simple, but to be really useful, it needs a web version and better organizational features.Read ReviewGoogle Keep (Web) Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Fast. Customizable labels (tags). Transcribes image text to typed text. Works well with other Google apps. Reminders are well integrated. Free.Cons: No audio recording ability in the Web app. No desktop apps. Can't mark up images, PDFs. Weak Web clipper. Preview images not well displayed. OCR feature not automatic nor intuitive.Bottom Line: Google Keep is a free note-taking and syncing app with a nifty OCR feature, but it lacks the features and mobile apps offered by the competition.Read Review
Whether you’re on Windows 7 or Windows 8, Post-its on your desktop or Start Screen can be extremely helpful for remembering small but important amounts of information. Stop cluttering up your desk and go digital with these fantastic sticky note apps.
First up, for the desktop-inclined, we’ll cover those options before moving onto some modern Windows 8 options.
Desktop Sticky Notes
These solutions are perfect if you’re either running Windows 7 still, or if you’re on Windows 8 but prefer the desktop over the Start Screen.
An honorable mention should also go out to Stickies, which some would argue is the best sticky note app for Windows, but it would not install on my Windows 8 machine, so I was unable to review it.
7 Sticky Notes
This full-featured solution, offers plenty of options for formatting your notes and the text within them.
After the installation, an icon will appear in your notification tray (the area in the bottom right corner of your desktop). Right clicking on this icon will give you the option to open a new note.
Each note has a title and text body, as shown above. When you open a new note, the Note Configuration Window will appear beside it, shown below. This allows you to change the color of the note, the font, font size, font color, etc.
There’s also an option to set alarms. You can set certain notes to shake when you wake up your computer, to play a noise at a certain time, or to open a certain program at a given time. It seems like a good way to ensure that these notes get your attention.
When you’re done configuring all the options for any given note, you can click the green arrow to save your changes or the red X to discard them. If you ever need to reopen the Note Configuration Window, double click on the header of the note.
Notes can be dragged around by grabbing it by the dotted top left corner, and resized by grabbing the triangle in the lower right. The note below is an example of a semi-transparent red note with white text. Eye-grabbing enough that you won’t forget it, but not quite so obnoxious as to ruin your desktop.
Right-clicking on any note gives you the abundance of options shown below. If you’re juggling a bunch of notes on your desktop, these can be extremely helpful because you can arrange them alphabetically, roll them up (so only the header shows), or choose which notes display in front and back.
If you right click on the icon in your notification tray, one of the options is Notes Manager. This view will give you an organizable overview of all your notes, which could be super helpful if your desktop is flooded with them.
All in all, 7 Sticky Notes gets the job done and then some, allowing for so much customization. For an even more in-depth look, check out our full review of 7 Sticky Notes7 Sticky Notes - The Most Full-Featured Sticky Notes Program [Windows]7 Sticky Notes - The Most Full-Featured Sticky Notes Program [Windows]It won't be until you actually give digital sticky notes a try that you'll understand how useful and effective they are. I won't argue that physical sticky notes pressed around your desk or monitor is..Read More. It is definitely a solid choice for desktop-based notes, but let’s take a look at what the other competition has to offer.
Hott Notes
This is probably the best all-around sticky note app for the desktop. It’s simpler to set up than 7 Sticky Notes, offering funny commentary as you do so (see below).
It also has these global hot keys that allow you to start a note from anywhere, and it allows you to customize what double clicking the icon in the notification tray will do. That’s a small tweak, but super helpful.
Once it’s all set up, the layout is similar to 7 Sticky Notes, with a small editing box that appears next to each note when you want to customize it. Similarly, you can edit the font, the color of the note, and set an alarm. Not as full-featured as 7 Sticky Notes, but presented in a less cluttered way.
Best free audio editing software for mac. My only complaint was with the list form of notes, which requires the user to click “Create New Item” for every list item, rather than hitting enter or tab after. If you plan on using the list function, this could get annoying.
The button in the notification tray allows you to access everything you would need, and it isn’t as overwhelming as 7 Sticky Notes.
In the end, it might not have all of the advanced features of 7 Sticky Notes, but it is a bit nicer looking and easier to use. For a solid balance of features and style, Hott Notes is the way to go.
Evernote Sticky Notes
If you use Evernote for your note-taking, then this might be the sticky note app for you. It also has options for syncing with Google Drive and Dropbox, but both of those options are still in Beta.
The activation method of setting up Evernote is quick and simple by following the instructions, but you can use it without an Evernote account if you don’t have one — it just won’t back up or sync your notes then. Once that’s set up, you can configure the settings by right-clicking on the icon in your notification tray.
One of my annoyances with this app, however, is that for it to be running, there has to be an active icon in the taskbar (the bar running along the bottom of your desktop). 7 Sticky Notes was able to run in the background with only an icon in the notification tray, but if you close Evernote Sticky Note’s taskbar icon, the whole thing closes and your notes disappear.
The notes themselves don’t have a lot of room for customization. They’ll expand to fit more text, and you can adjust the font and itssize in the settings, but you’re stuck with that color scheme and there’s no option for transparency. Don’t expect a lot of a features here aside from the Evernote-syncing.
https://intensiveeyes673.weebly.com/best-digital-filing-system-for-mac.html. Still, it’s a viable contender if you’re looking for a simple solution that syncs with Evernote. It doesn’t have all the frills of the other options, but for many people that could be a plus.
Modern Sticky Notes
Do you want reminders on your Start Screen instead of the desktop? These apps all have a modern interface, can be downloaded right from the Windows Store, and can pin notes directly to the Start Screen. They’re not quite like the floating sticky notes apps for AndroidWho Knew An Android Phone Has Screen Space For Floating Sticky Notes?Who Knew An Android Phone Has Screen Space For Floating Sticky Notes?You may often come across a small detail you’d like to remember when you’re out of the house. If you have an Android device, you can always save it into Evernote or OneNote for Android;..Read More, but they get the job done.
Sticky Notes 8
One of the most popular options, Sticky Notes 8 should be your first stop. You can choose between a few colors of notes, but there’s nowhere near the customizability as some of the desktop apps for font size, color, etc. For some reason, all the modern apps lag behind the desktop apps in terms of features.
Ads are displayed within this free app (that is what the grey note above is), but they can be removed for $1.50. Since ads can be moved out of the way and you can even place other notes over top of them, they’re not such a big deal.
The Live Tiles that display a given note come in three sizes: small, medium, and wide. The wide view is shown below, while the medium is about half that and really can’t show much text. The small view is even worse, not displaying any text at all. You’ll definitely want to go for the wide, and even then, keep your notes brief.
The biggest standout feature here is built-in syncing with OneDrive (which is a fantastic app for backing up everything on Windows 85 Smart Ways to Customize & Improve OneDrive in Windows 8.15 Smart Ways to Customize & Improve OneDrive in Windows 8.1OneDrive can be a blessing or a curse. It's deeply integrated into Windows 8.1. You'll either want to get the most of it or disable it completely. We can help with both.Read More). If you want to be sure that your notes are backed up, this is the solution for you.
Sticky Tiles
Don’t let the incredibly similar name fool you, Sticky Tiles (with an “s”) is a much better app than Sticky Tile (without an “s”), a bare bones app that will only leave you frustrated. Sticky Tiles doesn’t have any interface for viewing all your notes, and is instead focused entirely on the Live Tile.
https://intensiveeyes673.weebly.com/buying-best-6tb-external-hard-drive-for-mac-pc-near-me.html. When you open the app, you’re immediately prompted to give a title and information for the Live Tile, choose the color, choose the style, and then pin it. It has the same three sizes as the others — small, medium, and wide — and you’ll run into the same problem of limited space for text here.
Tapping on the Live Tile will open the note up for editing, without allowing you to create additional notes or view multiple at a time.
It’s not great for those who want to juggle dozens of notes, but for keeping a single pertinent note on your Start Screen, it’s probably your best bet.
Anything We Missed?
The desktop applications are clearly more evolved here, and I would recommend Hott Notes to anyone who wants an easy to use, yet customizable sticky note app. If you’re determined to put notes on the Start Screen, Sticky Notes 8 offers the best way to handle multiple notes there.
Linux users, be sure to check out these 5 sticky note options5 Little Useful Sticky Notes For Linux5 Little Useful Sticky Notes For LinuxPerhaps you have a habit of pasting small yellow pieces of notes all over your table just to remind you to do a particular task. Stop! Make your notes on Linux instead.Read More for you. And don’t forget that the default Windows 10 Sticky Notes app is pretty goodHow to Get Started With Windows 10 Sticky Notes in Under 5 MinutesHow to Get Started With Windows 10 Sticky Notes in Under 5 MinutesSticky Notes is one of the underutilized tools on Windows 10. Let's see how you can maximize it with the help of Insights.Read More, either.
Best Sticky Note App
Explore more about: Note-Taking Apps, Windows 7, Windows 8.
Stickies App For Mac
- wutwutut
- 20170810
Thank you very much for your comprehensive review. I decided to download Hott Notes. - Boo!
- All of these sticky note 'apps' have the same issue: they do not give you the obvious - working links in notes! And I do mean note's'. When you find an app that provides working links you can open one note. What a stupid idea. Sticky notes are based on sticky notes at home. When did you see one note on a fridge?
- How do I get notes produced by the new 'Sticky Notes' app in Windows 10 to stick to the screen like paper notes so they stay there when swapping windows?
- is there any sticky notes that i can sync it between my pc desktop , android and my other pc?
- YES! I am looking for this capability too!Notezilla, does something like this, but it does NOT have a widget for Android to show the note!
- I cannot remove stickienotes from my computer. I would like to do that. What company are they under so I can go to my Library and delete it.
- Do any of these do anything other than typed text? I would like to see a Sticky Note application that can display images or hand-written notes from a stylus.
- Kudos to NOTEZILLA (Conceptworld) post it notes. The best without reservation but you will pay a lot for it if you want it on your PC. The free versions for Android and Apple are very good, as good if not better than any mentioned above. But the PC version is more than bang for the buck: insert screenshots, images, icons, write text, manage to your own memo-boards, colours galore, font variation as you wish, make notes unobtrusive, you bet, pin to internet sites, of course, reminders alerts, marvellous. The NOTEZILLA app should be renamed to NOTESKILLA as it will 'kill' any other note making application bar none. I challenge a user to find its Achilles heel..it does have ONE. But one folks when it blasts away all the competition with what it does as is. Simply put..fabulous, but like a Ferrari or a Porsche, expensive..but you definitely get what you paid for.
- Thanks @Steven for mentioning Notezilla sticky notes app.Just an update that we recently made our Android and iPhone apps completely free. You can try syncing the Windows version of Notezilla with the Android/iPhone apps without paying anything - http://www.conceptworld.com/Notezilla
- Good discussion . I was fascinated by the points - Does anyone know where my assistant could possibly get ahold of a fillable TREC 9-6 document to fill out ?
- Does one of them also push the screen through a gamescreen? I would like to set somekind of alert when I'm gaming, I used to have one that just switched from my gamescreen to the windows screen (sometimes crashing the game) but I would just want it to show in the game screen en disappear with a hot key or after a few seconds.If anyone knows an alert like that please let me know
Thanks! - my favorite apps Simple Sticky Notes
- Which one app has the glass theme? I'm looking for notes that have transparent background
- Thanks for your sharing article,it will be great if it includes Efficient Sticky Notes (www.efficientstickynotes.com), I have tested many software, above software include, but choose Efficient Sticky Notes at last because of easy to use and lower cost.
- If your problem with installing Stickies involved seeing a 'side-by-side' error, you might like to know that I know all about it, and have written up the reason behind it on my web site.More recently, I added extra checks to the installer, so that it will spot that there's going to be a problem, and help you out pointing towards the DLLS which are missing from W8 64-bit.Tom Revell, Stickies author
- Thanks for responding here! I don't know about the author, but as a user this makes a big difference for me.
- Thanks for the roundup!The Memoboard feature of Notezilla is very helpful, allowing a sticky program to be an all-purpose note keeper in the manner of Rightnote or Keynote, without the bane of white space.Please let us know if any of the other note programs have a similar feature to the memoboard. Thanks!
- +1 for Notezilla - http://www.conceptworld.com/Notezilla
- I was able to install Stickies on my 8.1 laptop, after I installed the 2008 Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages.
- Have been using GloboNote ever since. Very stable, easy to search for notes and can run on many platforms.Try it:
globonote.info - PNotes is not in the list but I like it most. Free, portable and customizable.pnotes.sourceforge.net/
- I've been using Notezilla for years and UI'm very happy with it.The features that I use the most are:
- Stay on top
- Stick to desktop (means the note sstay on your desktop. you can also have notes in folders, not showing in the desktop, but available trough a notes browser)
- Stick to window. this allows a note to only be sown when a certain window is active (link is done with the window title)
- Reminders on the notes : http://www.conceptworld.com/Notezilla/Sticky-Note-Reminder-Window- thanks for the suggestion!
- How can you possibly miss Stickies? It is still be best one. Check it out:
zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/- Thanks for recommending Stickies. Has enough features for me. Easier to use than 7 Sticky Notes.
- Excellent! Thanks it has the features I'm looking for and runs lightweight! Hot-keys, and all the other usual features nice!
- https://intensiveeyes673.weebly.com/best-printer-for-mac-2015.html. I've been using StickyPad for some time now. Works well for me.greeneclipse.com/stickypad.html
- What about the built-in sticky notes application with Windows 7 and Windows 8? Does the job really good IMO. Simple and basic, just like actual sticky notes ;)
- NoteZilla ftw!
- I wish if there was audio sticky notes!!!
Well.. we can make one ;)- How would you make an audio sticky note?