Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard drive? Ever wanted more than just the ability to enter text, but also the possibility to include photos or other media in your notes?
If that’s the case, take a look at our roundup of some of the most used note taking apps for Mac. We will cover both basic and complex applications, leaving you the choice of what fits your needs best.
Be sure to take a look at our companion roundup over at iPhone.AppStorm, looking at note taking apps for the iPhone.
Stickies on your Dashboard or Desktop
Stickies on your Dashboard or Desktop
No time to check out a new app (or no money to buy the one you like)? Well, if it’s simple note taking you want, why not use the apps that come with every Mac? Go to your dashboard and try out Stickies. You can put as many stickies as you want on your dashboard, give them different colors and change the font face.
Alternatively, if you are not a dashboard person, there is the “normal” app right in your applications folder that will display notes on your desktop. You can make those notes translucent so they won’t cover up whatever windows you have open. It’s quick, it’s simple and it’s already on your computer.
Notational Velocity
Notational Velocity
An incredibly simple solution, Notational Velocity is a really wonderful application for storing simple notes. They’re saved as text files (or HTML if you prefer), and the application fully supports synchronization with Simplenote and/or Dropbox.
Save-as-you-type means that you don’t need to worry about regularly saving a note you’re working on, and searching for notes is built-in as the primary way to navigate and control the software. It’s completely free, and I’d highly recommend it!
Shovebox
Shovebox
Unobtrusive but always present, the app sits in your menu bar and waits for you to shove (drop) information onto it. Supporting many different file formats, Shovebox helps you to stuff information into one place and sort it quickly by putting it into folders and tagging it.
The QuickJot window can be called from anywhere on your computer and allows for quick text entry. Additionally, Shovebox has an iPhone app that syncs with the desktop version, allowing you to take (your) notes wherever you are.
Spark
Spark
Spark goes for a very minimalistic approach and, if you really only want a place to quickly jot down notes, the tiny app will let you do just that without burdening you with a flood of options.
You can enter notes, give them a title and add a due date if there is a time constraint. Additionally, you can arrange your notes into groups, but that’s about it. For simple note taking, it’s also really all you need.
Caboodle
Caboodle
Somewhere between the more powerful organization apps that follow and the simple note taking apps mentioned before lies Caboodle. While being able to handle multimedia files, it focuses mainly on text notes and their organization.
The user interface is clean and intuitive; overall the app reminds of the now unfortunately no longer maintained Journler. If you don’t feel comfortable with a full blown information organizer but need a little more than just text notes, give this app a try.
Yojimbo
Yojimbo
More than a simple note taking app, Yojimbo is a comprehensive information management app which allows you to store all kinds of files. Through a quick input panel, you can enter information into the app from whichever application you happen to run at the moment.
Two nice features are also the Yojimbo Drop Dock which sits to the side of your screen and on which you can drop items and have them automatically sorted into collections, and the ability to print PDFs directly into the app. If your needs require more than simple note taking, give Yojimbo a look.
Together
Together
As the name implies, Together helps you not only with simple text notes but with all sorts of files. Similar to Yojimbo, Together has a tab called “Shelf” which sits at the side of your screen and allows you to quickly input information.
The application has powerful organization features which include not only smart collections and tags, but also color codes and ratings. You can also easily import web content by archives or printing to PDF. Overall, Together, seems to allow for a more granular organization of information, but give it a try to see if it fits your work flow.
SOHO Notes
SOHO Notes
A very powerful information and note organizer, similar to Yojimbo and Together, but has the additional functionalities of actually recording voice memos, videos and photos right from inside the app.
Also, the dedicated iPhone app called NoteLife syncs not just via WiFi, but actually makes good use of MobileMe, so you don’t have to remember to sync the desktop and mobile databases every time you added information. If this information exchange is essential to you, you should definitely take a look at this app combination.
myDiary
myDiary
Don’t get fooled by the name or the simple user interface of myDiary. Beneath that somewhat colorless shell is some raw information management power. As the name suggests, myDiary offers password protection to keep your data private, but you don’t have to restrict yourself to diary entries.
You can write notes, add images (also take them right inside the app), attach videos and many different file types. While it may not sport the best eye candy, myDiary is worth serious consideration if you are looking for an information manager not too cluttered but also not too simple.
Circus Ponies NoteBook
Circus Ponies NoteBook
Circus Ponies NoteBook combines eye candy and functionality into a beautiful user interface. The app can help you with managing your notes, but also holds up when it comes to more complex tasks like project or task management, writing/preparing a paper, collecting multi-media files etc. The app comes with various templates which will help you get started quickly.
So, throw away that legal pad and put Circus Ponies Notebook on your Macbook instead. Additional hint: if you are just switching from the PC and are used to Microsoft OneNote, this application will most likely make you feel right at home.
MacJournal
MacJournal
Similar to the other, more powerful information organizers mentioned above, MacJournal has an additional feature that makes it stand out from the crowd: blogging support for such popular platforms as LiveJournal, Moveable Type, WordPress, TypePad and Blogger.
In this regard, this application might be of heightened interest to you if you collect information for your blog anyway – with MacJournal, there’s no need to jump between different applications when you try to get your next blog entry written.
DEVONnote
DEVONnote
DEVONNote is often viewed as the note organizing app for the Mac and should be mentioned in this list as well. For simple note taking needs it’s overwhelming. It does require quite some time to go through all the options and settings, which is necessary to be able to harness the entire power of the application, which includes clipping data from different file formats, interconnectivity of notes via wiki links, integrated browsing and much more.
Make sure to compare between the three versions – Note, Personal and Pro – to find the right level complexity for your needs.
Evernote
Evernote
Evernote provides a rather unusual approach to note taking – it stores the information in the cloud. You are not restricted to text notes, quite the contrary: Evernote lets you add images, webclips, snapshots or even voice recordings.
But the true strength of the solution lies in its support of many different platforms: you can add information via a desktop application that runs on both the Mac and the PC, but Evernote is also available for the iPhone, Android, Palm, Windows Mobile or Blackberry. Really, there’s no technical excuse for you not using it.
WriteRoom
WriteRoom
What is a note, really? It can be just a line of text, a photo or – if your needs a little extraordinary – it might be an entire chapter for a book, an article or a dissertation. WriteRoom prides itself with offering a distraction free writing environment and it does so by offering a full screen writing experience.
So, if you feel that big idea forming in your head, start up WriteRoom and be sure that the app will do nothing to sidetrack your thoughts. By the way, it does have an iPhone companion and can sync with it through SimpleText.ws.
Scrivener
Scrivener
As with WriteRoom, Scrivener is made for big notes and suits the needs of writers and researchers especially well. It brings with it a ton of options to store all kinds of files and import information even from websites without any hiccups. It’s strengths are in the organizing and outlining features (storyboarding) that will appeal to anybody who has to write lengthy texts.
Made with writers in mind, Scrivener can help you to keep track of all the information you will acquire for your piece and offers a development environment that can help to bring your novel or research paper to a happy ending. It also imports text written on WriteRoom for the iPhone via the SimpleText.ws sync.
Conclusion
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should give you a good start into the field of note taking. It comes all down to you knowing what you need your note taking app to do for you!
If you use or prefer another system, be sure to let us know in the comments.
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Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Ever wanted to keep your notes together and not create a bunch of text files which would eventually be strewn across your hard ...
Although it’s dead (but someone may take up developing it again) I’d recommend Journler. http://www.journler.com
i second that. i still use journler. (note to any os-x dev: if you want, you can pick up this project and improve it)
I would like to be the 3rd to give Journler props. It has spread like wildfire in the small community I live in.
I’m glad you mentioned this one, it’s what I’ve used for a few years. Very solid!
Evernote. Hands down. Especially if you have an iPhone.
Concerning Sohonotes and NoteLife: can anyone either confirm or disappoint my hope that the synching between the two happens without user intraction, and wothout the need to be in the same WIFI network? Does it sync autoamtically over 3G as well? using MobileMe?
Concerning Sohonotes and NoteLife: can anyone either confirm or disappoint my hope that the synching between the two happens without user intraction, and wothout the need to be in the same WIFI network? Does it sync autoamtically over 3G as well? using MobileMe?
I was using Circus Ponies’ Notebook for some time but find it to heavy, and no iPhone support. I am using Evernote but both the desktop and the iPhone app are quite buggy.
Karsten,
Great rundown.
I love Evernote. It keeps my notes on my Mac, my work PC, my iPhone and any browser.
Plus, having the iPhone app means two things:
Capture pictures, and audio of anything that I want to remember.
Write down important notes immediately, and not when I’m back at my computer.
Thanks,
Chris
I highly recommend Notational Velocity. It now supports syncing with Simplenote on the iPhone via the web API so as long as you can get an Internet connection, you can sync. Plus, there is a modified version (I can’t recall the exact location at the moment) that supports a Markdown preview window so if you use Markdown syntax in your note, you’ll get a nicely formatted version in the preview window.
I love JustNotes for being very slim and integrating with SimpleNote
You forgot my favorite, Thoughts.
I’ve been using Mori http://apokalypsesoftware.com/products/mori but I don’t think it’s been updated for some time.
Given that you mention WriteRoom, I highly recommend OmmWriter http://www.ommwriter.com/.
It has a great interface and is very inspirational. It gives back concentration to the writing task!
Hope you like it :D
I use Shovebox, and I just love it :)
Don’t forget Curio: http://www.zengobi.com/ It may go beyond the traditional note taking app, but really is somewhat like a massively expanded circuis ponies notebook in some ways. The capture (with evernote integration), note taking and brainstorming aspects are quite similar. Light project management, document control, mind mapping and other tools make Curio look like a heavier app, but it’s got scribbling and tinkering with ideas at heart.
hear! hear! I agree its somewhat different from what this writeup might be about and at a steep price, but if you are looking for a replacement to MS Onenote, THIS is the one. :)
I to vote for Curio as a capable note manager. If you are in charge of any type of business or industry, Curio from Zengobi will help you manage just about anything you need to control. It is a versatile multi-tasking app. I particularly love the way you can design any type of form or display, even do drafts for web sites, draw freehand, do MindMaps, take vocal notes, grab web archives from your browser or quickly grab notes to its clipboard to name but a few. It’s price is hefty but you will not regret buying this versatile application.
For a distraction free writing environment I believe Ommwriter to be the best choice, that is if all you want is to have an environment to write. It’s an awesome app to get inspired and write like a mad man. http://www.ommwriter.com/
I use Evernote and i really love it!!!
It’s powerfull and free!
Nevertheless I’m curious to try Thoughts.
nottingham mac is a nice companion to simplenote iphone !
If you like Notational Velocity and use Markdown try Steven Frank from Panic version:
http://github.com/panicsteve/nv/downloads
It’s great seeing my Spark icon again. :P
I love the thought of an everything bucket, like Yojimbo and Evernote. I don’t really like Evernote but I still use it for the OCR.
Anyone know of an app that has a nice interface along with OCR?
“Nice” is subjective but I’ve got Devon Think Pro Office to look “nice” for me. It also has OCR built in.
I would also second everyone’s comments about Journler – a great app
You forgot Thoughts …
Your readers should also look at our product Qu-s. Qu-s gives you flexibility to structure and order your ideas as they are being formed, as well as allowing you to tie your notes to external resources, such as information available on the web.
Another great ‘on the go’ note taker is Geistesblitz from MindMeister. The iPhone app (and windows sidebar, dashboard widget, igoogle, etc.) automatically inserts your notes into an organized mind map. No image support, but great way to organize your thoughts on the go.
http://is.gd/94fyM
I get mind maps. I really do, but they are mostly improperly used and overly valued for what they really provide, a pretty way to display simplistic hierarchical outlines. Tree maps (a variation) are good for note taking to help organize disjointed presentation of information, but it’s not nearly enough.
Until someone develops a hybrid mind-map/ flow charter/ information aggregation application with time/action dependencies, logical branching, and milestones, today’s mind-mapping, task management, and project flow toolsets simply fall short.
I’ve tried most of the tools mentioned above. The all in one tools are overly complex and require a steep learning curve and still fall short. The simplistic apps are just that, too simple. I would like to see something that does more than feed text, links, page extracts, images & other media, and provide simple search functions. I also want the abilities to filter/drill down/organize and assemble data and related media into varying contexts (virtual or otherwise). Add the ability to cut/paste/drag/push/pull/record media and information to any node in the model and you start getting closer. Provide coherent and intuitive navigation and presentation capabilities and you’ll get my attention.
Point me to something coherant and intuitive, that’s smart enough to form logical contextual relationships between concepts, keywords, and tags, maps information as it’s ingested, yet lets the user easily modify relationships and flow. Perhaps, dare I mention it, incorporate a scripting language to dynamically retrieve, parse, reassemble, and store data for future use and/or action.
I’d also like to get a full body massage, have my shoes shined, and also let the dog out. Am I asking to much?
Note taking on PC or Mac doesn’t work for me :( I need to write on paper :)
I’m been using Shovebox but not for notes, so I thought I would give Notational Velocity a try, especially because I can easily sync it with simplenote and my iPhone. I tried it out today and it worked great, I love my new combo.
I’ve tried many of these apps but keep coming back to MacJournal –
http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=85
What I’m particularly jazzed about is the fact that there is an iPhone app coming out. Now when I’m at the coffee shop or out and about and have a thought, I’ll be able to use MacJournal for the iPhone then sync it up back to my MacJournal on my Mac later.
Haven’t yet tried it, but Thoughts from green&slimy looks compelling.
And for some of you, who don’t wish to pay for WriteRoom a free web alternative is – http://darkcopy.com/
Same concept, full screen functionality, and ability to save as localized text files.
I’ve found JustNotes JustNoteson my computer combined with SimpleNote on my iPhone works absolutely wonderfully.
i a surprised no one mentioned notetaker or noteshare. for comprehensive note taking and organizing it is a great app[s]. i use evernote as my personal assistant and noteshare for more serious note taking for projects.
Still in beta, but already awesome…Notable* http://www.notablesoft.com very cool and intuitive. Can’t wait to see the iPhone and iPad versions that will be released after the full release of the Mac version…
After much research, I ended up going with Toodledo. It is web based, has a nice basic design (nothing compared to Evernote, Things, or OmniFocus), can scale well with my needs, can be shared easily, the price for the pro version is $15/yr, and it has an iPhone version.
I always fall back on a combo of CP Notebook, BibDesk, and the Finder + Spotlight for managing ideas, info sources, and files. The more comprehensive solutions look like they’re really useful once you get them set up, but Notebook just seems to offer the right balance of simplicity/power and freedom/structure for me. Also, I really like having an outlining interface because things quickly become messy when I take notes in plain text.
One word: EVERNOTE
Voodoopad is my personal favorite. Create links, drang and drop PDFs and other files, save web pages, and much more. Check it out, you will love it…
The link to the Spark website doesn’t seem to work and there are too many other apps with the same name out there. Does anyone have a working link?
Twig … http://www.eastgate.com/Twig/ -> serious price but serious tool for note taking and whose who have hundreds and thousands of notes. Look at the demos vids and be astonished
Springpad is definitely worth a look at. I use it as my note-taking app among other things. Very versatile and works great. The fact that there are mobile apps makes it easy to sync on the go
http://springpadit.com
An app called FieldNotesPro came out last month: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fieldnotespro/id457209025?mt=8
Pretty cool app. I use it when I’m out in the field taking notes for engineering. It lets you attach geolocation to your notes and export as PDF or Google Earth KMZ files. Might not be as good as your mentioned apps for everyday notetaking, but it offers a lot of nice features for people in engineering or geology. You can record photos, audio, and video and hook up to FTP or DropBox as well.
Hey, Great work, I’ve bookmarked this page and have a feeling I’ll be returning to it regularly.
Evernote is a great app for the IPad. Looking for Notability for computer use. I’ve seen this on the Ipad and it is awesome as well.
I am a graphic designer and have been stuck in “app overlap” mode for a while with various journaling/writing tools, including Evernote, Scrivener, and MacJournal. I have yearned for the perfect all-in-one tool, but each seems to fall short in some area. Here’s my take on them and how I use them:
EVERNOTE PREMIUM: the easily searchable dumping ground for all website links, files, ideas, images, and meeting notes.
Strengths: OCR, cloud sync, search speed, ability to attach any file type, isight notes, voice notes, web clipper.
Weaknesses: no way to lock notebooks, no calendar view, wonky text formatting.
How I use it: as my main dumping ground for anything I come across during the day: meeting notes, website links, random notes or thoughts, photos, PDFs, manuals and instructions, or files I want to keep easily accessible.
SCRIVENER: the easiest way to organize many disparate bits of data that belong to a single project.
Strengths: very easy to keep up with and rearrange or organize many snippets of data. Can attach a status to each separate note. Easy to format and easy to compile or export. Can attach any file type or link to files on your local drive. Full screen editing. Great for organizing web design projects. Syncs with Simplenote.
Weaknesses: no calendar view, so not really a journaling app as much as an app for writing/organizing something large with a lot of parts.
MACJOURNAL: the best way to keep a daily log of anything personal that I do, and is the best place to store blog-related materials.
Strengths: date-based with calendar and timeline makes it perfect for journaling or blogging. Full screen writing mode. Can have multiple nested journals (a hierarchical structure of your choosing). Can link with multiple blogs and is a great way to back up all your blog posts for multiple in one place.
Weaknesses: search feature pales compared to Evernote. No OCR like Evernote. No way to browse things in icon view/snippet view like Evernote.
NvALT, Notational Velocity, and JustNotes – free desktop clients that store text-only notes. Good for quick jots of random stuff (error messages I need to copy to an email, an ephemeral note that I’ll be probably deleting later)
Advantages: extremely fast launch time, search time. Syncs with Simplenote which syncs to anything else.
Disadvantages: Can’t store images. Less flexible than Evernote for that reason.
Right now, I’m using Evernote as a dumping ground for everything I run across during the day that I want to refer back to later; Scrivener as a long-document writing tool (proposals mainly) and as a way to organize websites with many parts in various stages of completion; and Macjournal as a personal journal and blog organization tool.
I tried Devonthink for less than an hour, got totally overwhelmed with its requirement for structure, and went back to Evernote which is much more free-form. With Evernote, you never need to even tag anything; the search feature is so fast and so good that you can find virtually anything you dump in there in a fraction of a second.
I also once tried Curio and Circus Ponies Notebook as alternatives to Microsoft Onenote (which I used and loved for years) but neither came close in my opinion. I also tried the free Growlynotes– free, but a little bit fiddly. http://growlybird.com/GrowlyBird/Notes.html
Evernote’s image OCR really is a killer feature which makes it indispensable to me. I often use Skitch to mark up screencaptures, and then drop them into Evernote so that I can do an OCR search on them later if I need to refer back to something. I also drop in Adobe Fireworks png files into Evernote, which are visible and scannable by Evernote, but remain in editable layers if I drag them back out to the desktop again. That means I can drag in mockups of website files or cartoons I’m working on. I even used Evernote + Fireworks as a way to create a “visual journal” for a while– I’d drag a photo into Fireworks or draw a picture, draw or type text over it in a collage style, then dump it into Evernote in its native .png format.
I wish I could have one app that combined all the writing/blogging/timeline/calendar features of MacJournal with the OCR, search, and snippet/thumbnail view of Evernote, with the long-document organizational features of Scrivener. But alas, I think I’ll just have to keep jumping between all three.