Note-taking software

I don't think I've seen a thread on this, and @Cspirou recently mentioned it would make a good discussion, and I agree. So here goes.

If you're a "power user" of note-taking software, I believe that you know up front whether you'll dislike a piece of software, but you can't know whether it'll really stick for you long-term. You just have to try it and see how long it sticks, where the friction becomes unbearable, etc. This is a small PITA of its own, because migrating from one note-taking app to another can be real work.

There's a small niche in the note-taking world where the software uses a folder of text files styled with Markdown as the software's "database". These are the ones I like, despite the pains that come with this approach to data storage.

Obsidian is the biggest player in this little niche. It's very nice software with a massive plug-in ecosystem, which is a big part of what makes it such nice software. Obsidian uses a freemium pricing model: a very expansive feature set is free, and certain higer-value features (synchronization, note publishing) are a paid subscription.

If you naturally want to edit files in VSC/Sublime/vim, then you probably won't find Obsidian intimidating. But it can be intimidating to folks who are used to less nerdy software. Obsidian supports bi-directional linking, but it's somewhat of an add-on feature rather than core to the product.

Logseq is an even more niche player than Obsidian because Logseq leans 100% into the bi-directional linking model. Logseq has a smaller plugin ecosystem. Also, Logseq is an "outliner", where the app strongly pushes you to using a bulleted, indent-able outline for your notes. Obsidian is more prose-oriented in its note structure, though of course you can include bulleted lists in those notes.

I switched from Obsidian to Logseq and have stuck with Logseq for longer than almost any other note-taking app I've ever used. Once the bi-directional linking thing clicked for me, it clicked harrrrrrd.

Roam Research is another app that uses bi-directional thinking. I'd seen people online effusing about Roam, and I just didn't get it. Here's the deal with bi-directional linking:

Most note-taking software subtly or heavyhandedly forces you to organize your notes into folders. Yes, they all have search features, but at a certain scale there's a strong gravitational pull towards using folders to organize your notes. This is fine, but it sets up a tension: ideally you start with the folder structure right up front, but over time, things change, and that folder structure decays in its usefulness, requiring re-orgs. Also fine, but the re-orgs are work that's easy to put off, causing the folder structure to further decay into a hot mess.

The bi-directional linking approach allows your organizational structure to emerge over time. You can do this in a disciplined or undisciplined way. More on that in a moment.

Logseq doesn't allow you to create folders. (Roam has a very similiar model but I haven't used Roam so I don't know how it works in this regard.) Instead, Logseq encourages you to put everything in a daily log note, and the app automatically creates a new daily log note every day.

If you want to be disciplined, you #tag everything that you think might be significant now or later. If you don't want to be disciplined, you don't do this.

When you start noticing something significant in your notes, you can create a page for that word/idea/project/concept. This page serves as a "collector". It has an auto-generated section that shows a clickable link back to every tagged instance of the page's word/idea/project/concept. And it has another auto-generated section that shows a clickable link back to every instance of the page's word/idea/project/concept that exists anywhere in your notes, even if you did not tag it.

This is hugely powerful because you can just write down anything at all in the daily log and let the structure of your notes emerge via these "collector pages". The collector pages can be transitory, disappearing after you view them, or permanent, in which case you can transclude or move content into the collector page.

You can probably tell that I like Logseq. It's not perfect (nor is any other player in the note-taking space ). Every open source-ish software is doomed to have drama related to the licensing, etc at some point. If you keep an eye on the product's community, as I do, that introduces some un-fun elements to those communities. (I'm not saying the licensing model isn't important at some level, but it can be a real drama-generator too.)

An even more niche player is Org Mode for Emacs. I haven't used it, but it's sort of in the Logseq/Roam end of things.

What note-taking app(s) do you like? Pros/cons? Approaches that work well for you?

 

I've tried a few things over the years, including OneNote, Evernote, nvAlt, org mode, Apple Notes, etc.

Evernote was working well enough for me until the company went too far down the VC money enshittification process and I dropped them. I imported everything important from Evernote into Apple Notes and that's where those things still live.

OneNote has never stuck, and I've tried it multiple times over the years.

nvAlt was pretty great, it focused on a single folder and search, but it's old. And considering how many years nvUltra has been in development without a public release I've pretty much given up on keeping an eye out for it. I like Fletcher Penny and Brett Terpstra but they don't have the best track record for reliability.

Org mode relied too much on Emacs, I couldn't stick with it.

At the point I have two systems, which are complementary. Apple Notes holds things I need or want quick access to day to day, and is also where I capture new notes if I'm not at a computer. It's also where ephemeral notes go. Typical things include shopping lists, recipes, recommendations for books, music, movies, etc, recipes, and addresses for the loaner program so they're handy when I get to UPS or FedEx. I don't delete much but it's not my main system.

Main system is a folder of mostly markdown files, organized into folders by major category, and subfolders where it makes sense. I do much of my editing in VSCode. I also use Obsidian and have used Zettlr, but I find I rarely cross link notes or make them small. Each note is whatever it needs to be, whether that is a long essay, a single file with many individual entries, or a small short file with a couple short thoughts in it. Markdown also makes it fairly easy to show images by just dropping them in the folder and linking them in the file.

This has been the most successful system I've used. By avoiding too much formality with rules and keeping most of the information in plain text I can search it easily and find what I actually need without the mental overhead or anxiety of some formal system. Organization is whatever feels right, and I don't find much difficulty moving things around occasionally as it makes sense. For example some notes are just in a general folder, but if enough things on similar topics start accruing I just make a new topic folder and move the notes there.

I don't otherwise tag or keyword things. Categories and search are plenty.

 

I'm giving Logseq a shot since it sounds intriguing. Onboarding is not a smooth process; if you're not already familiar with the type of notetaking it encourages it feels very foreign and non-obvious, even though I was already making daily bullet lists nearly identical to their base journal.

The ideas are intriguing though so I'll spend some more time with it.

 

Thanks for opening this. I know this thread is for software but I'm also going to include physical notebooks as I'm using those more and more these days.

This is everything I use or have used and I'm going to try to say a little bit of each:

• Evernote
• Google Keep
• Notion
• Obsidian
• Apple Notes
• OmniFocus (list managment)
• Apple Reminders (list management)

These are my use cases:

• Managing and documenting projects
• recipe organization
• saving articles
• research notes
• to do lists
• reminders
• journaling

Before I start here's a meme I'm finding more true everyday


I don't interpret this to mean that Apple Notes is the best but rather the best notes system is the one you use. Or if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Evernote -

By far the vast majority of my notes are in Evernote. This is mostly because of the first mover advantage as Evernote was basically the only game in town. It was a big step in making notes from something I hated doing to something I enjoy. Certain features I was introduced to:

• Ability to search - Do you ever just remember something but don't know where to find it? Just knowing a couple words meant that I could find the note instantly no matter how vague my recollection of it. It's very ADHD friendly as I have trouble keeping things in their place and the need to have everything organized is no longer necessary
• non-linear note taking - A big problem with physical notebooks is they highly encourage chronologically ordered notes. If you are keeping a diary or journal this is fine but if you are refining ideas you need to have enough space to add details. There's some solutions like 3-ring binders but still feel cumbersome. The ability to edit has transformed my notes as I can start with something basic and continue to refine it until it's a definitive resource.
• webclips - Saving web articles works quite well with Evernote and offers different options. You can do a simple bookmark, a full mirror copy of the article or a stripped down simplified version with only text. Of all the software on this list Evernote is by far the best at clipping and is one of the main reasons for me to keep it around
  
• tags - This is not as useful for me as I rely on search and sorting by notebook a bit more but tags are a good way to just see the notes that you've flagged with a particular feature
• internal linking - If there's a related note I can refer back to it with a link.

Some of the downsides:

• Somewhat bloated - It keeps getting bigger and cumbersome to use over time. If I just want to make a quick note it's a hassle
  
• Archiving - Everything on Evernote is saved within the app that can't be opened externally
• No math support - I am a scientist and I use math formulas heavily. Being able to document a lot of my math work with TeX in the editor is a bit of a necessary feature for me
• Subscription costs - as mentioned by @scblock , the price keeps going up and I'm left wondering what Evernote is doing better than cheaper/free options. This is ultimately why I want to migrate out of Evernote to something else
• When a note was open on iPhone and I would exit the app or the phone would sleep, I needed to reopen the note from the menu. This was very annoying while I had a recipe open and I would go back to my phone to see the next step

Google Keep -

Google Keep is probably going to be the least popular of these and its also the one I use the least currently. I mainly adopted it after I bought an Android phone but it's largely been replaced by Apple Notes as I'm an iPhone user now and Apple Notes has improved quite a bit.

So why would I even use Keep if I already had Evernote which was on Android as well? The main reason is that Evernote was and still is quite bloated. It would take awhile to open up and find something when I just needed to write something down really fast.

Keep is still worth mentioning though because of a feature I haven't seen in other software, which is color coded notes


While Keep has tagging as well, I find color is a very good way to look through a mess of notes and know exactly what topic is. Maybe I missed it but I have not seen this feature in other notes apps

Notion -

You know those people that had pretty class notes with at least 5 colors of markers and have nice headings and bullet points? This is exactly what how I think of Notion. It is infinitely customizable and will give you the best looking notes given enough time. Evernote allowed me to link to other notes but Notion takes this further and allows you to link specific data from tables in other notes. I really feel that it's meant to be used as a collaborative tool as it allows comments from other users. Some other pros:

• Because of the formatting options I find this to be the best for managing my recipes. Columns are easy to add and I have a template for how I like to save recipes I come across. I am also able to export these to PDF and I have uploaded an example.
• TeX is a standard feature in Notion! This is great for my math/physics notes
  
• Publishing pages on the web is quite easy and great way to share with people that don't use Notion

Some downsides:

• Learning curve is much steeper - Just opening Notion is a bit overwhelming. It's not clear how a lot of it is organized so you basically come up with your own system instead of buying into what they have for you
  
• You can spend a lot of time getting lost in formatting details instead of focusing more on what matters. Remember that your notes aren't really meant for public consumption so presentation matters less
• Not meant for offline access - While you can open it up offline you will only be able to access what was in the local cache. Everything is saved to the cloud. This has some implications for security as a well as archiving.

Obsidian -

While I haven't tried it much Obsidian really seems to be made with the way my mind works. It is primarily built around linking. Not only can you refer to notes you've already written, new notes can be created based on ideas you have while working on your current note

• Every note is saved as a plain text file accessible from any text editor. If Obsidian were to implode one day I can still access all my notes
• MathML and TeX is also supported
• Because of saved local copies, offline access is the default
• device syncing is a paid option but I find it totally unnecessary with iCloud as I can just save my files to my iCloud drive. You can do similarly with your own cloud service
• Whatever features are missing can be added through plugins. Although this might reduce readability of the plaintext file

Downsides:

• Minimal default editing options
• Not for collaborative work

Apple Notes -

Apple Notes is my go-to for quick notes but I found can be it effective for similarly complicated notes as Evernote.

• Due to the widespread use of Apple products as well as Notes included on all those devices, this makes it very easy to share and collaborate on notes without asking them to install extra software
• Accessible from the lock screen
  
• Loads quickly
• Always opens to the last note you were reading which means you don't have to look for it again
• Latest update of iOS allows copy/pasting text from images as well as language translation
• certain units can be converted instantly (note: a little buggy)
• Smart folders allow you to organize based on certain keywords (I don't use this yet)

Downsides:

• You need to be in the Apple ecosystem
• If you have an older device without the latest version of iOS/MacOS, a note will be completely unavailable that uses a newer feature.
• No ability to reference other notes
• no alerts (consider Reminders a co-app)

Omnifocus -

(fill this in later)

Apple Reminders -

Reminders is not really a notes app but combined with Apple Notes it has features that are both in Evernote and Notion. A fair assessment really needs to consider Reminders as part of the package. That being said the Reminders app is a bit more power than what Evernote can do. Along with the standard date based reminders, you can also include location based as well as triggered by messaging a particular person. Why is it considered separate though? I believe it's because this was originally part of iCal and then spun off which is why it's not quite with Notes. Is it better off separate instead of integrated? I'm really not sure. Nonetheless it has a place in my productivity arsenal

----------------

I have not heard of logseq and I might give that a try too. For now though my main plan is try to use Obsidian for whatever I can and then a combo of Apple Notes and Notion to fill in whatever are better in those domains

(This post is subject to editing)

 

too long, did not, will not read, but that meme was fookin class, mate. apple notes 4 lyfe.

 

I've tried to get away from it, but I keep coming back to google keep.

I've tried evernote, simplenote, joplin, notion, obsidian, onenote, and a couple others. One thing that none of these seem to do well is handle both short-term notes and long term notes effectively. Most of these note systems excel at helping you organize long-term notes, things you want to know forever and resurface effectively. Unfortunately, that's only a small part of my note taking. Most of the time, I'm putting a thought or action down and assigning it a date for me to deal with it. I dislike having to use two apps when one already does the job, so that's been a consistent sticking point for me leaving keep.

There are some other quality of life features on keep that are worth mentioning such as android & nest integration, adding collaborators by google account or family group, and search quality. I don't love that it's a google app (google has a history of abruptly discontinuing apps), but I haven't found a great alternative that checks my boxes.

 

I used to be a heavy evernote user, but the cost and bloat eventually pushed me back to paper a few years ago. I've been meaning to research options, but TBH... the task has always overwhelmed me... too many options. This thread has the potential to be a huge help... Thanks for starting!!

 

I’m just don’t have it in me to program notes.
I’m not gonna spend time writing lua,yaml, or even mark down. Than figuring out how to sync it all.

it’s either Apple notes or my black wing notebook. It has a loop for a pencil and a bookmark ribbon.

 

I was not aware that Blackwing had notebooks. I should check them out

 

Heh, I'm in Sublime all day writing code, so I just open a new tab and put notes there. Markdown comes pretty natural, though sometimes I write more free form.

If I don't know which file has what I'm looking for, I just use macOS' search feature with Cmd-space or find/grep at the command line.

 

I have a whole stack of spiral ("shorthand") notebooks going back over twenty years. A large percentage wasted because of not using the backside of the paper. A large percentage of stuff noted, stuff to do, that I never even looked again.

But occasionally, a frantic search reveals some small vital thing.

I wouldn't be without one!

I was going to say "Who remembers Filofax?" --- but a quick google shows it still exists. Fancy information storage for the days when most peoples' lives were not digitised. I never had one.

 

whenever I have a project involving multiple files, I often save a text file in the same folder with a bunch of notes on the data I took and anything relevant to the experiment.

 

Savages take notes in MS Paint and save screenshot.

I've attempted over the years, but no adhearance to any text based app / soft.

Hence back to pen and paper. A klade and a pen is still king.

So, when the new Samsung phone with the pen was unveiled I got it right away. This actually works ok for quick reminders, shopping lists, a sudden 'heureka' memo. I put my workout notes into it but afterwards draft these into dedicated notebook anyways.

For anything more involved, like engineering sketching, mockup circuits etc I still use pen and paper.
It appears to restrict creativity and flow the least.

 

I like Devonthink. Quite old school, ugly, and OSX-only, but very flexible. I barely use 30% of what it can do but the nested folders are nice and the fact that I can pull other document types into a folder where I also have notes. It's basically Finder with the ability to quickly create a text note.

I use Omnifocus to keep track of upcoming talking points for different meetings (and mark them as completed once we've talked about it) and Joplin for day-to-day notes (recipes, etc.) that I need on different devices. Slightly better than Google Notes because of nested folders.

Tried Notion, Evernote and few others in the past.

 

100% not an easy onboard

I don't want to come across as too much of a Logseq stan, but if you want to understand where it shines, create 3 test entries in the daily journal across 3 different days (today, yesterday, and the day before) and in those entries use the same hashtag. Then click the hashtag from any one of those 3 journal entries to see the auto-generated page with backlinks to all instances of that hashtag.

When I did that, I *got it*; I was able to intuitively understand where bi-directional linking is a sort of superpower.

And yet, I totally get it if that capability is overkill or unnecessary for a lot of folks' use cases.

 

Did anyone see this RE: Evernote? https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/27/bending-spoons-lays-off-129-evernote-staffers/ Any Evernote users noticed changes in the product as a result of this?

 

I don’t know when it was implemented but there’s some sort of home page now.

on r/Evernote every other post is someone trying to switch

 

I do this just for file organizing sometimes. Sometimes just notepad but occasionally a spreadsheet, particularly if it's a large number of files that need descriptions and/or if I'm making a checklist of files that I need to create or add later.

 

For anything that isn’t an essay, pen(cil) & paper is where it’s at. Software interrupts the flow far too much as you need to navigate menus and palettes to find the specific symbol you need. For documentation it’s necessary to use software but for any sort of actual problem solving I would never use a computer if I can help it.

 

A lot of my notetaking involves quick copy and paste or screenshots/snips from websites or pdfs. I find onenote good for this, but I honestly haven't tried any other alternatives.